Multiplayer, competitive racing action lies at the heart of Cmoar Studios’ upcoming kart title, The Karters. It’s a love-letter to games like Crash Team Racing and Mario Kart 64. Well, if you’ve been itching for a high-quality kart racing title that rekindles the quality and fun of those classic gems from the yesteryears of gaming, prepare your body for The Karters, which is set to launch in Early Access during the first quarter of 2017.

The Steam page for the game has gone live, where they’ve been announcing updates and details on the progress of the game’s development, keeping gamers informed about where they are with the release of the 3D racing game. They originally had plans on getting The Karters up and out on November 8th this past week but things didn’t go as planned and they had to postpone the Early Access release into the early part of 2017.

They also announced that there’s a pre-release beta phase for the Early Access version of The Karters, where a select few will help them iron out bugs and kinks ahead of the Early Access release. Those who get their hands on pre-release beta keys will not have access to the Early Access version. So only those who really want to help with quality assurance will likely want to dive into that part of the development.

If you need a little primer on what The Karters is like, there’s a gameplay trailer available to give you an idea of what kind of game they’re aiming for with their kart racing title.

As far as features are concerned, The Karters will head into Early Access with five playable characters, four different maps, a battle arena, various weapon power-ups to help give you an edge during a race, and both single and multiplayer modes with options to engage in local split-screen play or take the fight around the world in online competitive play.

The final game will feature up to 12 characters, up to 16 maps and four battle arenas.

The wording is a little ambiguous but it sounds like The Karters will likely stay in Early Access for close to a year. For further info be sure to visit the official website.