Trust me, I wanted to get to my coverage of last week's Nintendo Direct much sooner, but I've had 4 late shifts at work in a row, so I simply haven't had the time.
I do now though, so let's start things off with the game that closed out the show!
Of all the directions the next Kirby game could've gone, open world was not on my radar. And yet, here we are.
The final announcement of last week's big general Nintendo Direct was for the latest entry in the Kirby series, Kirby and the World Beyond. It marks the third Kirby title on Nintendo Switch 2 following Star-Crossed World and Air Riders from last year, and the first brand new mainline title exclusive to the console, and while it's not fully confirmed to be open world, that certainly appears to be the direction it's headed. Even if it's not a fully interconnected open world, the levels will be much more open this time around, not too dissimilar to the sandbox 3D Mario games like Odyssey, as opposed to the linear obstacle course structure of Forgotten Land.
Regardless, I definitely didn't expect this to be the direction taken by the next Kirby game. I expected something that built upon Forgotten Land, but was still a linear obstacle course 3D platformer at its core. Instead, HAL is vastly opening up the level design, and allowing us to freely explore in a way we haven't really seen before in a Kirby game, and it looks like a blast!
The premise of the game is pretty compelling as well. The first half of the trailer shows Kirby running around in a pretty typical looking Dream Land setting, just more open than ever, of course. Everything changes, however, once Kirby fights and defeats King Dedede, sending him flying and... creating a hole in the sky. It's at this point that it becomes obvious that things aren't what they seem as the game's true nature begins being unveiled.
After meeting up with a mysterious new companion that is currently unnamed and that I'm sure the Kirby community won't throw any traitorous allegations at, we see what appears to be the return of Return to Dream Land's Super Abilities (down to the music that plays), now in a 3D space, as Kirby gains a superpowered Sword ability from a mysterious sword-shaped crystal that he uses to carve a hole in the false sky that reveals... well, a vast and mysterious "World Beyond" that's just begging to be explored.
For those unfamiliar with the Kirby series, these games often have insane lore, and the setup alone from this teaser trailer for World Beyond tells me that the lore in this game is going to go crazy.
There's more to discuss, too, as the copy abilities have received a noticeable upgrade since Forgotten Land. Being the first fully 3D platformer in the series, Forgotten Land's ability roster was understandably light, and most abilities were fairly basic in terms of their functionality. The ability upgrades in that game went a long way towards making the abilities feel more substantial than they would've otherwise, and the Mouthful Modes added greatly to the gameplay variety, but you could tell that the copy abilities in Forgotten Land had their quantity and moveset depth from the prior 2D games slimmed down so they could focus on nailing the basics of converting Kirby gameplay to 3D, which I'd say they absolutely did.
Now with that foundation in place, World Beyond looks to greatly expand the capabilities of Kirby's copy abilities in three dimensions, primarily by adding new traversal options. In terms of abilities returning from Forgotten Land, we saw Cutter, Sword and Bomb in the trailer, all of which are equipped with new moves focused on helping you navigate the larger levels. You can now ride and glide atop a spinning blade with Cutter, charge forward and scale walls with Sword, and use Bomb to ride atop bombs and get a large, vertical boost. We also see Parasol in the trailer, making its 3D debut in World Beyond! It allows you to glide through the air while slowly descending, and in the trailer we see it used to access a secret area behind a waterfall.
So, it appears there will not only be more copy abilities this time around, but they will be much more versatile than in Forgotten Land.
There's not much else we can go off of in this teaser, as it is pretty vague overall, but we did get a release window of Spring 2027! Honestly, that's sooner than I expected for the next mainline Kirby game, and I even said in my predictions for the Direct that I didn't expect a new Kirby until later in 2027 or even into 2028. But, with Kirby's 35th Anniversary coming up, and this window lining the release up to be 5 years after Forgotten Land, I should've seen this coming. The gap between Star Allies and Forgotten Land was only 4 years, even with the transition to 3D, so the timing of this release makes a lot more sense than I had convinced myself it did prior to the Direct.
Either way, I'm incredibly excited for World Beyond! I absolutely loved Forgotten Land, and this game looks to push the possibilities of 3D Kirby much farther than I was anticipating!
