Which Mario Kart game was the first in the series to use 3D computer graphics?

Mario Kart 64 was the first game in the series to use 3D computer graphics. Released for the Nintendo 64 in 1996, it replaced Super Mario Kart’s overhead Mode 7-style presentation with polygon-based 3D courses and a perspective camera.

The change transformed how races felt. Tracks could curve through large environments, rise and fall in elevation, and include spaces such as tunnels, bridges, cliffs, and arenas. Mario Kart 64 also expanded split-screen multiplayer to four players, a major technical and social step beyond the two-player original.

There is an important technical detail behind the visuals: the courses are rendered in 3D, but the racers and many objects use two-dimensional sprites that always face the camera. That means the game is correctly remembered as the series’ first 3D entry even though not every visual element is a polygonal model.

Super Mario Kart, released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1992, used Mode 7 effects to simulate depth but was not a fully 3D game. Mario Kart: Super Circuit later returned to a largely top-down style, while later entries increasingly used fully modeled characters and karts.