Kirby Air Riders Gets Sword Kirby and Noir Dedede Amiibo Today

Nintendo's amiibo lineup for Kirby Air Riders grows to seven figures today with the arrival of Sword Kirby & Dragoon and Noir Dedede & Hydra. Both pairs are listed with a November 12, 2026 release date directly on Nintendo's own product pages, closing out a rollout that started alongside the game's November 2025 launch on Nintendo Switch 2. Here's what the figures unlock, what Nintendo has and hasn't confirmed about pricing, and whether this is really the end of the line.

A quick refresher on Kirby Air Riders

Kirby Air Riders launched on Nintendo Switch 2 on November 20, 2025, priced at $69.99 for the digital edition on Nintendo's own U.S. store page. It's a 21.9 GB download built around fast-paced vehicular racing and battling — pick a rider and an Air Ride Machine, then compete across modes including City Trial, Air Ride, Top Ride, and the single-player Road Trip campaign. Nintendo's store listing puts local play at up to four players on one system, local wireless at up to eight, and online at up to 16 players in a race, with Paddock lobbies holding as many as 32. Each rider's own traits — weight and durability among them — affect how their paired machine handles, which is part of why the amiibo system matters: a figure isn't just a collectible, it's tied to an actual in-game profile.

What's releasing today

The two new amiibo pairs are:

• Sword Kirby & Dragoon — Kirby wielding a blade, paired with the Dragoon Air Ride Machine.
• Noir Dedede & Hydra — a darker-toned King Dedede variant, paired with the Hydra Air Ride Machine.

Nintendo's own product pages for both figures list November 12, 2026 as the release date, matching the timeline the company first laid out when the figures were revealed back in March 2026. That's a long lead time between reveal and release even by amiibo standards, and it means the in-game support for these two had already been live for months before anyone could actually buy them.

What the amiibo actually do in-game

Per Nintendo's product pages, placing either figure on its matching Air Ride Machine amiibo creates a Rider & Air Ride Machine combo. Tapping an amiibo trains it as an FP (Figure Player), raising its FP level and machine proficiency over time. A Rider keeps its FP level and proficiency gains even when it's later paired with a different machine amiibo, so progress carries over if you mix and match combos rather than sticking to the factory pairing.

Nintendo's support site fills in how that training actually happens in-game: figure players can be scanned through the Extras menu or from the machine and rider select screens for each mode, and, as of the Ver. 1.2.0 update, also from an amiibo terminal inside the Paddock online lobby. Once trained, an FP can be raced against like any other competitor — so the amiibo system doubles as a way to pad out races with stand-ins modeled on your own figures rather than generic CPU opponents.

What amiibo are, if you're new to the line

Nintendo's own amiibo landing page describes the figures and cards as collectibles that add optional extras to compatible games — nothing about them is required to finish a game that supports them. You use one by tapping it to a supported system's NFC reader; Nintendo Switch 2, like the original Switch, reads amiibo through the console itself or a connected controller. Some games only read an amiibo to unlock bonus content, while others can also write data back to the figure. Kirby Air Riders falls into that second category: each amiibo stores its own FP level and machine proficiency, which is why progress carries over between sessions and even between different paired machines.

Dates and version numbers above come from Nintendo's own amiibo lineup page and its official Kirby Air Riders software update history. Notice the gap between when support was added and when the figures actually shipped: Ver. 1.3.1 added code for three figures in February, but those didn't hit shelves until between March and September. The same pattern repeated with today's pair, whose support arrived in June.

The software side arrived months ago

Nintendo's support site shows that compatibility for both of today's figures was added nearly half a year before the figures themselves shipped. Ver. 1.3.3, released June 2, 2026, added amiibo support for Sword Kirby & Dragoon and Noir Dedede & Hydra, alongside unspecified gameplay fixes. Anyone who's updated their copy of Kirby Air Riders since June has already had the software in place to use these figures — they just needed the physical amiibo, which arrives today.

A more recent update, Ver. 1.3.4 on November 4, 2026, fixed a Gourmet Race Stadium scoring bug involving Gooey's food points and a progression stall in Kirby Melee Stadium, but didn't touch amiibo support. If your game is still on an older version, you'll want to update before scanning either new figure, since the game won't recognize an amiibo it doesn't have compatibility code for yet.

