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Metro
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Metro
Kirby Air Riders release date announced as creator reveals why he's making it
Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai has lifted the lid on his upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 title Kirby Air Riders, which looks like a widespread expansion of the original. One of the most unexpected announcements during the Switch 2 reveal in April was Kirby Air Riders, a sequel to 2003's Kirby Air Ride on the Nintendo GameCube. The original didn't set the world alight, with overly simplistic one-button controls and limited modes, so a sequel seems like an odd proposition – especially when it comes not long after fellow racer Mario Kart World. While some fans speculated that Nintendo greenlit Kirby Air Riders as a favour to director Masahiro Sakurai, in exchange for a new Super Smash Bros. game, a 45-minute Nintendo Direct dedicated to Kirby Air Riders revealed the idea for a sequel came from elsewhere. 'You might be wondering why I ended up creating a new Kirby Air Ride game,' Sakurai said in the presentation. 'There was a strong request from [Shinya] Takahashi, head of software development at Nintendo, and [Satoshi] Mitsuhara, the president of HAL Laboratory, Inc. at the time. 'At the time, I was working on the DLC for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and wasn't really able to get around to the request. But I managed to complete a written proposal at high speed.' In the presentation, Sakurai covered all the new additions (and general basics) of Kirby Air Riders in some detail. The biggest change is that it's no longer a one-button racing game. Along with the 'boost charge' to drift around corners for bursts of speed, there's now a 'special button' to unleash power-ups specific to each character. Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. These range from attacks to damage other racers, with Kirby unleashing a sword flurry, while others like King Dedede possess a turbo hammer to launch themselves forward at great speed. Others on the roster include Kirby staples such as Meta Knight, Magalor, and Banana Waddle Dee. More Trending Whereas Kirby was the only playable character in the original who could ride different machines and use copy abilities to transform, this has been expanded to the whole roster in the sequel. Both the characters and the machines possess different stats too, in a similar vein to Mario Kart. City Trial, a core mode from Kirby Air Ride, is back too. Here you roam an open area with up to 15 other players, either CPUs, locally, or against others online, to collect power-ups to boost your machine's stats, before you compete in a mini-game with your upgraded vehicle to determine the winner. These range from racing sprints, battles, a gliding mini-game, and Target Flight where you hit score panels. For anyone who has played the original, it all looks familiar but with more robust options and a greater level of chaos. Sakurai has promised there are 'still a lot of things' in Kirby Air Riders they 'weren't able to cover' in this Direct too, so it might be expanded in other ways. As confirmed in the Direct, Kirby Air Riders launches on Nintendo Switch 2 on November 20, 2025, priced at £58.99 in the UK. As such, this might be Nintendo's Christmas title, although we're still waiting on a release date for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: Next gen Xbox will have special hardware just for AI reveals Microsoft MORE: Discounty review – the joys of retail management MORE: Gamescom 2025: how to watch Opening Night Live and all confirmed games
Forbes
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Road To Nintendo Switch 2: ‘Kirby And The Forgotten Land'
Kirby and the Forgotten Land The Switch 2 is less than a month away, and I've been busy barreling through my legacy Switch backlog via my ongoing Road to Nintendo Switch 2 series. We've made some great progress so far with a handful of excellent first-party titles, covering the likes of Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, Super Mario Odyssey, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD and most recently, racing juggernaut Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Odyssey might be my favorite of the bunch, followed closely by Mario Kart. What's next? Well, a breezy adventure with lots of personality, and similar in mechanics to Odyssey: Kirby and the Forgotten Land. Although, instead of transforming into enemies and objects by way of a talking, anthropomorphic hat, you inhale your metamorphosis catalysts like the carnivorous pink balloon you are. By the way, has it ever been, you know, settled? What Kirby is, I mean. Living ball of cotton candy? Sentient marshmallow? Nerfed pufferfish? Giddy gumball? Kirby's incongruity is terrifying, so said someone much wiser than me. Nintendo and HAL Laboratory have released a surprising number of Kirby games over the years, dating way back to 1992 on the original Game Boy, wherein our hero wasn't even pink yet, but a ghostly white. I'd wager this was due to the limitations of the archaic Game Boy display, but he's even white on the box art. