Characters we’d like to see in Kirby Air Riders

Today, we’re going over some characters we’d like to see in the final version of Kirby Air Riders.

Kirby Air Riders recently received a big 45-minute Nintendo Direct presentation with tons of info and character reveals, including the newly-announced November 20 release date. During the presentation, game director Masahiro Sakurai commented that the game is called “Air Riders” because this time around, you can choose from multiple riders rather than just Kirby (and King Dedede and Meta Knight, who were unlockable in the original). 

Right now, Kirby Air Riders has a decent-sized roster: it includes Kirby, Dedede, Meta Knight, Bandana Waddle Dee, Chef Kawasaki, Cappy, Magolor, Gooey, Waddle Doo, Knuckle Joe, Susie, and Starman. But during the Nintendo Direct, Sakurai stated that there was more information to reveal prior to the game’s launch in November. Though it’s entirely possible we’ve seen the final roster for the game, it’s also possible that there are hidden or unlockable characters. 

Likely characters

Let’s start off with some safe picks. Taranza is an easy one – Magolor appeared in Kirby’s Return to Dream Land, Susie showed up in Kirby: Planet Robobot, and Taranza can be found in Kirby Triple Deluxe. At the moment, though, only Magolor and Susie are confirmed for Kirby Air Riders. Another easy choice is Marx, and we’re a bit surprised that he wasn’t confirmed during the Nintendo Direct given that he even appeared in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as a boss character. You would think Elfilin is another lock for the game, and he may very well be in it – but Kirby Air Riders entered development in 2022, which is the same year Kirby and the Forgotten Land first released. It’s possible that this overlap does in fact prevent Elfilin from being in the game, which would be kind of a shame.

It’s also possible that we see more enemy characters added. Right now, the playable enemies we have are ones that don’t grant elemental Copy Abilities – like Knuckle Joe and Starman. In Kirby Air Riders, many different kinds of enemies appear on the field and riders can copy abilities from them. The enemies we’ve seen so far include Blade Knight, Sir Kibble, and Walky, among others. It’s unclear if this deconfirms them as playable characters or not. But regardless, we’ll fire off a bunch of enemies that would be cool to see playable in the game: Blipper, Poppy Bros. Jr., Chilly, Hot Head, Noddy, Rocky, Sparky, Bouncy, Gim, Simirror, and maybe some from more recent games like Awoofy or Driblee. We won’t see even a fraction of these characters most likely, but it’s always fun to speculate in the meantime!

We could also see other major Kirby characters like Adeleine, Ribbon, Daroach, and the Three Mage-Sisters from Kirby Star Allies. It’s not clear how likely any of these riders would be, but they’re all fairly major characters in the Kirby series so it wouldn’t be particularly surprising to see them added to the game.

Deep-cut characters

To be clear, everything in this section is extremely unlikely. Historically speaking, though, Sakurai seems to like adding strange characters to Super Smash Bros. games – we’ve seen this with Mr. Game & Watch, R.O.B., Duck Hunt, and Piranha Plant. It would make some sort of sense that a couple of Kirby Air Riders’ potential unrevealed characters would be deep cuts, then, and we’ve come up with a few interesting ideas.

Sakurai was actually involved with the Kirby anime back when it was running, and supposedly supervised some of its production. Many of its exclusive characters are deep cuts now, though, but it would be surprising to see riders like Escargoon or even the NME Salesman in the game as hidden characters. These two haven’t appeared in a Kirby game since Kirby Mass Attack many years ago, and even then they only appeared as cameos and didn’t have any dialogue. 

We have more ideas for deep cut riders, too. These are characters who have not appeared in Kirby games for many years, or only appeared in the game they debuted in. They’re not very likely to be included in Kirby Air Riders, but again, speculating is always fun! Some examples of obscure riders that would be interesting to see in-game: Yin-Yarn, Phan Phan, Paint Roller, Drawcia, Claycia, President Haltmann (even though he’s technically dead now), Prince Fluff, Nightmare, Captain Vul from Kirby Super Star, the Fairy Queen from Kirby 64, and Shadow Kirby from Amazing Mirror. There are tons of options for creative character choices in this game. The existing roster isn’t bad by any means, and has a good balance of characters. But it’d be nice to see some more!

We also don’t expect any crossover characters to appear in this game. It’s theoretically possible, but especially given the existence of Mario Kart World, it would make sense for Nintendo to keep both games’ rosters confined to their respective franchises. Theoretically, putting Kirby in Mario Kart might bring awareness to Kirby Air Riders, but it could also hurt sales of the game if players simply decide to play as Kirby in Mario Kart rather than playing Air Riders.

What characters do you most want to see in Kirby Air Riders? Feel free to let us know in the comments down below.