Sakurai says Kirby Air Riders are “basically Mario Kart”

Today, Masahiro Sakurai hosted 45 minutes of Nintendo direct Specializing in his latest project, Kirby Air Riders. This is an unusual direct! He delivered in the iconic style of Sakura, which is his development from years of providing Super Smash Brothers speeches, the whole process is generally very Smash Brothers. But Sakura also opened the speech by citing another match and admitted that the Kirby Air rider was “basically Mario Cardin”.

It was to be ahead of criticism or comments from audiences, he said, because it was a little strange to ask him to make a new Kirby Air race, which is a close second in the Mario Kart world. Both are racing games, with a diverse lineup of racers with different abilities, unique karts and courses, as well as similar features such as lifting, drifting and drafting. Sakurai said Shinya Takahashi and Satoshi Mitsuhara asked him to make Kirby Air Riders while working for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on DLC.

“You might ask yourself if it's basically Mario Kart,” Sakurai said. “You compete with familiar characters around courses with different features.

Yes, as the speech progressed, it was clear that Kirby Aviation Riders were very different from Mario Kart’s niche. First, Mario Kart World expands the race to 24 racers at once. But Sakurai clearly limited the Kirby Air Riders race to six games, saying “too many participants in this game will make it messy”, which seems easy on Kart. In another major difference, although Kirby does have a city trial model in more open areas, its main race is lap races, while Mario Kart World emphasizes the track from track to track across the open world. This is something for kart fans Actually criticized since the game was releasedas Nintendo strives to push long distances to three tournaments (and then I'll turn around on this choice in the future).

Aside from Mario Kart's comparison, the whole straightforward feeling is like smashing the brothers' presentation. Most of this may be just Sakurai's demo style, which is probably what we've seen most in Smash Bros. in the past. However, he revealed the dramatic way the new characters are on the roster, the visual style of title cards and interludes, the music and sound, and many other elements that bring a very huge feeling to the whole thing. The original Kirby Air Ride got a lot of UI, sound and style elements from Super Smash Bros. Meee, so it only makes sense to see this here. Just like Mario Kart almost met Super Smash Bros.

Kirby Aerial Rider is November 20, 2025for the Nintendo Switch 2, and will feature famous Kirby characters including Waddle Dee, King Dedede, Gooey, Gooey, Chef Kawasaki, Metaknight and more. You can catch up Everything directly announced here today.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior journalist at IGN. You can find her post on bluesky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Is there a story tip? Send it to [email protected].