Mario Kart Tour servers to close on 30th September with no offline mode
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Nintendo has confirmed that Mario Kart Tour, its mobile racing app, will permanently shut down its online service on 30th September 2026, at 7am BST. Crucially, and unlike the earlier closure of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, which was replaced by a paid offline version, Nintendo has stated that no offline mode for Mario Kart Tour is "scheduled for release", meaning the game will effectively become unplayable once servers close. This underlines the ongoing risk that live-service and always-online titles can vanish entirely when publishers decide to end support.
Nintendo announced the closure on the Mario Kart Tour website, thanking players for their support since launch. Automatic Gold Pass subscription renewals were cancelled during maintenance on 7th July; existing members retain their benefits free until closure, while non-members can access all bonuses free from the start of the Vacation Tour on 4th August. Ruby sales have also ended, though remaining currency can still be spent in the Spotlight Shop, Mii Racing Suit Shop and Coin Rush until September. The app launched in 2019 and received four years of content updates — several of its circuits later appeared in the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass — before updates ceased in 2023, capped by a Mario Kart World-themed event last year.
- Mario Kart Tour's online service closes on 30th September 2026.
- No offline mode is planned, so the game becomes unplayable.
- Gold Pass renewals cancelled; ruby sales have already ended.
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Nintendo's Mario Kart Tour is a mobile version of the long-running racing series, launched in 2019 for smartphones. Unlike the main console games, it was a free-to-download app that made money through microtransactions and a paid subscription, and it relied on an internet connection to a central server to work, rather than storing everything on the player's device.
That server dependency matters because it means the game only exists as long as Nintendo keeps it running. This is a common feature of "live service" mobile games: once a publisher stops supporting a title and switches off its servers, the app can become unusable, since there is no separate way to play it offline. Some companies release a scaled-down offline version to let people keep playing after closure, but that is a choice, not a guarantee.
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Originally published by Nintendo Life as “Mario Kart Tour Service Officially Ends This September”.