Kirby Air Riders launches in November and it looks REALLY AWESOME

Kirby Air Ridin’ into my DMs (Dedede & Metaknight)

After having us thinking it wasn’t arriving this year, Nintendo decided to drop a big 45-minute Direct about Kirby Air Riders. Much like his videos in the past, Director Masahiro Sakurai went into excruciatingly wonderlful detail about the game, from its racing style to the characters to the hub world, before dropping a release date: November 20, 2025.

That’s THIS year! It’s still coming! Woohoo!

Kirby Air Riders is more than just a racing game. The project can perhaps best be described as a battle racer, akin to really amping up the attacks in Mario Kart and making that a necessary part of the game. It’s not just about winning a race, it’s about taking out your competition along the way.

The game will have several riders and “machines” that they can hop on, but in true Sakurai fashion the key isn’t in the WHAT but the HOW. The game (which is being co-developed with Banda Namco) has players select the arena first before their rider, and then select and build a capable machine as they play. The open world-ish City Trial returns from the original game, but now there’s much more of a sandbox built in for players to drive around attacking their enemis and building up their machine to the max. There are traditional races in Air Ride mode, and Lessons will help players better understand their characters — each of which will have Specials that are used by now tapping a second button (Y). The original game only had one button use, but it’s 2025 now.