‘Mario Kart Tour’ multiplayer goes live on March 8th

As soon as Mario Kart Tour brought Nintendo’s racing game to Androids and iPhones last fall, one of the major complaints was its lack of multiplayer. Firing shells or dropping banana peels to disrupt your friends is most of the appeal, and now everyone will be able to do it. On March 8th at 11 PM ET the game will officially launch multiplayer, after testing it out across a couple of beta periods.

According to Nintendo, races will have rules that change daily to mix up the action in Standard and Gold races while the featured cup rotates every 15 minutes. Otherwise, you can setup custom races with friends or nearby players, although those won’t impact progress on a grade that ranks you against other Mario Kart Tour players from around the world. We’ll see if that’s enough to overcome its free-to-play payment wrinkles and keep folks in the action.

You can try out the free to play racer now (or just give it another chance once multiplayer is available) via Google’s Play Store or the Apple App Store.