Here’s a stat you might not know: twenty percent of gamers prefer local multiplayer. This proportion isn’t niche, according to insight shared by MIDiA, that’s a sizeable chunk of gaming’s entire audience saying they want to share their screen with others. For young players between sixteen and nineteen, the percentage jumps to twenty-eight, while local multiplayer is the favourite way to play for twenty-seven percent of all console users. Contextualising these percentages, the latest research estimates there are 3.32 billion gamers worldwide, that’s around six hundred sixty-four million who want to play together.
Now, shallow analysis over; let’s get to the point. What does this data mean? Well, there is significant hunger for couch or local multiplayer games. But here’s the kicker: most studios aren’t cooking, so here’s where Kirby Air Riders is set to swoop in.
While most racers chase competitive matchmatching, battle passes, and cosmetic drops, Kirby Air Riders feels like it’s gliding in from another era. It’s bold, bright, and unashamedly built for shared screens. Nintendo always excels in frictionless, together-on-the-sofa play, but here, with simple mechanics, easy to learn controls, a wealth of engaging modes, plus a thoughtful suite of accessibility features, Kirby Air Riders might just attract anyone, friends, parents, siblings, kids, and even non-gamers, to grab a controller.
First thing to clear up though: Kirby Air Riders is not just a racing game. It’s a “vehicle action game”, with Arena Battles, City Trials, and Air Rides alongside a suite of race modes, from lapping circuits to white-knuckle drag racing. Single player story “Road Trip” aside, each playmode is compatible in multiplayer, both local and online.
Here’s the deal, these multiplayer modes aren’t couch co-op in the strictest sense. You’re not always sharing the same screen. Rather, each player gets their own split view, vertical, horizontal, and the frantic Top Ride where players track the action from a birds-eye view. It all depends on how you set it up, this is chaos easily customised to suit every player’s hunger for mayhem. Add in the quick-access tutorial available in every mode, and even novice gamers will be up to speed in seconds.
And the best part? There’re no patches planned and no DLC. Everything in Kirby Air Riders is available day one. In 2025, “complete at launch” feels almost rebellious.
Hazelight boss Josef Fares, the man behind It Takes Two and Split Fiction, says he doesn’t like live-service games. He goes on, stating: “they’re bad for the industry”. Instead, he proposes that “we should focus on pushing our medium forward: no microtransactions, no BS, just pure gaming love”.
Kirby Air Riders development team echoes this sentiment. To them, Kirby and his pals don’t need a roadmap, they already know where they’re going, and they’re taking you with them. And here’s where it matters: The team’s confidence in Kirby Air Riders’ simplicity might just signal the start of local multiplayer’s real comeback.
Think about it. How often can you boot up a game and worry only about who’s got player two? There’s always a connection, a queue, a grind, or learning curve. Instead, Kirby Air Riders nails immediacy. If MIDiA’s data shows one thing, it’s that lots of people want instant access and shared laughter. Quick drop-in, swift tutorial, go. Multiplayer simplicity like this used to define gaming, now, it feels radical.
If Split Fiction’s playerbase during its first month is anything to go by, approximately four million, for anyone asking, then side-by-side multiplayer is back and Kirby Air Riders’ intensity by proximity is only going to cement its return. Sure, you can play online; there’s no reason to believe it won’t thrill in online spaces. But, the real joy will be in shouting across the room when your friend steals a power-up, or barging elbows as you both sprint to the finish line. Sure, the option is there but Kirby Air Riders won’t be at its best when competing against random usernames, it’ll be when you and your mates, Joy-Cons in hand, flow through Kirby’s latest sugar rush together.
There’s an interesting prediction we can make here too. Kirby Air Riders won’t just revive nostalgia for those who lived through the GameCube era, but will form new habits amongst its younger players. See, those youngsters disinterested in online games and live-service design, which, for the record, are currently the minority, will get to experience how good it feels to share physical space while gaming. It’s too early to say whether the way people consume games will morph into a new social era, but Kirby Air Riders, we suspect, will bridge the gap that’s been growing since the industry shifted focus to online.
Okay, lofty predictions aside. Above everything else, Kirby’s gameplay maintains the one thing Nintendo does better than anyone else: it’s plain fun. Kirby Air Riders is the ultimate party game. See, party games often trade depth for accessibility, but Kirby’s latest side-steps this. Beneath its pastel shades, spritely explosions, and energetic soundtrack lies a surprisingly layered racer. Vehicle choices raise airtime, give weight to bully other racers, or maximise gains from boosting.
We’ve already touched upon its simple-to-learn mechanics, but worth mentioning is the game’s auto-acceleration. See, boosting, intrinsic to lapping quickly, admittedly requires skill to perform. With rides automatically shooting forwards, players instead can focus on squeezing every drop of performance out of boosting. Couple this with deep customisation options, race tweaks, power-up balance, even camera sensitivity, then no-one gets left behind. Each design detail adds up to smoother, friendlier experiences for everyone, and this is underlined by the game’s suite of accessibility options.
And, the inclusivity available here is quietly revolutionary, baked into every system rather than an exercise in box ticking. There’s a visual intensity limiter that adds clear borders around the screen to reduce motion sickness. Colour filters adjust hues for visually impaired or colour-blind participants, while button remapping allows for one-handed control setups without locking you into awkward compromises.
Each feature exists for a reason: to allow anyone to play. The margins are shrinking, but there are still assumptions across the industry that players have full dexterity, perfect vision, and a strong stomach. Kirby Air Riders shows us that accessibility isn’t about lowering the challenge, but about widening participation. It vying for “ultimate party game” status only works if everyone can join in, how many games can you think of that achieve this? Many claim it, Kirby Air Riders means it.
You don’t need to call it anti-live-service to feel a difference. Kirby Air Riders just happens to be one of those games that arrives already full, no post-launch promises, no DLC, no asterisks. It’s confident enough to let you have fun now, with whoever is beside you. And maybe that’s why it’s shaping up to be one of the biggest games of 2025. Because, when other vehicle-based games chase constant engagement, Kirby Air Riders reminds you, if you’re old enough, why you started playing games in the first place: not for progression points and log-in bonuses, but for laughter, rivalry, and chaos shared in the moment. These moments only happen when everyone is in the same room, sharing the same screen. So buckle up, join your mates, and grab a controller.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
