KartRider Drift – Impressions

The problem that basically every kart racer runs into is that it’s just hard to beat Mario Kart. I’d argue that it’s impossible to beat Mario Kart — really, the only contenders strive to do some things just enough differently from the stalwart Nintendo franchise.

The latest contender is a free-to-play entry, KartRider Drift, which allows for crossplay action across Xbox One and PC. The game stars a colorful — if generic — cast of characters that players can customize in looks and abilities.

Recently, the game opened up a second beta on the Xbox One, and I had the chance to give it a spin.

On the track? It’s actually pretty fun, once I got the hang of the physics. There’s an art to drifting around a corner and releasing your slide at just the right time for a boost. The racing was largely pretty close among my human opponents, and the track layouts kept the racing frenetic. 

There are two racing modes — with items and without. With items, I felt like the racing was actually pretty fair, and there aren’t too many “blue shell moments” that just ruin your race. But the non-item racing is where the game really shines for me, as it’s left to the players’ skill on the track.

Off the track, the game feels a bit generic. It plays a lot like other online free-to-play games, with daily and weekly goals that unlock skins, abilities and more. As the full game releases, there is a ton of potential for variety between racers.

My biggest issue during the beta was the length of time for matchmaking. I’m hopeful that when the game launches fully there will be more people playing and faster matchmaking. There were times when the game would take a full 2 or 3 minutes to match up a race. When races are 5 or 6 minutes long, that matchmaking time is just too long.