Today, Nintendo released its next Nintendo Direct presentation focused solely on Kirby Air Riders, the next project from Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai. Before diving into the details on Kirby’s next adventure, Sakurai gave a peek behind the development curtain with a particularly interesting line–he was worried a new Kirby Air Riders would be too much like Nintendo’s other racing franchise, Mario Kart.
Sakurai made the comment during the beginning of the presentation, as he mentioned to both Nintendo corporate president Shinya Takahashi and then-president of HAL Laboratory Satoshi Mitsuhara that there are similarities between Air Riders and Mario Kart. As Sakurai himself said in the presentation, “OK, so it is basically Mario Kart.”
“I even mentioned this when I received the request to make the game,” Sakurai said. “I asked them if they still wanted to do it, but as fans of the original know, the appeal of the game is actually not the races!”
The 45-minute deep dive into Kirby Air Riders revealed many details about the upcoming racer, including the characters and vehicles players will be racing with, as well as the floating island of Skyah that serves as the game’s setting. Multiple modes, including City Trial with up to 16 players, were also detailed during the presentation.
Kirby Air Riders will launch exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2 on November 20.
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