Official Box Art For Kirby Air Riders Revealed, Price And File Size Confirmed

Looks lovely. Definitely looking forward to this game, and maybe getting a Switch 2 just to play this (and any other future Switch 2 exclusive games I'm interested in, of course).

I like the box

I lost all excitement when I read what types of multiplayer options are available for City Trial

“Zip around the city of Skyah in City Trial: a free-for-all battle for 16 players online or 8 players via local wireless”

Playing the City Trial with friends and family was the best part of the original. Looks like it won’t be an option this time

Looks preliminary and it's all thanks to that DAMNED logo

Now that is some nice looking box art.

@YunoboCo The eShop listing confirms 4 player support on the same system?

It is alright. It is a little bland, but it does its job.

Kirby, you're facing the wrong way, and you're about to fall off. 😒

@PikaPhantom Likely for races only based on what they have said and shown

@N00BiSH Right?! It's not bad, but yeah it looks placeholder and unfinished. The logo might as well be in Comic Sans.

That is clean.

@YunoboCo I can confirm the eShop listings of the game in several countries (and probably all) say this:

Same console (1-4)
Local Multiplayer (2-8)
Online Multiplayer (1-16)

@YunoboCo you can almost certainly do an online lobby with 16. 8 player limit was just for purely local multiplayer.

@Markatron84 I think what baffles me the most is the hierarchy on display. Why does "Air Riders" have more importance than "Kirby"?

Taking a sharpie to my local gamestop and drawing angry eyebrows on all the boxes so people will buy it

Wait Kirby's not angry? We've come a long way 😆

@N00BiSH agree, the logo is horrendous.

Sorry but the red banner over the top of these boxes ⁠are a disgusting waste of space

Fuggen Kirbs - gets me every time 😍

@Metazoxan I was talking about same system multiplayer, not online

If what I am reading is true, you would have to buy 4 copies of the game and have 4 Switch 2s in order to play City Trial 4 player (like the OG)

ngl i was waiting for them to reveal the actual updated logo the whole video. i feel like its trying to go for the sleek simplicity of the smash ultimate but it doesnt feel fit imo, kirby should be allowed to have his cute flashy logo

otherwise great looking game

@N00BiSH Probably due to the same reason Sakurai mentioned in the Direct - while Kirby is still the star of the show, there should be more emphasis on the fact that you can race as several other 'Riders' too.

I really like the sleekness of the logo (hot take, I know haha), and this game took really fun. I went from "only interested because of Sakurai's involvement" to " wait maybe I am actually hyped now" verrrry quickly!

I don’t know about that font.

25 GB!? Looks like I may get this physical if I get it at all.

Its a shame that this is rated E 10 as I would have loved to show my 7 year old son the joys of kirby air ride.

@YunoboCo Wait so is city trial not able to be played on one console with 4 people? If so.... that's a major problem. I haven't seen the direct yet (at work) but the limited videos I've seen have looked amazing. Really concerned if this is true, as the original game was one of my favorite games as a kid.

That's one of the ugliest freaking logos I've ever seen. They might as well have gone with Times New Roman. Jeez. I thought it was just a placeholder.

@Huntrix3 Dude, I’m all for limits on what young kids should be exposed to, but those ratings are just guidelines, and they’re not very granular. Use your own judgment, that’s my advice.

Looks like about $50 worth of cool.

@NinjaWaddleDee I hope that I am wrong, but from what I’m seeing it isn’t looking good

Box art is not great. A lot of empty space and yeah that logo is a total mismatch.

What an appallingly boring font... 🤔

The game looks good, but I don't know if it's worth $70 to me. Come November, there are going to be other games that I think I'd rather spend my money on.

@YunoboCo Agreed, split screen multiplayer is an absolute must for City Trial. Without this option it's gonna be a hard pass.

@LastFootnote Lots of criminals started off playing violent video games underage

The boxart looks good to me. In comparison to the original, being muted colors focusing on Kirby flying. This one shows a lot more, shows multiple characters and riders, and in a way, the city trials.

Granted the OG did have the better logo

@Olmectron local wireless play?

@Huntrix3 I already ranted about it, but let me bring this topic once again.
Even if a game is rated E10+, the violence and themes tend to be mild.
I'm convinced the ESRB doesn't know what E10+ originally stood for.

Something like Donkey Kong Jungle Beat on the GC or Mario Strikers Charged on the Wii are well worthy of the E10+ rating because the characters do go out of character and I'd say are even more aggresive and violent than even Smash Bros.
The modern Sonic games I'd say are also worthy of E10+ for their themes of serious death and destruction to a degree that goes a bit above what you'd expect from a game aimed at all ages. The gameplay itself is tame.

