Now that Kirby Air Riders is out, everyone is making the same joke about Nintendo immediately asking Masahiro Sakurai to work on Super Smash Bros 6: "Alright. We let you make Air Riders. You know what comes next…"

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Kid Icarus Uprising 2, obviously

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
(Image credit: Nintendo)

Now that Kirby Air Riders is out in the world, everyone is thinking the same thing – Nintendo is about to move Masahiro Sakurai back to the Smash Bros. mines.

Since Kirby Air Riders was one of the first games Nintendo announced for the Switch 2 way back in April, there was a prevailing theory among Nintendo fans: that this was Nintendo letting Sakurai make a "one for you" passion project before evoking a "one for us" and sending him back to make a new Super Smash Bros. game. After all, from Smash 4 starting development in 2012 to the Ultimate's Sora DLC releasing in 2021, he worked on Smash basically non-stop. And now that Air Riders is out, the Smash memes haven't stopped flowing.

Not even an hour after Kirby Air Riders released in Japan, Twitter user TheNCSmaster kicked off the memes with the classic Akakichi no Eleven hand-on-shoulder meme saying, "Nintendo bout to go to Sakurai like: 'Alright. We let you make Air Riders. You know what comes next…'"

What followed was a flood of memes in the same vein. Another user reposts the tweet, adding: "Sakurai when he checks his emails and sees an email titled 'Smash Bros 6'," with Paul Rudd cringing at a desk in reaction to Nude Tayne in the classic Tim and Eric sketch.

Of course, Sakurai himself has outright said Nintendo asked him to make the racer – not the other way around – but obviously that hasn't stopped players from thinking he'll be dragged kicking and screaming back into the Smash Bros. dimension. And while I did get a chuckle out of the joke about Nintendo getting mad at Sakurai for suggesting Kid Icarus (even though a version of Uprising that doesn't give you wrist pain would be a legitimate 10/10 game), plenty are hopeful that Smash 6 is next up.

Masahiro Sakurai maybe gave Kirby Air Riders players too much power as there already multiple scantily clad versions of Chef Kawasaki flooding the vehicle market.

Scott McCrae
Scott McCrae
Contributor

Scott has been freelancing for over three years across a number of different gaming publications, first appearing on GamesRadar+ in 2024. He has also written for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, VG247, Play, TechRadar, and others. He's typically rambling about Metal Gear Solid, God Hand, or any other PS2-era titles that rarely (if ever) get sequels.

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