Earlier this week, Nintendo finally unveiled all the juicy details surrounding the Switch 2. Towards the end of the presentation, it was revealed that Kirby Air Riders was one of the games being developed exclusively for the Switch 2.
While this news was certainly exciting for fans of Kirby Air Ride (originally released on the GameCube back in 2003 and 2004), its existence means that it’ll be quite a few years before fans of Super Smash Bros. are able to get ahold of the next iteration of the Super Smash Bros. franchise on the Switch 2.
Prior to this announcement, Masahiro Sakurai revealed that he had been working on a secret game project since April 2022. Indeed, it’s been approximately three years since production first started, but it’s finally been confirmed that Kirby Air Riders is the game that Sakurai has been working on all this time.
At the conclusion of the Kirby Air Riders trailer, fans learned that the companies involved with this game were Sora Ltd. (Sakurai’s company), Nintendo, and HAL Laboratory. However, Sakurai would later reveal that another company is actually directly involved with the development of this title.
Just like Super Smash Bros. for Wii U & 3DS and Ultimate, the recently announced “Kirby Air Riders” game is also being developed by Bandai Namco Studios.
The full staff is giving their all in developing the game, but it will take some time before we can share more information.…
— 桜井 政博 / Masahiro Sakurai (@Sora_Sakurai) April 3, 2025
“Just like Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U & 3DS and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the recently announced ‘Kirby Air Riders’ game is also being developed by Bandai Namco Studios,” said Sakurai on X.
“The full staff is giving their all in developing the game, but it will take some time before we can share more information. Please wait a bit longer.”
For the third time in a row (or fourth if you count Super Smash Bros. for the 3DS and Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U separately), Masahiro Sakurai is directly working with Bandai Namco to work on a major title for Nintendo.
Kirby Air Riders is set to be released sometime before the end of this year. As of right now, it’s unknown if the game will see DLC support after it gets released, but it looks like the type of game that may not necessarily need post-launch content like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate did for the Switch (which could explain Kirby Air Riders’ especially long development cycle).
Once Kirby Air Riders is finished, Masahiro Sakurai might immediately move on to his next project. As such, it’s very likely that Nintendo will request that Sakurai create a game proposal for a new Super Smash Bros. entry on the Switch 2, assuming they haven’t done so already.
Notably, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the third best-selling game on the Switch as it had recently achieved over 35.88 million sales to date. Needless to say, Nintendo probably has a vested interest in having a new entry of the Super Smash Bros. series created for the Switch 2 at some point or another.
Regardless, once Kirby Air Riders is finished with, that team at Bandai Namco will also be moving on to their next project. Odds are good that Sakurai may choose to rely on them for a fourth (or fifth) time to develop his next game.
At this point, it’s been established that fans of the Super Smash Bros. fans have a long wait ahead of them, but development on another entry could potentially start up near the end of this year or at the start of 2026. We’ll just have to see how things play out from here to find out.
Source: Event Hubs