Nintendo has confirmed details on its next Nintendo Direct stream — and this should be a beefy one: according to the Switch 2 maker, the event will be all about Kirby Air Riders, with game director Masahiro Sakurai sharing details over the project for about 60 minutes or so.
That…a lot of Kirby shenanigans…
Not that this is a first, nor a first for Kirby Air Riders, per se: in August, another stream was also dedicated to the game, clocking in at about 45 minutes — just a little less than next Nintendo Direct stream’s.
Kirby Air Riders: what the next Nintendo Direct star is all about
Kirby Air Riders is probably a game I would call “weirdly anticipated”, in the sense that it’s not really a major heavyweight, needle-mover game like your Marios and Zeldas, but as far as Nintendo IPs go, the next Nintendo Direct star has some people curious.
During Gamescom, several outlets — not us, sadly — had a chance to play a demo of it, and pretty much all of them dismissed Sakurai’s earlier statements that the game is “basically Mario Kart”. IGN, in fact, says the similarities between the two titles begin and end on “a bunch of Nintendo characters racing” before pointing out a lot of differences and unique aspects for the game in its preview.
Some others declared it a party game, but with a heavy racing component: Nintendo Life tells us about capturing enemies at the same time you drift/glide/fly, highlighting so many different features that seemingly flow fluidly in a way that doesn’t feel neither lacking nor cluttering.
It is worth noting that Nintendo putting some effort on promoting the game in its next stream is not at all surprising: Kirby Air Riders comes out on November 20, exclusively on the Switch 2 — and given that month’s bit of a dry spell when it comes to releases, this one just might be the giant success it maybe wasn’t meant to be.
At any rate, we’ll likely know more during the livestream, which will air on October 23, at 6 a.m. PT or 9 a.m. ET. You can watch it on YouTube and Twitch, along with the Nintendo Today app.
