In the Kirby Air Riders Direct, broadcast on August 19th 2025, game director Masahiro Sakurai revealed, that one of the main appeals of the upcoming sequel to his 2003 funracing classic Kirby Air Ride would be the expanded roster of playable characters.
The "Riders" in Kirby Air Riders, which is set to release on November 20th 2025, are pulled from across the history of the Kirby franchise. They all come with their own distinct attacks, Specials, costumes, and access to Copy Abilities. So far, 12 representatives of the ever-adorable iconic cast of the games have been confirmed to be playable.
However, we as Kirby fans – just as insatiable as the pink puffball himself – want more, which is why we've come up with our own ideas for which and how 11 additional racers should participate in the occasion. | © Nintendo, HAL Laboratory
The manipulative jester that surprisingly doesn't have any connections to the German socialist of the same name (at least as far as we know; Kirby lore can be very confusing) seems to be conspicuously absent from the game... The former villain is usually one of Sakurai's darlings, with the director even bringing him back as a boss in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018). Him throwing or popping his inflatable ball as a regular attack option and turning into his demon form for his special move seem like such obvious ideas, it makes us wonder if he may already be in the game, and we just haven't seen him yet. | © Nintendo, HAL Laboratory
The caped leader of the mouse gang "Squeak Squad" (just as sinister and threatening as the name suggests) prominently appeared in both Kirby: Squeak Squad (2006) and Kirby Mass Attack (2011), thus positioning him as the perfect candidate to represent the Nintendo DS era of Kirby games, which so far looks to have been ignored character-wise in Kirby Air Riders. Using his Triple Star weapon to send slow, boomerang-like projectiles which could pick up items along the track would certainly give him a unique play style. Summoning other members of the Squad for his Special would rectify the distinct lack of mice we have noticed in the trailers. | © Nintendo, HAL Laboratory
As the surprise final boss of the Japan-exclusive SNES remake of the Game Boy Puzzle Spin-Off Kirby Star Stacker, Gryll would be a real deep-cut addition to the character roster, but a very welcome and fitting one at that. The chaotic witch is rarely seen without her flying broomstick (though admittedly, she is very rarely seen in general), so adding her alongside a new vehicle resembling a witch's broomstick would just make perfect sense. The game already includes motorcycles, of which they'd basically just be flying versions, if you think about. Instead of spamming her opponent's screen with star blocks like in her game of origin, Air Riders could allow her to do the same with the track for her Special. | © Nintendo, HAL Laboratory
Alright, yes, we know: Meta Knight is already in the game and has an alternate costume that makes him resemble Dark Meta Knight. But importantly, the only costumes to enable alternate special moves and abilities have been confirmed to be those of Kirby. Dark Meta Knight, in contrast to the regular version, has displayed abilities reminiscent of the Mirror Copy Ability since Kirby Star Allies (2018), which would go completely unused if he remained a mere alternate outfit. Aside from him being a formidable representative of the GBA Kirby games, just think of how cool it would be if his Special created multiple duplicates of himself to confuse and impede the other racers! | © Nintendo, HAL Laboratory
This is a fun one: Of course we don't want all of Kirby's Animal Friends to have their own spot on the character roster, but their ability-absorbing purposes in the Dream Land games combined with the Copy Abilities in Air Riders could make for an interesting gimmick: Instead of creating unique animations and models for every possible combination of Animal Friend and Copy Ability, let's say, if you're playing as Rick and get the Cutter ability, he automatically gets replaced with Coo, who can shoot his feathers. If you then pick up Spark, you'd transform into ChuChu and so on. And if you're thinking: "Hey, there's only six Animal Friends, but eleven Copy Abilities in Air Riders", don't forget the Animal Friends' companions (like Pick and Nyupun) from Kirby's Dream Land 3, whose inclusion would both be easy and incredible fan service. | © Nintendo, HAL Laboratory
