‘Kirby Air Riders’ Next Big Update To Be Its Last, Will Make Sure Switch 2 Killer App Can Be “Enjoyed Without Issues Even Years From Now”
Despite arguably being the Nintendo Switch 2’s best platform-exclusive title, Kirby Air Riders director Masahiro Sakurai has announced that the game’s next major update will likely be its last, as to allow him and his fellow devs to flex their creative muscles on new projects.
One of the last few game developers who both respects and understands the ‘game’ aspect of video games, Sakurai confirmed the upcoming end of his latest title’s life span via a December 11th post made to his personal Twitter account.
Retweeting the official Nintendo customer service account’s notice regarding the release of Kirby Air Riders‘ Ver 1.2.0 update, its contents consisting of a number of balance, bug, and quality of life adjustments, the Super Smash Bros. director informed players, “We mentioned in Air Riders Direct 2, Kirby Air Riders does not have a production system for DLC or similar content. As such, the team will be disbanding in the near future.
“Therefore, while we still have time to make adjustments, we are aiming for a balance that will remain enjoyable for years to come,” he added, as machine translated by DeepL. “We may be able to make one more round of adjustments, but after that, please enjoy the game with its final balance!”
While undoubtedly a bit of disheartening news for the game’s surprisingly large player base, including the 195,594 Japanese players who helped rocket the game to the top of its opening week sales charts, that Sakurai and his team are looking to move on, as well as the diligence they’re doing in ensuring they can leave Kirby Air Riders in a ‘forever playable’ state.
Whereas decades past saw devs constantly working on ever-new titles, taking their Ws and Ls where appropriate rather than incessantly nitpicking it over time in an ill-fated hope of pleasing everyone, the post-2007 corporatization of the video game industry has led to it now being far more common for a dev to stay shackled to a given project for years at a time, in doing so depriving them of the opportunity to actually make games – and for those unlucky enough to have their projects cancelled, common NDA language prevents them from even listing their relevant work on their resumes.
And these aren’t just any devs, but rather a select team who spent the last few years under the direct oversight and tutelage of Sakurai, meaning their disbandment and subsequent spreading out into the larger industry could stand to ‘infect’ their peers with a better understanding of the medium they work in, and thus better, more worth while games for players.
In regards to Kirby Air Riders itself, while the confirmation that it will not be micro-managed for years is likely cause some level of outrage among its more competitive, Super Smash Bros. Melee-adjacent crowds, that the team are doing their best to make sure it remains in as much of a ‘forever balanced’ state is a move that should not only be welcome, but made standard across the industry.
After all, doing so both ensures the game can enjoy a healthy lifespan for years to come, with any ‘rule changes’ being the sole prerogative of a given player or tournament organizer, and allows for future reprints of the game to be complete, and thus fully playable on-disc without requiring any sort of internet connection, a major win for future playability and preservation.
At present, the Kirby Air Riders team yet to announce any firm date for either their disbandment or the release of the game’s last update.
