Sakurai explains how Road Trip came to be in Kirby Air Riders, shares different ideas that were considered

Road Trip is a major feature in Kirby Air Riders as it is essentially that game’s story mode. In a new post, director Masahiro Sakurai explained how it came to be.

According to Sakurai, Road Trip wasn’t in the initial design planning stage. However, he knew some players would want some single-player elements. He explained that “When considering how to pull together existing gameplay elements to keep players playing long-term, the only real option was to give them a series of challenges.”

Sakurai also said that it was considered making a mode in which :a whole lot of characters would attack one by one as rivals” and “perhaps using a system like the events in City Trial to give players specific tasks to achieve.” However, we ultimately ended up with Road Trip in its final form.

Sakurai’s full words:

We didn’t have Road Trip in the initial design planning stage, but players would surely want some more elements that can be enjoyed in single player, so…

I know they’ll have fun playing City Trial and Air Ride, but I felt as though repeating a few minutes of gameplay isn’t quite enough for a modern title.

However, there were no additional gameplay elements we could add. When considering how to pull together existing gameplay elements to keep players playing long-term, the only real option was to give them a series of challenges. Win in a race, or win in a battle. That’s all there is to it.

I did, for instance, consider adding a mode where a whole lot of characters would attack one by one as rivals, each getting their moment in the spotlight, or perhaps using a system like the events in City Trial to give players specific tasks to achieve.

But clearing them one by one the entire way through would become tedious, so I thought of framing it as a journey, letting players choose from three branching paths, and even adding larger branches that would create a variety of different worlds. After exploring these ideas in depth, I felt as though I could put together the basic game for Road Trip.

The problem then was the story… Why do the Riders ride?

We’ve also heard from Sakurai about why Kirby Air Riders’ roster has many enemy characters and why the old City Trial map wasn’t brought back. He also revealed that he wrote the main theme song lyrics and explained why he previously kept that information under wraps.