The block-pushing duo has been with Kirby from the very beginning, appearing as bosses in Kirby's Dream Land (1992). They originally appeared in their own game series Eggerland (since 1985), which would make their inclusion in Kirby Air Riders a really nice callback not only to the earliest stages of the Kirby franchise, but also of its developers. The block-pushing duo could ride on one machine as a dual character or just be different color variations of each other, changing only the name, texture and tiny details in the model. In the latter case, it would be amazing if you could switch to their son Lulu from Adventures of Lolo GB (1994) and Grandpa from Adventures of Lolo II (1990) as well. | © Nintendo, HAL Laboratory
Similarly to the last idea, you'd have one character roster slot reserved for all three sisters here and could switch between Francisca, Flamberge and Zan Partizanne by toggling the costume/color variation on the character select menu. They'd share their basic gameplay functionality, voice lines and animations, with only the models and textures changing slightly. And if Sakurai dared to question Kirby's privilege of being the only character whose special move varies between alternate costumes, then they could have interesting attack options via their soda gun, flamethrower and lightning drum as well, becoming the perfect representatives of the Nintendo Switch era of Kirby games. | © Nintendo, HAL Laboratory
If Lololo & Lalala were already stretching the boundaries of what constitutes a "Kirby character", then Qbby from HAL Laboratory's BOXBOY! series of video games would certainly have to be defined as a guest character. But what an amazing choice it would be! His games and Kirby have referenced each other so many times, and their design philosophies are so purposefully opposed to each other that they're practically sister series. Modelling, animating and texturing this newcomer would be fairly simple for... obvious reasons, and a special move where Qbby sends Jobski from Part Time UFO out, so the little saucer friend can grab opponents with his claw machine, would not only add an interesting attack option, but also be the ultimate expression of HAL Laboratory fanservice. | © Nintendo, HAL Laboratory
From what we've seen in Kirby Air Riders gameplay shown so far, some of the rider's special moves have them playing traps on the racetrack, like with Chef Kawasaki's "Superspicy Cooking". Given this, what trap Special could be more obvious than a spider web that opponents can get stuck in and need to wiggle out of to continue the race? Furthermore, from what we've seen so far, there seems not to be a single playable character, with a backstory that includes love, obsession and tragic loss in this child-friendly funracing game, so we really need Taranza for representation purposes. If you really want to hammer home the point, you could let the spider magician summon the vengeful spirit of his deceased partner as a Special, just like in Kirby Star Allies.
Prince of Patch Land and master of the Magic Yarn, Fluff was supposed to be the main protagonist of his own game before it was converted into Kirby's Epic Yarn (2010) and his spotlight was stolen by a similarly round and squishy, but much more pink character, relegating the monarch to the player 2 spot. During the Kirby Air Riders Direct, Sakurai explicitly mentioned how he was aiming for a roster of unique and distinct playable icons, and what could be more unique than a character entirely made out of wool? His regular attack options would be fairly simple to code as well, with the yarn whip possibly reusing the hitbox and animation of Gooey's tongue attack which we already saw in the trailer. And if you're thinking that Fluff wouldn't be able to use Copy Abilities, I'd counter by referring to Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn (2019), where they already designed unique Copy Ability hats for him, taking that burden off the Air Riders' design team's shoulders. | © Nintendo, HAL Laboratory
For some time in the late SNES- and N64 era of the Kirby franchise, Adeleine (or Ado, for short), was an integral part of the main cast of the series. While she was phased out as the quintessential player 4 character in favor of Bandana Waddle Dee after Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (2000), fans never forgot about her. While her ability to bring drawings to life would likely be a bit overwhelming in a racing game, swinging her brush for her regular ability and summoning Ribbon to shoot her crystal projectiles for a special move would be certain to capitalize on the nostalgia of anyone who grew up with Kirby in the late 1990s. | © Nintendo, HAL Laboratory
With Kirby Air Riders putting a lot of emphasis on its diverse roster of playable Kirby icons, we at EarlyGame decided to come up with 11 new ideas for racers movesets and gimmicks of our own; presented to you here in gallery format.
