Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – DLC Courses, Characters, and Datamines

Nearly five years after release, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is suddenly getting a massive drop of DLC with an additional 48 courses. This doubles the current race track total to a whopping 96 courses! Absolutely wild.

The Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass, as it’s officially called, will feature a total of 48 tracks that will release in six different waves through the end of 2023. The first wave contains two cups for a total of eight courses and drops on March 18, 2022. All courses will be remastered tracks from throughout the series, including the most recent Mario Kart Tour. As of Wave 4, new playable characters are also included.

To help sort through the massive catalog of courses from throughout the Mario Kart series, this page will not only showcase every track confirmed for the Mario Kart 8 DLC, but it’ll also go over courses likely to appear based off the very obvious connection to Mario Kart Tour. We’ll also list out the remaining courses to help you get a sense of what can still be added! Use the links below to jump to each section of our page:

• • Confirmed Characters
  • Likely Characters
  • Confirmed Courses
  • Likely Courses
  • Music Datamine
  • Banner Datamine
  • Console Prefix Datamine
  • Datamined Courses From Tour
  • Remaining Courses
  • Courses Already in Mario Kart 8

Latest updates:
Update (3/16): Dry Dry Ruins announced for Tour. Added to Likely section!
Update (3/8): Wave 4 released! Five additional characters coming in future waves. Confirmed and likely character sections updated.

Confirmed Characters

New playable characters are a thing! And it only took until Wave 4 to make it happen. Birdo is currently the only confirmed character set to return, but she comes with a set of nine different colored variations. There will be at least five additional characters coming in future waves.

Image	Character	Notes
	Birdo	Part of Wave 4 release. Variations include: Standard (Pink) Blue Light Blue Red Orange Yellow Green White Black

Likely Characters

So. How many characters are getting in? Thanks to the release of Wave 4, the speculation can finally end. Well, mostly. The addition of Birdo as a playable character extended the character select with an additional column. Five more characters are coming to make a total of six new characters in the Booster Course Pack. Is it possible we’ll get even more characters? Nintendo hasn’t said they wouldn’t, but realistically we’re looking at six total.

Two things to keep in mind. First, the press release states “returning characters” will be added in future waves. Characters like Pauline and King Bob-omb technically came out after Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but tracks from Tour have already received the returning status. Second, it’s become very clear that the Booster Pack is an assortment of content pulled from Tour and introduced into Deluxe. Because of that, we’re going assume the remaining characters will also be pulled from Tour’s roster. Here’s a look at all the main characters in Tour that are currently not in Deluxe:

Quite a few. Now let’s get a few lists going. Characters that were playable before Deluxe and are also in Tour:

• Donkey Kong Jr.
• Diddy Kong
• Funky Kong
• Petey Piranha

For Tour characters, we are not counting any outfit variations or costumes. Peachette and Captain Toad are unique enough to get a consideration, but that’s pushing it. Brand new playable characters only in Tour:

• Pauline
• Peachette
• Dixie Kong
• Chargin’ Chuck
• Hammer Bro.
• Kamek
• Captain Toad
• King Bob-omb
• Monty Mole
• Nabbit

Characters that were playable before Deluxe but have not yet appeared in Tour:

• Paratroopa
• R.O.B.
• Honey Queen
• Wiggler

Birdo is getting added alongside the Yoshi’s Island track. This has some speculating that Petey Piranha has a good chance to get introduced with the very likely release of Piranha Plant Cove.

Previosuly, there was an interesting theory that implied we’ll get four characters total. When Wave 2 was released, a bug was introduced where several characters were no longer considered rival characters. These included Metal Mario, Tanooki Mario, Pink Gold Peach, and Cat Peach. Although the bug was reverted in Wave 3, some thought this was an intentional change. The theory went that these four characters will get stacked with their respective original characters (Mario and Peach) and become variations in the same way Link and the Inkling characters function. This would free up four spots on the current character select screen. As of Wave 4, this theory has been disproven. Thanks to Eza for heads up!

Confirmed Courses

A total of 12 new cups consisting of four courses each will make their way to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe by the end of 2023.  Currently we are only aware of tracks featured in the first and second wave. Use the links to jump to each cup!

Golden Dash Cup

Wave 1, released March 18, 2022.

Paris Promenade (Tour)	Toad Circuit (3DS)
Choco Mountain (N64)	Coconut Mall (Wii)

Lucky Cat Cup

Wave 1, released March 18, 2022.

Tokyo Blur (Tour)	Shroom Ridge (DS)
Sky Garden (GBA)	Ninja Hideaway (Tour)

Turnip Cup

Wave 2, released August 4, 2022.

New York Minute (Tour)	Mario Circuit 3 (SNES)
Kalimari Desert (N64)	Waluigi Pinball (DS)

Propeller Cup

Wave 2, released August 4, 2022.

Sydney Sprint (Tour)	Snow Land (GBA)
Mushroom Gorge (Wii)	Sky-High Sundae (Tour)

Rock Cup

Wave 3, released December 7, 2022.

