Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Adds Free 8-Player Split-Screen

Nintendo Doubled the Couch

Nintendo dropped Mario Kart 8 Deluxe version 4.0.0 on September 1, 2026 with no announcement, no trailer, and no warning. The headline feature is the one people have been asking for since 2014: local split-screen for eight players instead of four, on a single Nintendo Switch 2.

• Eight-player local split-screen on Switch 2, up from the four-player limit the game shipped with
• It works in handheld mode, which is the genuinely absurd part
• Free for everyone — no paid upgrade, no expansion pass requirement
• Also added: sharper visuals, faster load times, CameraPlay via USB camera, and a 96-race VS option for Booster Course Pass owners

Eight Players on One Console, Including Handheld

Here is the setup. You connect up to seven Nintendo Switch controllers — Joy-Con or Switch Pro Controllers — to the Switch 2. For the eighth player you need at least one Joy-Con 2 or a Switch 2 Pro Controller in the mix. That gets you eight racers on one screen.

And yes, it runs in handheld mode. Eight split-screen viewports on a handheld display is the kind of technically-possible-but-why decision that Nintendo occasionally makes and everyone immediately tries anyway. Each racer gets a slice roughly the size of a business card. It is going to be gloriously unreadable and someone in your friend group is going to insist on doing it.

What Else Is in Version 4.0.0?

The Switch 2 enhancement pass covers the expected ground: cleaner visuals on the Switch 2 display and high-resolution televisions, and noticeably shorter loading before races. Nintendo also slipped in a small handling change — a slight speed boost roughly equivalent to carrying one extra coin — and fixed Boo's invisibility causing slowdown in offroad sections.

Booster Course Pass owners get a 96-race option in VS Race mode. Ninety-six races. That is not a party, that is a commitment ceremony.

CameraPlay arrives too, letting players use a compatible USB camera to see each other's faces during races. Online use needs a GameChat subscription, the camera is sold separately, and cameras can be toggled off in both local and online modes — which is the correct default for anyone who does not want their living room broadcast mid-blue-shell.

Switch 1 owners can download the patch and will see the eight-player option listed, though the feature itself is Switch 2 only.

Why a Decade-Old Game Just Got Its Biggest Update

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe launched in 2017 as an enhanced port of a 2014 Wii U game. It is now nine years past its original release and still receiving feature work — while Mario Kart World, the newer entry, sits alongside it rather than replacing it.

That is a quietly unusual thing for a publisher to do, and it is good for players. Nintendo has been steadily using Switch 2 hardware headroom to enrich back-catalogue titles instead of retiring them, the same pattern behind the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Switch 2 Edition adding a 4K60 mode and the free upgrade path that carried Elden Ring Tarnished Edition onto Switch 2.

If you are still assembling a Switch 2 library, this update quietly moves a game you probably already own back onto the shortlist — see our gaming coverage and our roundup of the best Nintendo Switch 2 games in 2026 for the rest of the field.

Now go find seven controllers. And a bigger couch.

Sources: Nintendo Life — full patch notes — September 2026; Engadget — September 2026; Video Games Chronicle — September 2, 2026.