The greatest game soundtrack of 2025 is finally officially available

Mario Kart World just hit Nintendo Music Last year saw some great, dramatic, cinematic game soundtracks: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's, by Lorien Testard, won almost every award going, while Woodkid and Ludvig Forssell's Death Stranding 2 and Toma Otowa's Ghost of Yōtei both drew plenty of plaudits. But my favorite soundtrack of 2025 isn't anything like those, and didn't get any nominations. It was Mario Kart World. Mario Kart World's soundtrack, led by Atsuko Asahi, follows the same diamond formula established by Mario Kart 8: What if you got some of the sickest session players and best jazz-fusion musicians in Japan to absolutely shred in live, genre-hopping, big-band arrangements of classic, high-energy video game music? You get soundtrack gold, that's what. On Tuesday, Nintendo finally released the Mario Kart World soundtrack on Nintendo Music, the music streaming service that's included in Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscriptions. The release arrives just in time for the first anniversary of the Switch 2 — and therefore of the launch game Mario Kart World — later this week on June 5. It arrives alongside some updates for the Nintendo Music app (which now works wit