KartRider: Drift Season 2: It’s World Kart Championship Time!
Learn more about the upcoming season of KartRider: Drift, the best racing game you’ve never heard of
KartRider: Drift, a free-to-play kart racer from Nexon available for every platform except Mac and Switch, dropped with little fanfare in the English-speaking world about two months ago.
Like ClapHanz’s Everybody’s Golf before it, it’s the latest installment in a long-running series that is extremely popular in Asia but struggling at best in the Anglosphere, and its English-language edition may very possibly wind up at the Great Pit Stop in the Sky if its active player base outside Japan and South Korea doesn’t pick up at some point over the next few business quarters. This is a shame, as it’s a bright, cheery, easy-to-pick-up title with solid graphics, engaging Mario Kart-style gameplay, quick races (most take 2 to 3 minutes), and a generous amount of freebies and free playable characters to go along with a reasonably-priced battle pass ($4.99 in the United States as of this post) that does not feel especially grindy by today’s standards.
I started playing KartRider: Drift regularly about halfway through Season 1 and have gotten attached to it to a point that I was eager to learn more about their plans for Season 2, launching on May 10 at 8 p.m. Eastern / 5 p.m. Pacific Time. Unfortunately, info is very hard to come by in English, and when it is finally published somewhere official, it seems to come out right before a major event begins. I searched “KartRider Drift: Season 2” in Korean and was able to find enough info to work with, thanks to Google Translate. Additionally, Nexon shared some updates this evening (May 9) in English in a ‘Patch Notes’ post. I’m sharing my key findings, synthesized from both sources, below in the hopes that any other English speakers’ searches take them here.
What We Know About Season 2
The theme: “World Kart Championship”. It looks to be inspired by real-world open-wheel racing series (think Formula 1 or IndyCar). There also appears to be a subplot pertaining to a playable character’s crystal ball, as well as a tie-in with all characters from BT21, the BTS-affiliated Line Friends creation with some stateside brand exposure, except Van.
New tracks: Six new tracks will be added: Speed Mode-specific Korea, Singapore, Japan, and Brazil-themed WKC tracks, plus Item/Speed Mode tracks Village: City Hall Square and Village: Breeze Park.
New characters: In addition to BT21 characters, the new season includes legendary ‘World Kart Championship’ racer Derek, a pirate named Rodumani from previous title KartRider: Rush+, and witch Tiera. WKC-specific outfits will be offered for existing playable characters.
New modes: A new License, L2, will be added alongside the existing Licenses (read more about the License system, sort of like a series of tutorials used to unlock free cosmetics and tracks, here) earned by completing minigames and duels. There will be a new training mode separate from License minigames and duels, and it an instant replay feature will be added for races.
New power-up: Non-water Balloons, available in previous KartRider titles, are coming back to Drift. Unlike in other KartRider titles, which featured balloons for the sole purpose of blocking missiles fired at you by other players, they can be upgraded for other uses as well.
Sticker market: Nexon is adding a new ‘sticker market’, allowing players to sell their custom sticker designs for Lucci, KartRider’s non-premium currency used to buy select cosmetics in the Shop and otherwise earned by completing challenges and racing.
If any of the above sounds enticing to you, I hope to see you on the track this season. KartRider: Drift is a free-to-play game that does not demand you make it a centerpiece of your existence, with a solid degree of ongoing commitment from its developers that shows in its raft of free content, and deserves all the support it can get from Western players. In the words of game director Jo Jae-yoon, “I hope that you will trust and play it”.
KartRider: Drift is available now for PlayStation, Xbox, PC, iOS, and Android.