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder For the most part, the titles in this long-running platforming franchise are simple to play, easy to enjoy and usually feel aimed at casual players, more so than anything Mario has starred in, I'd argue. In terms of comparison, easy-going Trip World comes to mind, which came out the same year as the original Kirby game and stars a main character that sort of resembles our pink hero, too. Kirby and the Forgotten Land, or Kirby: The Last of Us, as I like to call it (it's strangely post-apocalyptic in its storytelling), follows suit in this tradition of accessible, inviting gameplay. There are challenging moments to be found, however, especially if you want to seek them out through the peripheral bonus areas. Some of the bosses can be a pain as well. Kirby and the Forgotten Land The world is set up like a Mario game, wherein there are overarching maps, and then individual levels situated within these sprawling landscapes. Each stage contains a multitude of hidden creatures called Waddle Dees, and you rescue them by finding the wayward lifeforms by either finding them outright or by completing specific in-level challenges. This would be stuff like beating a boss without getting hit, or finishing a particular area quickly, or collecting items like coffee cups and destroying wanted posters. As titular Kirby, you explore an abandoned planet filled with dead malls (thinking of Dan Bell here), hollow amusement parks, empty cities and barren desert expanses. It's an odd, lonely way to set up a Kirby experience, but it's notably different from anything that came before, and I appreciate that. It can also be strikingly cinematic at times, which is very cool. The setting reminds me of platform-cousin Odyssey's bizarre focus on real humans in New Donk City. There was definitely something weird going on inside Nintendo headquarters during this generation, in that they were bringing beloved, cartoonish characters into realistic situations. Quite surreal. Now I want to see Sony bring Ellie and Joel into something that approximates PaRappa the Rapper's insane, flat, colorful universe. Kick, punch, it's all in the… cordyceps? Kirby and the Forgotten Land Between beating levels, you can return to an RPG-style hometown hub and see what the Waddle Dee's are building, play mini-games, upgrade Kirby's powers, buy health items and procure capsule toys, just like Ryo in Shenmue. Some of the powers are better than others, and I particularly enjoyed using the Gigant sword and musket. Other powers are decidedly annoying to deploy, like the tornado, the ice ability and the dreaded drill. Curse you, drill! The same could be said of Kirby's different transformations; the car, the vending machine and and glider are a blast to use, while the stairs (yes, stairs) and traffic cone can be a bit underwhelming. They're all humorous, though, so it makes up for any cumbersome controls involved. The QTE semi-truck segment toward the end of the game is pretty epic, I must say. It felt like I was playing God of War back in 2005. Speaking of controls, Forgotten Land feels pretty solid, though not nearly as fluid as Odyssey. I honestly don't care for Kirby's floating mechanic at all—it's too squishy and unpredictable—and he runs rather slowly. I'd much prefer a simple double jump, but that's not trademark Kirby, so whatever. Also, it's easy to lose track of him during chaotic scenes, as he sort of blends in with enemies and the environment. Kirby and the Forgotten Land Overall, Kirby and the Forgotten Land is a quality platformer that's very worth playing in 2025. It doesn't reach the dizzying heights of Super Mario Odyssey, but it's a ton of fun, and you can play it co-op. Kirby isn't the most agile character to control, though the game makes up for this drawback with its relentless charm. Interestingly, Forgotten Land is a game that will be receiving a $20 upgrade for the Switch 2, and the update will come with brand new story content (Star-Crossed World, it's called), plus improved graphics and framerate to take advantage of the new console's extra horsepower. Rather pricey for DLC and better visuals/performance, and a bit stingy coming from Nintendo, seeing as Xbox games usually get this sort of performance update for free. It could be worth it, especially with the extra content. That said, It took me roughly 10 hours to complete Forgotten Land this first time around, and I think I'll hold off for the Switch 2 upgrade before diving back in and trying to 100% the game. The legacy Switch version still looks nice, but I'm anticipating the welcome hardware boost come June. Sadly, we've come to the end of this edition of Road to Nintendo Switch 2. Tune in next time for a truly wonderful entry…
