Earlier today, Nintendo presented their Switch 2 Direct livestream in which they revealed details about the upcoming console and a few games from its library. It’s set to launch on June 5, 2025 for a starting price of $449.99.
During this presentation, Kirby Air Riders was revealed. This title will essentially serve as the sequel for the GameCube’s Kirby Air Ride, released back in 2003 and 2004.
Towards the end of the trailer, it was confirmed that Masahiro Sakurai will be reprising his role as the Director of Kirby Air Riders. It turns out that this was the game that Sakurai had been working on all this time.
Indeed, we learned from Sakurai that he had been working on a secret game project since April 2022. Based on this, we can conclude that Kirby Air Riders has been in development for about three years now.
According to Sakurai, he had received the request to create the proposal for Kirby Air Riders back in July 2021 while he was still juggling the development of Tekken’s Kazuya and Kingdom Hearts’ Sora as DLC for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. He apparently completed this proposal at “lightning speed.”
From this information, we were able to correctly deduce that Sakurai was developing some game for the Switch 2 as only Nintendo would’ve known just how close to completion Sakurai’s current workload was back then.
There were plenty of reasons to suspect that Sakurai could’ve been working on the next entry in the Super Smash Bros. series. It would make a lot of sense considering that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is known to be the third best-selling game on the Switch with over 35.88 million sales to date.
Looking back, Sakurai did declare that he wasn’t thinking of a Super Smash Bros. sequel shortly after completing the game proposal for the then unknown secret game project. Of course, there was always the possibility that Sakurai had to resort to giving a misleading answer for the sake of keeping his work a secret, but we now know that this didn’t end up being the case this time.
And thus, it’s been revealed that Sakurai’s secret game project is Kirby Air Riders for the Switch 2. It’s set to be released sometime this year, but other details about the game are still shrouded in mystery.
Needless to say, it’s an interesting choice to have Sakurai work on a racing game when Mario Kart World, Nintendo’s most popular racing game, for the Switch 2 is set to be a launch title. Mario Kart World will essentially be the successor to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the Switch’s best-selling game.
Regardless, Kirby Air Ride for the GameCube has an interesting history. It was the last game that Masahiro Sakurai developed before leaving HAL to become a freelance developer.
Shortly after the release of Kirby Air Ride, Sakurai felt a certain pressure from the gaming industry that ultimately resulted in how he came to his decision. Rather than actually looking at what the game brought to the table, everyone was already talking about the prospects of a sequel.
Needless to say, Sakurai’s decision to leave HAL placed a great deal of uncertainty on the future of the Super Smash Bros. series with Super Smash Bros. Melee being the latest iteration at the time. Fortunately, Satoru Iwata, the President of Nintendo at the time, specifically went out of his way to enlist Sakurai’s expertise to develop Super Smash Bros. on the Wii, which we now know as Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
Evidently, we’re in for a long wait until the next Super Smash Bros. entry, which will likely be on the Switch 2 at some point. It’s currently too difficult to fathom how any game in the franchise can be developed without Sakurai’s direct involvement.
Although we can’t say anything for sure with regards to the future of the Super Smash Bros. series, it’s plausible to think that Sakurai will probably begin development after he’s finished with Kirby Air Riders — though whether or not that will include DLC is currently unknown.
Ultimately, a number of years of development will be required once Sakurai is finally ready to begin the massive undertaking of following up after Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. As such, we’ve got a long wait ahead of us.
Source: Event Hubs
