Kirby Air Riders Is Up for Preorder for the Switch 2 (Out November 20)

Kirby Air Riders is set to release exclusively for Nintendo Switch 2 on November 20. Directed by Smash Bros. head Masahiro Sakurai, Kirby Air Riders is a racing game featuring characters from the world of Kirby. It offers battle arenas for vehicular combat, as well as standard tracks for racing. Kirby Air Riders is available for preorder now (see it at Best Buy).

Kirby Airy Riders

Is the Game on the Cart?

If you buy a physical copy of Kirby Air Riders, you can rest assured that the full game will be contained on the cartridge itself.

This isn’t always the case with physical Switch 2 releases. Some boxes just come with a code to download the game. Others come with game-key cards, which don’t contain the game itself, but let you download it and are required to be in the system in order to play it. Finally, there are full game carts that come with the game on them. Kirby Air Riders is the latter, as are all first-party Nintendo games released so far.

What Is Kirby Air Riders?

Kirby Air Riders is a sequel to a GameCube game called Kirby Air Ride (note the lack of "ers" at the end) that came out in 2003. While the original game’s roster was mostly different versions of Kirby, this sequel lets you play as a number of other characters as well, including King Dedede, Meta Knight, Chef Kawasaki, and Bandana Waddle Dee. All of these characters will have Kirby’s patented copy ability, which lets them copy and use the powers of their enemies.

And where the original game featured a single button to press during gameplay, this Switch 2 sequel has added a second button. The B button lets you boost, while the Y button lets you use special abilities. For more info, check out our coverage of everything announced at the Kirby Air Riders Nintendo Direct.

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Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN's board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Bluesky.