Sakurai explains why he made Kirby Air Riders

In today’s Kirby Air Riders Direct, director Masahiro Sakurai gave more background information regarding how the project came to be, including why he made the game.

It turns out that Shinya Takahashi, head of software development at Nintendo and former HAL Laboratory president Satoshi Mitsuhara really wanted to make it happen. Sakurai was busy with DLC for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate at the time, but he “managed to complete a written proposal at high speed.”

Also, we have confirmation that Bandai Namco is behind the development for Kirby Air Riders along with Sakurai’s company, Sora. This is the same tag team behind Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Sakurai weighed in on the game’s name as well. Kirby Air Riders was chosen since now you can choose your rider. The series’ previous entry did have a couple of other characters, but Kirby was basically your only rider. The last one was simply called Kirby Air Ride.

It was just revealed today that Kirby Air Riders is coming to Nintendo Switch on November 20, 2025. We have tons of information about the game here.