The Kirby games, however, are a stretch. Nothing in them is as aggresive, violent or suggestive as the examples I mentioned. At most you get a final boss that bleeds, which penalizes the entire game to that rating. And from what was shown, I suppose that dark creature riding a dark Wheelie Bike at the end might fill that criteria.

For reference, Puyo Puyo Tetris 1 and 2 are also rated E10+: Really, a puzzle series? What's it doing to get that rating? I mean, it deals with the destruction of the Puyo Puyo and Tetris worlds due to the merger, but it doesn't present it as a serious threat as in the Sonics. In my past comment on the link, I previously mentioned Satan/Dark Prince declaring his love for Arle Nadja.
Also, Mario Strikers: Battle League is also rated E10+, but it is the mildest in the series. Super Mario Strikers on the GC is more violent and gritty and it still got an E at a time E10+ was already a thing.

I'd agree if Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie were bumped from E to E10+, playing them again in 2021 after 20 years made me realize these games are gore for kids: characters blow up and get dismembered for no reason when they're defeated but is done in a cartoonish way and not a single splash of blood is seen.

Anyway, I'm going off a tangent here.
I like the box art, but the logo is seriously lacking. I was hoping that wasn't the final logo. Unfortunately, it follows the simplicity of the Japanese logo.
The illustration does the job of representing the fact you have more playable characters compared to the original, which was just Kirby for the most part.

Man this game obviously must have even more big stuff if this is 25 gigs. Just as big if not even bigger than Mario Kart must mean Sakurai is the goat of giving us so much information yet having even more on the way

@HammerGalladeBro There's a lot of swordplay and stealing vehicles from others. An underage kid not old enough to know better can get the wrong idea

Genuinely was looking forward to seeing what would replace the placeholder text from previous reveals 🤣

Oh well. At least… I mean it’s a boxart to be sure.

@LastFootnote since it’s a Nintendo game, at least it’ll all be on the card

Gorgeous box art, mid logo though

@Fighting_Game_Loser yeah I'm surprised more people aren't talking about that. How in the world does this game with basic cartoon textures and a single small island stage take up 25 gigs?

Actually, I think that makes it the largest first party Nintendo game ever, right?

This is my most anticipated Switch 2 game, since all I mostly play are racing games.

@Huntrix3 Just have a talk with your son and tell him not to do the stuff in the game.

that's a chunky file size but I'm still going digital for this one, racing games are something that I typically don't play in long sessions but rather sporadically in short bursts so having them digitally makes way more sense in my case

@8bit-Man @NinjaWaddleDee @YunoboCo In the City Trial character select screen, there is a prompt on the top right of the screen which states "A: P2/P3/P4 JOIN" so it's likely City Trial does still support local split screen multiplayer. Not sure why it's not mentioned in the game description, but I hope Nintendo clarifies soon because I see a lot of people assuming the worst here. I'd also be very upset if it didn't support local play but I think it does.

@mystman12 I really hope you are right! I just saw it myself, and it seems like it might still be playable in split screen. Hopefully this was just a false alarm!

@Yodalovesu I believe so. Mario Kart World was around 24 gigs at launch so I assume they must have something big in it. Obviously cartoony and unrealistic styles can still be super big in size depending on how detailed it can get with things like animations, since games like Crash 4 were around that size and also look beautiful (PS4 possibly even being twice the size lol). The maps themselves do also look super beautiful but I know that this size is weird just because Nintendo are gods of compression, so that's why I'm thinking Sakurai has something even more for us later, not to mention the full $70 price tag

@Bobb It's got the American rating.

@Huntrix3 Brother, if your kid goes out and carjacks someone with a sword, you're the problem not Kirby.

The first one was so underrated. This one looks good, too. I'll get it one day when I have a Switch 2.

The box-art isn't anything marvelous, in fact seeing Kirby with a normal happy expression shows how the need to make Kirby "hardcore" in the west has faded in recent years. To be honest though, I think that would've helped sell this game as an action racer.
25GB by the way, I won't be surprised if that number is reduced in the coming months, and it's certainly bigger than even Mario Kart World. If this will be a $69.99 game, then it better be worth that amount. It has potential certainly.

cute box art! ill be buying digital as usual (sorry to the physical lovers 💔)! thats kinda a big file size, really looking forward to updates on this title

It would look better with the classic Kirby font with the big bright rounded letters

@mystman12 That's good. I trust Sakurai to understand what made the original so great, so I'm sure he prioritized that.

@Kingy There are studies showing how media can influence kids. Kids who play grand theft auto are more likely if not likely to become criminals

not a huge fan tbh. like others have said, the logo sucks and art is bland. not the worst tho.