London Loop (Tour)	Boo Lake (GBA)
Rock Rock Mountain (3DS)	Maple Treeway (Wii)

Moon Cup

Wave 3, released December 7, 2022.

Berlin Byways (Tour)	Peach Gardens (DS)
Merry Mountain (Tour)	Rainbow Road (3DS)

Berry Cup

Wave 4, releasing March 9, 2023.

Amsterdam Drift (Tour)	Riverside Park (GBA)
DK Summit (Wii)	Yoshi’s Island (Tour)

Boomerang Cup

Wave 4, releasing March 9, 2023.

Bangkok Rush (Tour)	Mario Circuit (DS)
Waluigi Stadium (GCN)	Singapore Speedway (Tour)

Feather Cup

Wave 5, release date not yet announced.

Cherry Cup

Wave 5, release date not yet announced.

Acorn Cup

Wave 6, release date not yet announced.

Spiny Cup

Wave 6, release date not yet announced.

Likely Courses

Have you noticed anything strange about the Mario Kart 8 DLC tracks? They’re a bit different from the original 48 courses in Deluxe. The art style and attention to detail is… off. In fact, it shares a lot of similarities to the style currently used in Mario Kart Tour. While nothing has been confirmed, it is not a stretch at all to suggest that the DLC courses we’re getting are actually ports from the mobile game. Out of the eight courses announced so far, six look nearly identical to their Tour counterparts. The other two tracks are not currently in the mobile game, but previous datamines suggest they are on their way too.

With that in mind, it’s likely that most, if not all, Mario Kart 8 DLC courses will come straight from Mario Kart Tour. If a track appears in the mobile game, we’re going to assume it has a high chance of appearing in the Booster Course Pack. Below you’ll find a list of all tracks currently in Mario Kart Tour that have not been announced as Mario Kart 8 DLC or don’t currently exist in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

A few notes. Mario Kart Tour features several RMX courses that take some of the more basic tracks and revamp them with new paths and objects. We don’t count those as official tracks and won’t list them here. Many of the SNES tracks as well as a few GBA courses have multiple iterations. We will list all the variations included in Tour but within the same space.

And now for the brand new tracks introduced in Tour. Each of the city based courses feature multiple variations that dramatically alter the course by using routes through different parts of the city. The Mario Kart 8 Deluxe versions combine these variations and some tracks even feature different routes based on the current lap. From the looks of the first and second wave, every starting course in each cup will feature a city based track from Tour. Currently there 11 city tracks in Tour and we’re speculating there may be 12 by the end of it all.

Mario Kart Tour Courses (Mobile)

Vancouver Velocity	Los Angeles Laps
Piranha Plant Cove

Super Mario Kart Courses (SNES)

Ghost Valley 1 / 2	Choco Island 1 / 2
Vanilla Lake 1 / 2	Koopa Beach 2

Mario Kart 64 (N64)

Do take note, according to the console prefix datamine, there will not be any additional N64 tracks added through the Booster Pass. It’s not official, but it’s likely true!

Luigi Raceway	Koopa Troopa Beach
Frappe Snowland

Mario Kart: Super Circuit (GBA)

Bowser’s Castle 1 /2 / 3	Cheep-Cheep Island
Sunset Wilds

Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (GCN)

Dino Dino Jungle	Daisy Cruiser
DK Mountain

Mario Kart DS (DS)

Luigi’s Mansion	DK Pass
Airship Fortress

Mario Kart Wii (Wii)

Koopa Cape	Dry Dry Ruins
Rainbow Road

Mario Kart 7 (3DS)

Do take note, according to the console prefix datamine, there will not be any additional 3DS tracks added through the Booster Pass. It’s not official, but it’s likely true!

Daisy Hills	Cheep Cheep Lagoon
Shy Guy Bazaar	Mario Circuit
Wario Shipyard	Rosalina’s Ice World
Bowser’s Castle

Music Datamine

Another update, another datamine. The release of Wave 2 upgraded Mario Kart 8 Deluxe to version 2.1.0 and 15 leftover music files for future tracks were datamined within hours. Although each file is a mere second in length, it’s enough for fans to quickly pinpoint the course associated with each file. See this video to hear them all. The files include:

• Cnsw_31 (Tour London Loop)
• Cnsw_32 (DS Peach Gardens)
• Cnsw_33 (GBA Boo Lake)
• Cnsw_34 (3DS Rock Rock Mountain)
• Cnsw_35 (Tour Berlin Byways)
• Cnsw_36 (GCN Waluigi Stadium or GCN Wario Colosseum)
• Cnsw_37 (Merry Mountain)
• Cnsw_38 (3DS Rainbow Road)
• Cnsw_41 (Tour Amsterdam Drift)
• Cnsw_45 (Tour Singapore Speedway)
• Cnsw_48 (Tour Los Angeles Laps)
• Cnsw_53 (GBA Sunset Wilds)
• Cnsw_55 (Tour Bangkok Rush)
• Cnsw_61 (Tour Vancouver Velocity)
• Cnsw_62 (Wii Maple Treeway)

Take note, two retro courses share themes with more than one course, so we’re not completely sure which course will actually make it in. That said, GCN Waluigi Stadium was spotted in the banner datamine from Wave 1 and Boo Lake is already coming to Tour.

