Kirby Air Riders out November 20th, all the details from the Direct

Last night’s Kirby Air Riders Direct well and truly took the wraps off the game. After all, it was a 45-minute presentation hosted by Masahiro Sakurai — you knew what you were signing up for.

As expected, Kirby Air Riders takes the concept from the GameCube’s Kirby Air Ride and turns it up to eleven. The presentation showed multiple new modes, new ways to play — including the addition of a second button to the control scheme. There are also a bunch of new mini-games, all of which can be played online. We also learned the game is being developed by Sora Ltd. and Bandai Namco Studios, Inc.

Before we get into the details, the game does have a release date – and it’s out November 20th, 2025. It is available to preorder now from the eShop for $109.95 AUD (or $69.99 USD).

Also a special release of Kirby Air Riders music has been released on the Nintendo Music app today as well.

Sakurai opened the Direct by explaining and giving more background on how the game came to be. Nintendo’s Shinya Takahashi and former HAL Laboratory president Satoshi Mitsuhara approached him to make the game while he was still working on the DLC for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. They asked him to put a proposal together, which he did “at high speed,” and here we are. This is the same proposal Sakurai mentioned in the final video of his Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games YouTube series.

Sakurai highlighted many changes from the first game, but a few stand out. This time, you can choose your Air Ride Machine, each with its own traits and abilities. Another major change is that the stage is selected first, allowing you to pick a machine and rider with stats and abilities suited to that stage. The game still controls without the need to manually accelerate — you simply tilt the left analogue stick to turn. Pressing the B button makes your machine hit the ground and begin charging a Boost Charge. Using this in combination with turning is how you drift around corners.

We also got a second button added to the game with a the Y button now being a special button. This allows you to unleashed a special attack. Everyone has a different one, although Kirby has four of them. Speaking of Kirby’s special moves, in the game Kirby can copy abilities, but now everyone else can too.

City Trial returns in this game as well. Taking place in a new hub world called Skyah, you’ll zip around with other players (or solo) to collect power-ups and build the best machine you can. The map is quite a bit bigger than the one on GameCube. You start out on a basic Star Machine, but can swap between different machines with unique abilities that are scattered around. You’ll have five minutes to gather the best parts you can before heading to the Stadium, where your rider and machine will be put to the test in a variety of mini-games.

City Trial is now located on a huge floating island called Skyah. Here, you’ll drive around freely collecting power-ups, attacking opponents to damage (and steal) their machines or cause them to drop power-ups you can then scoop up for yourself, all with the objective of upgrading your machine as much as possible. You start out with a small, weak machine, but through finding power-ups, attacking opponents and swapping to other machines, you can upgrade your ride. There are also random Field Events that occur throughout this phase. Some of these events pop up unexpectedly somewhere on the Skyah map, and you’ll need to hustle to that location to participate. 

Events include challenges like Short Race, where you’ll race through a sectioned-off area of the map, with power-ups awarded based on how you finish. There is also Dustup Derby, where the goal is to battle your opponents to knock them out and earn more power-ups. Be warned, these events may also involve the appearance of familiar bosses from the world of Kirby, including Kracko and Dyna Blade. This is only the first phase of the City Trial experience, and you’ll have five minutes of intense vehicle action to secure your machine and as many power-ups as you can. After that, it’s on to phase two…

Take your powered-up machine to a Stadium and compete to be crowned the winner. Each Stadium includes a different challenge that players will strategically select based on the power-ups you or your opponents have gathered. Some Stadiums will even be recommended for you based on your machine’s stats, in case you have any trouble deciding which one to take on.

City Trial can be played online with up to 16 players, or locally with up to 8 players across multiple Nintendo Switch 2 units. However, there’s no couch co-op or split-screen option revealed at this stage.

We all wondered how Sakurai would fill 45 minutes of a Nintendo Direct with information — and he managed to do that and more. He also promised that even more details will be shared before the game’s release in November.