@Yodalovesu @Fighting_Game_Loser I'm pretty sure this wouldn't be a first-party game, right? Sora is independent, and Bandai Namco is their own thing. Nintendo's probably publishing it though.

They think we're gonna pay $70 for this. 🤣

I really thought this was going to be a $40 game.

Is $70? The new $40?

The font and black letters in the title make the box art look weird.

Cover art looks incredibly generic. Colors feel off too.

Wow. Full price. Ok. Went from "meh" to "hmm why not" to "no way" real quick.

@AussieMcBucket it's a Hal game and they are a second party dev., but they co-own Kirby with Nintendo. And it will be published by Nintendo. I have no idea what that makes this game lol.

@Dang_69 Actually, he specifically told us it was not a HAL game. Unless Sora considers itself to be part of them.
And yeah, haha.

Great, only 70 $! Im glad Nintendo is selling it cheap instead of going for the 80 $, definedly a big win for fans.

He should focus on smash bros

This game looks insanely good as a Kirby Air Ride fan, $70 is still a bit hard to justify for more of an arcade experience. I'm sure I'll be tempted to get it day 1.

@YunoboCo Hopefully you see this, I thought the same thing, I immediately went to the main page for the game because they often list those details that are normally on the back of the physical box. It details for a Single Console: 1-4 Players, which is what I would expect, and leaves me cautiously optimistic that there is definitive split-screen they just decided to leave it out for some reason.

@AussieMcBucket Sora is his studio (just him and his wife) who works for Hal or Nintendo usually with Bandai. Even look at the game profile under comments section, it lists Hal. He said the Hal president asked him to make this

@NinjaFrog4884 Hopefully you can play 4 player on all the game modes, it would be unfortunate if that doesn’t happen.

Only thing that worries me is that they didn’t mention it at all.

Hmm no that doesn’t look so great. They should have used more of the teaser aesthetic: Some depth of field and those flower ‘particles’. This looks very random and just like every previous Kirby cover.

I loved the Direct, but I was really hoping this was going to be a $59.99 USD title. The writing was on the wall when PRINCESS PEACH: SHOWTIME was $60.00 USD....

Best thing I can say is that at least there's no ugly Game Key Card jargon taking up the bottom of the picture.

Font aside, which does look a bit generic the longer you look at it, I like the box art. Feels nostalgic for some reason, kind of like the GameCube days. Although ironically, the original GC game actually had the stylized logo.

@Dang_69 He and his wife? I assume there are other staff people, no? Or is it just a production company? And I did see that Nintendo Life has HAL listed. But I encourage you to watch the Direct again, he specifically says at the beginning that it is not being developed by HAL but rather Sora and Bandai Namco.

@mystman12 huge if true, that gives me some hope!

@AussieMcBucket as far as I know there have been at least two different versions of Sora. Sora LTD and Project Sora. Project Sora had a full team of people and made Uprising. But Sora existed before that and after that. The Sora LTD thing was a way to have him not just be a freelance hire for Nintendo, they were entering in a contract with a LTD, which he formed after Melee. I believe it's just him and his wife, that's why he's always partnering with Bandai Namco so there are actual bodies working for him. Also I know Hal isn't developing the game, but isn't it still technically a Hal game? It's like having GoodFeel do a Yoshi game and it's still a Nintendo game. Though obvious Nintendo and Hal co-own Kirby, so it's also a Nintendo game. I'll watch it again

@Dang_69 Ahhh, okay. How confusing. Haha.
As far as I know, the only connection with HAL is that they asked him to make it. And as you say, they own Kirby rights. And I think the Good-Feel games are usually published by Nintendo. But I'm not sure. Okay, yes. Nintendo publishes their games with Nintendo properties in them.

Wikipedia does not have HAL associated with Riders at all, for what that's worth.

Nah we got a do a Box Art Brawl for this one, but pit it against what I think looks much better!

@YunoboCo it's because the game won't run at 60fps in a 4 player split screen scenario

@Fighting_Game_Loser there's full motion video scenes instead of in-game engine. That's a big chunk of it

The GameCube font was so much better. Hoping they will still make some changes to this before release. But I do like the artwork, it's dynamic and colourful.

@YunoboCo this is one of the screenshots on IGN
https://assets-prd.ignimgs.com/2025/08/19/switch2-kirbyairriders-citytrials-scrn-47-1755617957438.png

Wake me up when it's 20 dollars or it's 2002 again.

@Broosh The last box art Kirby looked angry on was 10 years ago.

@ROMhaiku It's what's on the insert that counts.