Mario Kart 8 Free Update Lets You Make A Race With Only Blue Shells

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe welcomes a series of new tracks today with Wave 3 of the Booster Course Pass, but that's not all. A new "Custom Items" feature is now available in a free update. As its name suggests, this feature allows players to choose the items that appear in certain races.

This applies to offline versus races and some online modes, Nintendo of Europe said in a tweet. As you can see in the image below, players can choose Random, All On, and All Off, or they can select individual items one-by-one. That means players can have a race full of only blue shells, for example. What's more, specific items can be allocated to each team in team races and battles.

As for the new courses, Wave 3 of the Booster Course Pass is out now. It introduces the following cups and tracks, made up of courses from past Mario Kart titles.

• Rock Cup
  • Tour London Loop (Mario Kart Tour)
  • GBA Boo Lake (Mario Kart: Super Circuit)
  • 3DS Rock Rock Mountain (Mario Kart 7)
  • Wii Maple Treeway (Mario Kart Wii)
• Moon Cup
  • Tour Berlin Byways (Mario Kart Tour)
  • DS Peach Gardens (Mario Kart DS)
  • Merry Mountains (Mario Kart Tour)
  • 3DS Rainbow Road (Mario Kart 7)

Wave 3 comes over four months after the release of the previous wave, which brought the Turnip Cup and Propeller Cup on August 4. The first wave of tracks--which includes the Golden Dash Cup and the Lucky Cat Cup--launched on March 18. Three more waves of DLC courses are on the way.

The Booster Course Pass is available as a separate purchase for $25, and it is also included with the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pass subscription along with access to classic games from the Sega Genesis and Nintendo 64.