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Mario Kart 8 200cc Free Update & Animal Crossing Playable Characters DLC Release Date Announced

With a April 23, 2015 release date, Mario Kart 8 for Wii U is getting a free speedboost. Nintendo has announced an all-new 200cc Racing Class. This will speed the game up to F-Zero levels of velocity! Alongside this free new update, is an all-new piece of paid DLC that adds Animal Crossing into Mario Kart 8! Including playable Boy & Girl Villager & Isabelle characters (along with Dry Bowser)! Whoo-hoo!

Check out this Mario Kart history & 200cc Mode Trailer to see how Nintendo has dramatically shifted Mario Kart into overdrive!

200cc in Mario Kart 8

For the first time in the Mario Kart series, a 200cc racing class is coming to Mario Kart 8!

Even faster than 150cc, the new high­speed class will be applied to all tracks in the game and makes braking an important consideration during a race! The new 200cc class will be offered as a free downloadable update to all Mario Kart 8 players on April 23, 2015!

On this same day, the purchasable “Mario Kart 8 DLC Pack 2” themed after Animal Crossing, will feature three new Animal Crossing playable characters, four new vehicles and eight new tracks! It also will be released on April 23rd!

This trailer will show you what to expect with all the new Animal Crossing elements being introduced in DLC Pack 2.

In addition, on April 23rd, a new free downloadable software update to Mario Kart 8 will add support for nine more amiibo figures, including Mega Man, Sonic and PAC-MAN! Players can tap these Amiibo, if they own the toy figures, to the Wii U GamePad to outfit their Mii characters in Mii Racing Suit Costumes themed after their Amiibo characters. HUZZAH!

So what exactly does Mario Kart 8 DLC Pack 2 contain? You will get all this:

* 3 New Characters – Villager, Isabelle, Dry Bowser
* 4 New Vehicles – Bone Rattler (Bike), City Tripper (Bike), Streetle (Kart), P-Wing (Kart)
* 8 New Courses – See Below.

All 8 Courses From DLC Pack 2:

1. Baby park (GCN)
2. Ribbon Road (GBA)
3. Neo Bowser City (3DS)
4. Cheese Land (GBA)
5. Nature Road
6. Big Blue
7. Lingling Metro
8. Animal Crossing

Each individual DLC Pack costs $8. But you can buy both at once for only $12 total!

Check out the gallery below to see how some of the Amiibo costumes look in action! SNAZZY!

Here’s the Mario Kart 8 DLC image gallery.
Click on any of these image thumbnails to see the full-size screenshots:

This is some really exciting stuff!

Since we don’t yet have any inkling of a new F-Zero for Wii U, Nintendo has given us the next best thing by speeding Mario Kart 8 up to F-Zero levels! Given the crazy new track designs with the ability to ride on walls & ceilings; not to mention the F-Zero DLC, it looks like Nintendo has gone about as close as they can to a new F-Zero without actually giving us one.

Changing of the Seasons

Hopefully a new F-Zero game is still in the cards, as we haven’t played a console F-Zero since the Sega-developed F-Zero GX on the Nintendo GameCube (an absolutely outstanding game). Hopefully this new DLC is just a prelude to a true F-Zero Wii U announcement! At least one can dream, right?

How excited are you about the 200cc Race Mode and the all-new Animal Crossing characters and tracks & Amiibo Costumes in Mario Kart 8?