Mario Kart World: How To Unlock New Characters & Costumes

Mario Kart World has 50 new characters and many, many more outfits to wear for 24 main characters that got even more love from Nintendo. If you want to complete your collection, there are some specific tasks you’ll need to complete to unlock characters and collect new costumes. Almost all of them are random, so you’ll need to play a lot to get them all — but that’s what Mario Kart is all about.

Here’s how to unlock main character, the so-called “NPC” characters and a whole load of costumes.

How To Unlock New Costumes

To unlock new costumes for your favorite characters in Mario Kart World you’ll need to look for a new item called Dash Food. These are glowing rainbow-colored paper bags that give a random food item. Using the food item will transform your current character into one random alternate outfit.

• Getting New Costumes:
• To get new costumes, look for Dash Food items. These can be carried by vehicles, at gas stations or fast food joints between major locations, or scattered throughout the tracks in open-world.
• To get all the costumes for your favorite characters, collect Dash Food and use it. You’ll randomly swap into an alternate outfit — if it’s an outfit you don’t yet own, you’ll temporarily wear it and unlock it permanently.

If you want to collect all your favorite character’s costumes, play as that character in Free Roam (select your character from the pause menu) and keep collecting Dash Food items. They don’t seem to work if you keep collecting the same one or even ones nearby, so continue to drive around and grab any you see — they’re surprisingly common. Keep rolling and you’ll eventually unlock all the outfits for Mario, Wario, Bowser or any of your other favorites.

How To Unlock New Characters

There are two ways to unlock characters — either by completing Grand Prix or due to the effects of the new Kamek power-up. Completing Grand Prix unlocks new characters with a variety of costumes, while the Kamek power-up randomly unlocks special characters that don’t have additional costumes — and the process is totally random. Here’s what characters you’ll always earn through Grand Prix, and all the rest that are only available through the Kamek Power-up.

• Grand Prix | Unlockable Characters:
• Donkey Kong: Complete the Mushroom Cup Grand Prix.
• Daisy: Complete the Flower Cup Grand Prix.
• Rosalina: Complete the Star Cup Grand Prix.
• Lakitu: Complete the Shell Cup Grand Prix.
• Birdo: Complete the Banana Cup Grand Prix.
• King Boo: Complete the Leaf Cup Grand Prix.
• Bowser Jr.: Complete the Lightning Cup Grand Prix.

All other characters — characters like Peepa, Coin Coffer, Dolphin, etc — can only be unlocked randomly through the new Kamek power-up.

• How To Unlock All Other Characters: Randomly during races, the Kamek item will transform racers into a different character. If this is a character you don’t currently have, you’ll unlock that character permanently.

Some players report that using the Kamek item yourself does NOT unlock whatever you transform into.

It may also not work if you’re too close to the driver using the Kamek item. These issues may be patched at a later date, but for now keep that in mind. Getting new characters is totally random, so just keep racing to get them all!