Mario Kart World – Hidden Courses and Mirror Mode

Get access to every unlockable course and learn how to unlock Mirror Mode in our Mario Kart World guide focused on race tracks and courses.

A total of 30 tracks make up the map of Mario Kart World. 14 are retro tracks, 16 are new courses, and two of them repeat across cups, bringing the total to 32 tracks.

Instead of just explaining how to unlock hidden courses, we’re also using this guide to list every race course and battle map in Mario Kart World. See our Mario Kart World guide for other unlockables and secrets.

How to Unlock Hidden Courses

Seven cups are available right from the start, and you play them in any order. These include the Mushroom Cup, Flower Cup, Star Cup, Shell Cup, Banana Cup, Leaf Cup, and Lightning Cup. Mario Kart World keeps the Special Cup, along with the Rainbow Road, hidden.

As of now, there are no other unlockable courses or hidden tracks. Perhaps DLC will bring something new down the line!

How to Unlock the Special Cup and Rainbow Road

To unlock the Special Cup, play through all seven standard cups and earn the gold trophy each time. This means you should come in first place overall at the end of the four races. You do not need to get three-star or even two-star ranking. Coming second or third in some of the races is fine, as long as you come out on top by the end!

Once you complete the last of the seven cups, a cinematic will play and the new cup will be available the next time you enter the Grand Prix mode.

The Special Cup contains Acorn Heights, Mario Circuit, another variation of Peach Stadium, and the series staple, Rainbow Road. The latest iteration of Rainbow Road is a standout, so we won’t post any images of the track here. Go experience it firsthand!

Because every course takes place within the fully explorable game map, it’s unlikely there are hidden courses beyond Rainbow Road. Anything extra would have to take on an island, underground, or in the sky!

How to Unlock Mirror Mode

Okay, where do we begin? Yes, Mario Kart World features Mirror Mode, a returning racing class that runs at 150cc but flips the game world. Left is right, right is left, that kind of thing.

How do you unlock Mirror Mode? The basic idea is to complete a certain amount of requirements, then replay the Special Cup at 150cc. A special cutscene will play and the mode will be unlocked afterwards. After a week of online discourse and many players testing various methods, Nintendo of Japan sent out an email clarifying the exact requirements to trigger Mirror Mode. They are::

• Complete all Grand Prix cups and Knockout Tour rallies in 150cc.
• Complete at least 10 P Switch missions.
• Activate at least 10 ? Panels.
• Collect at least 10 Peach Medallions.

And there you have it. Thankfully, we can confirm this list worked for us. In Grand Prix, we got all gold trophies with a mix of star rankings. In Knockout Tour, we got a mix of bronze, silver, and gold trophies, and we even got one checkmark after we got fourth place but still reached the end of the rally. For our Special Cup replay, we played on 150cc and got first place in all four races. Here’s a quick overview of our stats at the time we unlocked Mirror Mode:

Once you do eventually unlock Mirror Mode, jump into Free Roam and head up onto the roofs of Peach Stadium and get to Peach’s stained glass portrait. Ride into the window and the free roam map will be mirrored!

List of Cups and Courses

A total of 30 courses are included in Mario Kart World. Crown City and Peach Stadium are both listed twice in separate cups, bringing the total number of Grand Prix races to the standard 32 tracks. There are eight cups in total, including the Special Cup that comes packed with Rainbow Road.

Retro tracks are in an interesting place in Mario Kart World as many of them have very stark and unrecognizable differences. Given the many variations and free roam gameplay, this actually makes a lot of sense. Not only that, but it seems additional extra tracks are dropped within the world without getting directly named or called out. Vanilla Lake from Super Mario Kart is a great example as it rests on the route between Sky-High Sundae and Wario Shipyard.

There are two courses from Super Mario Kart, two courses from Mario Kart 64, two courses from Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, three courses from Mario Kart DS, two courses from Mario Kart Wii, two courses from Mario Kart 7, and one course from Mario Kart Tour.

Mushroom Cup

Mario Bros. Circuit

Crown City

Whistlestop Summit

DK Spaceport

Flower Cup

Desert Hills (DS)

Shy Guy Bazaar (3DS)

Wario Stadium (N64)

Airship Fortress (DS)

Star Cup

DK Pass (DS)

Starview Peak

Sky-High Sundae (Tour)

Wario Shipyard (3DS)

Shell Cup

Koopa Troopa Beach (SNES)

Faraway Oasis

Crown City

Peach Stadium

Banana Cup

Peach Beach (GCN)

Salty Salty Speedway

Dino Dino Jungle (GCN)

Great ? Block Ruins

Leaf Cup

Cheep Cheep Falls

Dandelion Depths

Boo Cinema

Dry Bones Burnout

Lightning Cup

Moo Moo Meadows (Wii)

Choco Mountain (N64)

Toad’s Factory (Wii)

Bowser’s Castle

Special Cup

Acorn Heights

Mario Circuit (SNES)

Peach Stadium

Rainbow Road

List of Battle Maps

Like the rest of the traditional tracks, battle courses live within the game world. Similar to the original Mario Kart 8, several battle courses take place within normal racetracks, although Mario Kart World’s more open design offers better options for the more frantic and enclosed nature of a battle course. There are eight battle maps, two of which return from previous Mario Kart games.

The retro battle maps include Big Donut from Mario Kart 64, but the oddly named Chain Chomp Desert also returns. In Mario Kart Wii, the track is known as Thwomp Desert and functions in a similar way. The premise of sand moving towards the center of the map remains, and the music is also a rendition of the Mario Kart Wii map. It’s strange they removed the Thwomp from the center and changed the name, but it’s similar enough that we’ll consider it a retro map.

Mario Bros. Circuit

Moo Moo Meadows

Peach Stadium

Salty Salty Speedway

Chain Chomp Desert (Wii-ish)

Dino Dino Jungle

Big Donut (N64)

DK Pass