Five new characters will be added to the roster of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Nintendo Switch in future Waves released as DLC. With the release of the Wave 4 DLC this week — which has added several new and classic tracks to the game, as well as fan favorite character Birdo — five new slots have appeared on the game's character selection screen, each indicated by a mysterious question mark.
Upon its 2017 launch, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe featured all the drivable characters of the original Mario Kart 8 on Wii U, as well as Inklings Boy and Girl from Splatoon, Bowser Jr., Dry Bones, and King Boo. With its roster spanning a collective total of 42 characters, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe boasts the largest number of playable characters of any Mario Kart title thus far. This number has expanded to 43 with the addition of Birdo this week, and will eventually total as many as 48 upon the addition of the five new characters.
Nintendo has yet to reveal the identities of the five characters to be added to the popular family racer, but fans are already putting forth their ideas. Some argue that classic Super Mario heroine Pauline will finally be making her Mario Kart debut as one of the five. Others, however, have suggested that the upcoming five characters might not be from the Super Mario franchise, but rather from other Nintendo series such as Kirby, Pikmin, or Metroid.
A smaller yet no less speculative contingent of fans have even theorized that Nintendo may have plans to do with Mario Kart what was done to the Super Smash Bros. series: add third-party characters to the roster. Today, Super Smash Bros. — particularly Super Smash Bros. Ultimate — is hailed on high as one of the greatest crossovers in all of video gaming, a big meeting and mashing-together of some of the medium's most beloved franchises and characters.
It is not entirely beyond the realm of possibility for at least one of these upcoming Mario Kart 8 Deluxe characters to be of a third-party origin. After all, only two third-party characters were initially released for Super Smash Bros. Brawl — it would be years before a Super Smash Bros. title ended up gaining the all-encompassing roster it ultimately did.
If indeed a third-party character or two ends up on the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe roster, it might well be some indication of what fans can expect from future installments of the Mario Kart series. Perhaps one day we'll see a Mario Kart with Persona 5's Joker, Steve from Minecraft, and Sora from Kingdom Hearts.
In any case, with Wave 4 having just released, it may well be a while yet before Nintendo hints at the contents of Wave 5. Until the question of which new characters will join the roster gets answered, the speculation is only set to continue.