Kirby Air Riders Is Letting King Dedede, Meta Knight, Waddle Dee, Others Use Copy Abilities for the First Time

What do you know about Kirby? Well, he’s round, he’s pink. And he can suck up and eat just about anything, and steal whatever powers that thing has. Those are the fundamental tenants of who Kirby is, and for over 30 years, no one has tried to encroach on Kirby’s turf. No one else in Nintendo’s roster can do what Kirby does.

Until now.

During today’s Nintendo Direct dedicated to Kirby Air Riders, Masahiro Sakurai revealed that for the purpose of gameplay balance, every character in Kirby Air Riders will have the same copy abilities as Kirby. As he explains it:

“This game is in the Kirby series, which means Kirby can obtain different Copy Abilities from enemies. That skill is unique to him. But that would create an advantage over the other riders and also creat etoo much of a gap in the fun. So here, we made it so that other riders can also use Copy Abilities!”

While they’re not eating enemies to get their powers, they use a move called “Capture” that has unique animations for each character. For instance, Chef Kawasaki grabs enemies with a ladle, and Gooey uses his tongue. Any rider can use this ability by hitting the Boost Charge button, or B button, when the thing they want to copy is in front of them. Once it’s copied, just like Kirby, they get a hat indicating the power they’ve obtained, and the ability to use that power. Powers vary from moves that disrupt other riders to buffs like speed boosts.

The following Copy Abilities have been confirmed for the game:

• Fire
• Sword
• Bomb
• Wheel
• Mike
• Cutter
• Jet
• Steel Ball
• Plasma

This is the very first time that most of these characters have ever been able to use copy abilities like Kirby. The one exception is Gooey, who was able to copy in Kirby’s Dream Land 3 essentially as a Player 2 alongside Kirby. Kirby was able to copy in the original Kirby Air Ride, but he was also the only playable character (in most of the game) at the time, so it didn’t matter. It’s only because of the addition of all these other riders that the Kirby Brand Bible was seemingly deviated from so dramatically. But I guess if anyone’s allowed to do that, it’s Kirby’s creator, Sakurai.

You can catch up on everything announced at today’s Kirby Air Riders Nintendo Direct right here.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.