After spending the last 30 years grazing the fields of Moo Moo Farm and Moo Moo Meadows, Cow has taken the spotlight as the biggest breakout star of Mario Kart World’s enormous character roster. So when Nintendo invited us to a roundtable interview with Mario Kart World Producer Kosuke Yabuki, we knew we had to ask him about the beloved bovine.
“Thank you for that question about Cow,” Yabuki began, which is one of the best openings I’ve ever heard in an interview. “The decision to include Cow was something that we considered in terms of if we added that, I think people would be really happy about it. And so we did. But honestly, the reaction to that by the public was much bigger than we possibly could have anticipated. So that was a wonderful surprise. Thank you.”
Yabuki’s surprise at Cow’s popularity matches what we heard from Nintendo of America’s Bill Trinen, who told us in an interview that their internal expectations for Cow were “perhaps not as big as the cow has become.”
Cow’s origin story makes her inclusion even better. In last month’s Ask the Developer series about Mario Kart World, Yabuki confirmed that it was a developer’s “silly sketch” of Cow driving a truck that convinced him and the rest of the team to add Cow as a playable character. I asked Yabuki about the evolution during development of what they’re now calling “NPC Drivers”, which grew to include characters like Snowman, Penguin, Swooper, and many others.
“I have to say, adding in Cow really opened the floodgates for us because once you’ve got a character in like that, you start to think, ‘well, maybe we should just add who we can,'” Yabuki continued. “And so that was the point at which the designers got really excited. Once they realized all of these characters were possibly up for grabs, that’s when you start to see Penguin come in, Pokey comes in, one after another, these new designs for characters keep coming. And so because all of these characters came in such a rush as the designers were getting kind of carried away, it’s actually a little hard for me to remember which specific character would’ve come immediately next in the sequence after Cow. Sorry about that! Because honestly, I have this memory of approving the concept for Cow, and then maybe the next day I had 10 proposals for other characters on my desk.”
There’s a potential darker side to this story, too, as one of Mario Kart World’s other new additions is Dash Food, which characters pick up from Yoshi’s drive-thrus around the open world. Shortly after Mario Kart World was unveiled, IGN’s Brian Altano noticed at a preview event that Cow was able to eat products that traditionally include beef, like steak kabobs and hamburgers. So, we asked Yabuki the ultimate question: Are those veggie burgers, or what’s going on there?
Yes, Cow CAN eat steak in Mario Kart World. pic.twitter.com/qN5PZ9IIM4
— IGN (@IGN) April 4, 2025
“Sorry, that’s top secret,” Kabuki said with a laugh. “I can’t say.”
Well, the mystery remains, as does the question of if Diddy Kong will appear in Mario Kart World sporting his new redesign, to which Yabuki simply said, “I’m afraid I can’t say anything at this time.” But the rest of Mario Kart World’s mysteries will soon be solved, as we’re just two days away from the release date of Nintendo Switch 2 and its flagship launch game. For more, check out our final hands-on preview of Mario Kart World, where we were impressed with the racing, but still haven’t been sold on Free Roam. And, check out our preview of that $10 launch game, Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour.
Logan Plant is the host of Nintendo Voice Chat and IGN’s Database Manager & Playlist Editor. The Legend of Zelda is his favorite video game franchise of all time, and he is patiently awaiting the day Nintendo announces a brand new F-Zero. You can find him online @LoganJPlant.
