Kirby Air Riders Preview: Greed For Speed

Kirby Air Riders is racing onto the Nintendo Switch 2 later this year, and after going hands-on with the game at Gamescom 2025 it’ll easily surpass Mario Kart World in my eyes.

I should preface this by saying I love Kirby Air Ride. I own a copy on the Nintendo GameCube and like many I love how unique it is as a racing game. The City Trial mode was an ingenious way to do a battle-royale, and structuring a racer around breaking rather than accelerating was inspired for its time.

After playing Kirby Air Riders I already think it exceeded its predecessor, and featured some of the most chaotic and whacky racing I’ve ever experienced.

The brunt of the demo was the new-and-improved City Trial mode, which sees players race across a map collecting power-ups and engaging in limited-time special events. Collecting as many power-ups as possible in a short space of time is integral to this mode as the more you collect the better your chances of winning the main event, a head-to-head battle in a mode of your choosing. Examples include gliding through the air towards a board of targets, each one having a different point value assigned to them, or a drag-race where you need to cross the finish line first.

What power-ups you collected prior to the main event will determine which mode you should compete in, for example power-ups that grant you speed boosts will be better for racing, but ultimately the choice is yours.

Nintendo

You can also KO your opponents in the City Trial mode to knock some of their power-ups out of them, meaning they have to collect more.

Kirby Air RIders doesn’t hold back when it comes to speed either. Like the first game in the series there is no button to accelerate, your vehicle will do that on its own. Instead the player needs to master the drift button for boosts in speed as well as the button that absorbs and uses power-ups. You can also flick the control stick for a spin-attack that’ll deal damage to enemies and other players.

At one point I collected so many power-ups in the City Trial mode that I was legitimately bouncing from one side of the map to the other in milliseconds, knocking out anyone and anything I came into contact with like a comet.

Unfortunately we didn’t get to try out any actual races, but I’d imagine they’ll play exactly like they did on Kirby Air Ride, albeit at greater speeds and with additional power-ups. City Trial is where the majority of fun is to be had though, I guarantee it.

Kirby Air Riders was so much fun I booted up my GameCube when I got home from Gamescom to play the original, and I’m hoping it’ll be added to Nintendo Switch Online soon so players can get a taste of what’s to come when the sequel drops in November.