Mario Kart Tour adds landscape mode

Mario Kart Tour is adding a landscape mode, as announced by Nintendo in a tweet on the official account of the mobile game.

Despite rumors of Nintendo willing to move away from the mobile business, the update proves it’s remaining to improve the already existing games, at least.

The landscape mode is set to radically change the gameplay experience on the title, which has only been playable in a portrait mode thus far. It is expected to drop as part of the next update, which is also said to include other yet to be revealed content for the game.

The portrait mode won’t go anywhere, anyway, as Nintendo plans to allow players to choose between the existing gameplay mode and landscape mode on the fly.

“Landscape mode,” says the tweet, “includes a new control layout, so find your favorite way to play!”

While the layout has not been detailed yet, the video below shows how it’ll work, with the steering button moving from the center of the screen to the left.

Overall, it looks like the UI will be displayed very similarly to a regular Mario Kart game, making Switch players feel at home.

That said, rumors of Nintendo thinking about leaving the mobile business have been around for a while.

The company is reportedly disappointed by the design limitations deriving from the platform and revenues, disappointing themselves as a result.

Development partners might have monetized too aggressively for Nintendo’s standards, even though that has granted the platform owner more than 1 billion thus far.

Mario Kart Tour is a good example of that, with the multiplayer mode released three months after the original launch but locked behind the Gold Pass subscription.