How to rewind in Mario Kart World

June 7, 2025
Travel

Rewind lets you travel back in time in Mario Kart World. Well, it lets you specifically travel back in time. The rest of the world will happily move on without you.

Using rewind will literally rewind some of your past seconds driving in Mario Kart World. It’s perfect for whenever you failed a jump or saw a secret part of the track you wish to explore. (We’ve all zoomed past something interesting at least once…)

So let’s take a look at how to rewind in Mario Kart World.

How to rewind in Mario Kart World

To use rewind in Mario Kart World, you need to press the Down D-Pad button.Holding this button lets you rewind for a longer period of time.

Press the Down D-Pad button for rewind. Hold it for a longer rewind period. | Image credit: Eurogamer/Nintendo

Rewind can only be used in Free Roam and the Solo Modes – be it Grand Prix or Knockout Tours. This means you can not use rewind in any of the game’s multiplayer modes.

What’s truly important to note about rewind, however, is that it does not pause any NPC racer or vehicle. They will continue driving forwards as you travel back in time!

After some experimentation, we believe the maximum amount of time you can rewind for in one go is between 30 to 40 seconds. After fully completing a rewind, you’ll need to move, even if it’s a small amount, before you can use rewind again.

As you can see in the screenshots below, I went from being in first place before using rewind to being last afterwards. Sure, I did purposely do a complete rewind for experimentation purposes, but, even if you’re using it to fix a failed jump, you should consider your current ranking in the race. Hitting rewind could result in you falling behind!

On a side note, rewinding will also retain any costume transformation you’ve undertaken from consuming Dash Food.

There are also two aspects of rewind that are unique to Free Roam mode. Firstly, if you hit an obstacle, like another vehicle, the rewind will automatically stop. Though you will be able to start it again by pressing the Down D-Pad button. Secondly, you will regain any item you used during the allotted rewind period. Quite useful if you accidentally used a Dash Mushroom you were saving.