For nearly three decades, it has been gaming’s most ruthless foe: the blue shell.

First introduced in 1996’s Mario Kart 64, I’d wager that the dreaded homing missile has been the cause of more broken controllers than every FromSoftware game combined. It’s an agent of chaos whose sole goal is to screw over whoever is in first place at the precise wrong moment, whether that’s when driving over a gap or inches ahead of the finish line.

Like a slasher villain, the Blue Shell came back for blood in Mario Kart World, but it is no longer the Mushroom Kingdom’s greatest nightmare. That honor now belongs to another long-standing menace that has only grown more powerful in a 24-player world: the dastardly lightning bolt.

A series mainstay dating back to the SNES era, lightning has always been one of Mario Kart’s most annoying items. Upon activation, bolts strike every player in front of the racer who unleashed it. Everyone afflicted is stunned and........

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