Mario Kart 8 to Feature Deeper Item Customisation

One of the gameplay refinements in Mario Kart 8 will allow for improved and deeper item customisation within races.

The director of the upcoming Wii U game, Kosuke Yabuki, has teased some of the additional options available whilst playing in versus races in the new game. Mario Kart 8 will take a similar approach to the 3DS installment, Mario Kart 7, by giving players the ability to "have a mushroom-only race or shell-only race", but will also offer greater flexibility.

I think we're going to be able to answer that feeling of, 'I don't want to race with items.' Well, OK, then no items. Or, 'I only want to have bananas.' Well, OK. I think we're going to be able to provide a system to answer that desire this time around. Yosuke Yabuki

Hideki Konno, Mario Kart 8 producer, chimed in, confirming that the game will have "rule customization for folk who want to be able to go in and set that up for themselves", but feels that a fair bit of consideration has gone into the default balancing of items.

At the end, we come up with what we hope or feel is a really good balance. It's our strong hope that folks would want to play with the items as we have balanced them. Hideki Konno

What item combinations will you play with in Mario Kart 8?