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.
Sakurai when he checks his emails and sees an email titled "Smash Bros 6" https://t.co/mV6a5bwfrp pic.twitter.com/Jwdgsp9MFwNovember 19, 2025
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.