Price and where to buy

Nintendo's U.S. product pages for both figures don't list a price and instead point shoppers to the My Nintendo Store. GameStop's U.S. listing prices the Noir Dedede & Hydra amiibo at $54.99; Nintendo hasn't published its own MSRP for either figure as of this writing, and we couldn't independently confirm a U.S. list price for Sword Kirby & Dragoon from an official source. If you're after a guaranteed copy at launch, keep in mind Nintendo's standard amiibo caveat: figures and accessories are sold separately from games and systems and remain subject to availability, so a same-day sellout on popular pairs isn't unusual.

Both figures use the same NFC-chip format as every other amiibo Nintendo has released since the line launched in 2014, so no extra hardware is needed beyond a Nintendo Switch 2 console, which reads amiibo natively. There's no digital-only option for either figure — unlike the base game itself, which Nintendo sells as a $69.99 digital download, amiibo are physical-only products, sold through Nintendo's own My Nintendo Store and third-party retailers like GameStop, Best Buy, Target, and Walmart.

Are these the last Kirby Air Riders amiibo?

Some outlets covering the November reveal described Sword Kirby & Dragoon and Noir Dedede & Hydra as the final amiibo pair planned for the game. Nintendo's own lineup page doesn't label any figure as "final," and the company hasn't made that claim directly on its site as of publication, so treat it as outside reporting rather than an official confirmation. Nintendo has a track record of adding amiibo support to Switch titles well after launch — this game itself picked up three new figures between February and September 2026, a year after release — so a future wave isn't out of the question even without anything currently announced.

If the claim does hold up, it's worth noting for collectors specifically because amiibo tied to a "last wave" designation have tended to sell through faster once that status is confirmed, since there's no expectation of a restock pattern the way there is with an ongoing line. Nothing about today's launch suggests Nintendo is treating it differently from any other amiibo drop, but it's one more reason to check stock at Nintendo's own My Nintendo Store rather than waiting.

The full Kirby Air Riders amiibo lineup so far

With today's additions, Kirby Air Riders has shipped amiibo in three distinct waves since the game launched alongside Nintendo Switch 2 in November 2025: an initial pair at launch (Kirby & Warp Star and Bandana Waddle Dee & Winged Star), three more figures released between March and September 2026 (Meta Knight & Shadow Star, King Dedede & Tank Star, and Chef Kawasaki & Hop Star), and now this pair in November. Each pairs a Kirby-universe character with one of the game's Air Ride Machines, and each requires the matching software update to actually function as an FP in-game rather than just sitting on a shelf as a collectible. If you're weighing whether the figures are worth it purely for in-game value rather than as display pieces, that FP/proficiency system is the entire pitch — without scanning them, they do nothing in Kirby Air Riders itself.

That three-wave cadence is worth noting if you're trying to decide whether to buy in now or wait. Nintendo spread the first five figures across roughly ten months after launch before adding this pair about ten weeks after the September Chef Kawasaki release, which suggests the company isn't running these on a strict quarterly schedule. Anyone who picked up every wave as it landed has had to buy figures across four separate release windows — November 2025, March 2026, July 2026, September 2026, and now November 2026 — rather than getting a complete set in one go. That's standard for how Nintendo handles amiibo support for its bigger Switch titles, but it's a real cost consideration if you're aiming to collect the full roster rather than just the riders you plan to actually use for FP training.

What's next

If you already own the Dragoon or Hydra machine amiibo from an earlier wave, today's figures slot in immediately once you've applied Ver. 1.3.3 or later. Anyone starting from scratch should update the game first, since the amiibo won't register as FPs on an outdated version. It's also worth checking your Switch 2's system update status separately from the game update, since an outdated console firmware can occasionally interfere with NFC reads even when the game itself is current. Beyond that, the main open question is whether Nintendo revisits the line again given how quickly this third wave arrived after the September Chef Kawasaki release — we'll update this piece if Nintendo announces anything further. For more on what else is landing on Nintendo's platform this month, see our coverage of Nintendo Switch 2 Black Friday deals and the Pikmin 4: Switch 2 Edition launch, which went live earlier today on the same console.

Written byJonah Reyes

Jonah Reyes leads Pandromeda's gaming coverage: console and handheld hardware, release dates, pricing changes, patch notes and the business moves behind the biggest franchises. He sources every date and price from the platform holders and publishers themselves, and says plainly when something is still only a rumour.

More from Jonah ReyesAll Gaming coverage