The filenames of each of these music tracks also help indicate their placement of each course in the Booster Pack. Lines up pretty well with the prefix datamine discovered during Wave 1. Update: Because the prefixes datamine is no longer completely accurate and Wave 3 included a track from near the end of the music list, we’ve removed the prediction table.

Banner Datamine

Not a day was spared after the release of the first wave of Mario Kart 8 DLC before dedicated fans quickly discovered an unused banner image within the update files. This particular banner retains the same design and look as the artwork released with the initial announcement but the small pictures of the numerous tracks are different, including some that feature currently unrevealed courses.

Sadly, these tiny images are quite compressed and it’s hard to get a definitive look at any of them. Some are a bit more clear than others and we’ll list them here. Please take note! It’s unclear what the intention behind this banner is or when it was created during development. There’s a possibility that some tracks were not completely and ultimately scrapped! It’s also worth noting that some of the track images feature their trick variants from Tour (like Choco Mountain) and it’s very unlikely these will appear in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

So! Here are the retro tracks and their corresponding blurry images that most fans generally agree match. We are not including Tour tracks because there is a very good chance all of them are returning based on the first wave! We’ve also removed tracks that have since been confirmed for the Booster Course Pass.

Sunset Wilds (GBA)	Koopa Cape (Wii)

Before they were officially announced, previous courses on this list included Mario Circuit 1 (SNES), Waluigi Pinball (DS), Sky-High Sundae (Tour), Maple Treeway (Wii), Rainbow Road (3DS), Waluigi Stadium (GCN), and DK Summit (Wii).

Plenty of fans are speculating and trying to figure out each course in the banner. You can find a few interesting suggestions here, here, here, and here.

Console Prefix Datamine

You know the console prefixes at the start of each retro course’s title? Well, looks like those prefixes exist for the remaining tracks in the Booster Pass. Of course, all of this is subject to change and they could even be temporary right from the start, but it’s worth mentioning. It’s unclear what it means when a track doesn’t have a prefix, but it’s worth noting the Tour course Ninja Hideaway didn’t have a prefix either.

Update: As of Wave 3, the prefixes are no longer completely accurate and have likely been adjusted. That said, the Wave 2 prefixes for the Turnip Cup and Propeller Cup ended up just as predicted. Of course things can change during development, but it’s likely this is the general breakdown for the rest of the Booster Pass!

Datamined Courses From Tour

In the past two years since Mario Kart Tour’s release, passionate fans at the Mario Kart Tour Community Discord have dissected the inner workings of the mobile game to catch glimpses of unreleased and upcoming content. Unused object names, many of which have sat in the game’s filesystem for over a year, tend to help identify which courses are likely to make their way over. Some object names very obviously reveal which course they belong to while others may require a bit of guesswork. For more info about the object names, please check out the very detailed Discord!

Because we are very much convinced that a majority of the Mario Kart Tour tracks will find their way into the Booster Course Pack, here are the courses identified in the regularly updated datamine that we think will also likely appear in the Mario Kart 8 DLC. Just like before, we are not including variations of existing courses from the SNES and GBA games.

• Bowser Castle (SNES)
• Luigi Circuit (GBA)
• Yoshi Desert (GBA)
• Mushroom Bridge (GCN) and/or Mushroom City (GCN)
• Daisy Circuit (Wii)
• Wuhu Loop (3DS)
• Maka Wuhu (3DS)
• Possibly seven unannounced Nitro courses (Tour)

Remaining Courses

So! Having gone through all those tracks, it seems the Mario Kart series still has plenty to offer when it comes to available courses. There are already over 50 tracks listed above so it’s unlikely we’ll see these get added, but you never know! Courses will be listed by game and once again, we’re not including additional track variations from the GBA games.

Mario Kart 64

• Moo Moo Farm
• Mario Raceway
• Wario Stadium
• Sherbet Land
• Bowser’s Castle
• D.K.’s Jungle Parkway
• Banshee Boardwalk

Mario Kart: Super Circuit

• Peach Circuit
• Shy Guy Beach
• Lakeside Park
• Broken Pier
• Rainbow Road

Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

• Luigi Circuit
• Peach Beach
• Mario Circuit
• Wario Colosseum
• Bowser’s Castle
• Rainbow Road

Mario Kart DS

• Figure-8 Circuit
• Yoshi Falls
• Desert Hills
• Delfino Square
• Bowser Castle
• Rainbow Road

Mario Kart Wii

• Luigi Circuit
• Toad’s Factory
• Mario Circuit
• Moonview Highway
• Bowser’s Castle

Mario Kart 7

• All courses accounted for!

Courses Already in Mario Kart 8

Before we wrap up, let’s get a quick list of all the tracks currently present in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. For reference!