Kirby Air Riders – Nintendo Direct | Nintendo Switch 2
Kirby Air Riders – Nintendo Direct | Nintendo Switch 2
Kirby Air Riders is coming exclusively to Nintendo Switch 2 in 2025!
Kirby Air Riders is a brand-new title directed by Masahiro Sakurai. The original Kirby Air Ride game was originally released on Nintendo GameCube over 20 years ago.
I am so fucking stoked for this. I have been begging for this for years. I can't believe Sakurai is coming back to direct it.
He's probably my favorite director at Nintendo. Played hundreds of hours of the original, too. Hopefully the original makes a comeback in their new GameCube NSO lineup.
Highlight of the Direct by far.
2 first party racing games in one year? Or are they different enough that it doesn't really matter?
Air Ride's big differentiator was it's City Trial mode, where instead of racing you drove around a city collecting upgrades and after a certain period of time only then do you race (or fight or do a minigame). the new Mario Kart's free roam mode has some overlap with that conceptually but maybe it was a late enough addition and Air Riders was too far along to scrap or something, or maybe City Trial isn't the focus of the new game and they're trading places. it'll be interesting to see!
Interesting. Thanks for the info.
The mechanics on how Air Ride plays is pretty different than Mario Kart. Instead of just pressing A to go, your little star goes automatically but then when you hold A that starts to slow you down, and that's how you are able to make turns. And then when you release A you get a little boost of speed.
That sounds weird, and it is a little, but it's not just simply another kart racer. It feels much different to play.
Ah, a different kind of racer. That can work.