More than two decades after Kirby Air Ride launched on GameCube, Kirby Air Riders is coming to Nintendo Switch 2 on November 20. Director Masahiro Sakurai announced the news in a Nintendo Direct that aired August 19, alongside a detailed look at the upcoming racing game. “It basically is like Mario Kart,” Sakurai says.
The sequel is also the first Kirby title to be directed by fan favorite Sakurai since the original.
“Oh dear,” Sakurai said during the Direct. “Why is making a game so hard?”
Air Riders expands on the original, which came out in 2003, with more characters, modes, and new controls beyond the single button players used to boost. “This time we’ve added a second button,” Sakurai said. “Unfortunately.” While the original game featured different versions of Kirby to play, Air Riders adds Chef Kawasaki, Knuckle Joe, and even lesser known characters like Starman, all of which can use copy abilities like Kirby. Each character has a special move that can boost their speed, attack other racers, or activate abilities like turning into a giant snowball. The game allows up to eight human players locally or 16 online.
Following the game’s announcement, WIRED went hands-on with a demo in New York. Despite Sakurai’s initial comparison to Mario Kart, Kirby Air Riders feels more like a frenetic, sugar-crazed little brother. While Mario Kart World’s developers want players to be able to quickly grasp their game’s mechanics, Air Riders requires a little more finesse to master its skills. Players don’t have to manually accelerate, which means you’ll move forward whether you want to or not—sometimes into enemies, walls, or other obstacles. Winning a race requires timing boosts well, smashing through enemies to juice your powerup, and mastering track drifting.
In addition to traditional races, Air Riders features City Trial mode, where players will need to upgrade their rides as quickly as possible by gathering power-ups, stealing new machines, and attacking opponents. Random field events will give players the chance to join and play short races and battles; players have only five minutes to upgrade their machines as much as possible before entering Stadiums, where the main competitions take place.
During WIRED’s demo, City Trial and its Stadiums were the main attraction. Five minutes to upgrade your machine—whether it’s by gathering powerups to increase flight abilities, speed, and durability, or by jumping to something new entirely—flies by. The entire experience is frantic and in constant motion: there are items everywhere to snatch before your competitors do, and vehicles are scattered throughout the map. Even if you do manage to find one you like, someone else can steal it by smashing into you. Damage your machine enough, and you’ll have to get a new one.
Even if you’re unable to get the powerups you want, all is not lost. Stadiums include four different games to vote for, each of which are suited to different types of machines. A battle-focused match will make a light machine with high flying skills about as useful as wet paper. If you go too hard on creating a tank and land in a competition to see who can fly the furthest, you might as well be attempting flight with a rock. Others, like an eating competition where you try to collect as much food as possible, feel like anyone’s game.
The game is being developed with Bandai Namco Studios and Sora LTD—teams that worked on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate—instead of longtime Kirby developer HAL Laboratory, and it shows. The Kirby Air Riders demo feels less like a racing game, and more like a competition to bulk up and then smack your opponents silly.
Sakurai, creator of both Kirby and the Super Smash Bros. series, has had his hand in a few projects over the past few years. In addition to wrapping up work on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, he also enjoyed a run as a YouTuber. For more than two years, he published over 250 videos on his channel, Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games, about game development. In his finale episode, he revealed that he’d been working on a new game. He confirmed that project is Kirby Air Riders.
Kirby Air Riders joins a fairly light first-party launch lineup for Switch 2 and is the second major racing game to launch this year for the console, following Mario Kart World. Sakurai says even he pointed out the two games’ similarity when asked to work on it, but added that “the appeal of the game is not actually the races.” Air Riders is bigger on its modes that offer more than just a dash to the finish.
Nintendo is expected to announce more details, including the game’s price, later this year. A hands-on demo will be playable at PAX West in Seattle August 29–September 1.
