Kirby Air Riders amiibo: How the Kirby & Warp Star figure works

The Kirby & Warp Star figure is the flagship amiibo for Kirby Air Riders, pairing the series’ pink mascot with his iconic Air Ride Machine. It is larger and more complex than a standard amiibo, and it’s built to tie directly into how the racing game handles “Rider & Machine” combos and trainable AI opponents.

Release date, price, and availability

In regions where My Nintendo Store operates directly, the figure is sold as a regular amiibo product with standard shipping options, usually with free delivery above a minimum order value. In Europe, orders are commonly limited to a small number of units per customer to curb scalping.

On launch, the Kirby & Warp Star figure is positioned as a premium item: it sits well above the price of historic single-character amiibo because each box effectively contains two sizeable figures – Kirby and the Warp Star – joined into one interactive base.

Design and build: a two-part Air Riders amiibo

The Kirby & Warp Star release is part of the Kirby Air Riders series of amiibo. The line is defined by a paired structure:

• A Rider figure (a character such as Kirby, Bandana Waddle Dee, Meta Knight, King Dedede, or Chef Kawasaki).
• An Air Ride Machine figure (Warp Star, Winged Star, Shadow Star, Tank Star, Hop Star, and so on).

Kirby’s set combines:

• Kirby – the round, pink hero posed as if riding.
• Warp Star – an Air Ride Machine that is described as gliding and driving “perfectly well” with no clear weaknesses.

The character and vehicle pieces are designed to be removable and swappable within the Kirby Air Riders amiibo line. That means Kirby can be mounted on other Machines in the series, and other Riders can be placed on the Warp Star. The swappable design is central both to the physical display appeal and to how the game reads and combines Riders and Machines.

finngamer • youtube.com

Kirby Air Riders Amiibo

Starts at: 00:08

All known Kirby Air Riders amiibo

Kirby & Warp Star is the first figure in a wider Kirby Air Riders lineup. Together, the figures cover multiple characters and Machines and share the swappable Rider/vehicle gimmick.

The later figures expand on the mechanical idea. Tank Star, for example, can be physically reconfigured between a ground mode and a gliding mode by rearranging the vehicle portion of the amiibo. All of the Riders share the same mounting system, so they can sit on any Machine in the line.

How Kirby & Warp Star works in Kirby Air Riders

Kirby Air Riders on Nintendo Switch 2 leans hard into amiibo in a way that is closer to the original toys-to-life promise than most recent games. The Kirby & Warp Star figure is not just a cosmetic unlock; it becomes a persistent AI racer that can be trained and customized.

Creating a Rider & Air Ride Machine combo

Within Kirby Air Riders, the Kirby and Warp Star halves are treated separately but linked:

• Placing the Kirby figure on the Warp Star base in the physical world creates a Rider & Air Ride Machine combo in-game: Kirby riding Warp Star.
• The game stores that pairing on the amiibo as a single unit, you can select and race against.

When the figure is scanned on a Nintendo Switch or Nintendo Switch 2 system, the game reads the data from the amiibo chip and loads that combo.

Training a Figure Player (FP)

Scanning Kirby & Warp Star inside Kirby Air Riders creates what the game calls a Figure Player (FP). The FP behaves similarly to trainable amiibo fighters in recent Super Smash Bros. titles:

• The FP has its own FP level that increases the more you race with or against it.
• It also gains machine proficiency, which reflects how well that Rider handles a specific Machine.
• Both the level and proficiency are stored on the amiibo itself.

To set up a race against your Kirby FP, you scan the amiibo while you are in the game’s setup or lobby screen. The FP then joins the starting grid as your “Active amiibo”, racing under AI control with the stats it has accumulated.

Over time, the FP becomes a kind of personalized rival: its behavior and performance reflect the racing it has “experienced” through repeated scans and races.

Swapping Kirby onto other Air Ride Machines

Because all Kirby Air Riders sets share a common design, the Kirby figure is not locked to the Warp Star forever. The game specifically supports moving a trained Rider between Machines:

• If you own another Kirby Air Riders amiibo, such as Bandana Waddle Dee & Winged Star or Meta Knight & Shadow Star, you can place Kirby onto that other Machine on the physical figure.
• When you then scan the amiibo, the game treats it as the same Kirby FP riding a different Machine.
• Kirby keeps all FP levels from his previous training, but now starts building machine proficiency on the new Air Ride Machine.

This makes Kirby & Warp Star effectively a Rider “account” that you can move between vehicles as your collection grows. The same principle applies in reverse: other Riders can be placed on the Warp Star and trained there.

Using other amiibo with Kirby Air Riders

Kirby & Warp Star is clearly the intended way to experience the full feature set, but Kirby Air Riders does not ignore older figures. When you scan amiibo from other series, the game hands out small rewards:

• Most non-Kirby amiibo grant in-game currency (gold) or cosmetic items such as decals.
• Kirby-series figures can unlock more specific bonuses, like alternate Kirby colors or license card themes, sometimes earlier than you would usually obtain them.

These one-off rewards are separate from the FP system. Only the Kirby Air Riders series of amiibo – the large Rider-and-Machine sets – create trainable FPs that occupy a slot on the amiibo’s memory.

Compatibility with Nintendo Switch and Switch 2

Like all modern figures, Kirby & Warp Star functions as a standard amiibo on any system with an NFC touchpoint:

• The figure works with Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 hardware through the built-in NFC reader on the controllers or handheld unit.
• It can provide “cool in-game extras” in other compatible titles, such as music tracks or wallpapers, when those games are updated to recognize it.

Functionality and rewards differ from game to game. Some titles may treat it generically as a Kirby-series amiibo and grant the same items they would for earlier Kirby figures; others may recognize the Kirby Air Riders series specifically. Where a game allows saving game data to an amiibo, only one title at a time can occupy the writable memory, so switching to a different game’s save data means wiping the Kirby Air Riders FP information.

What you actually get for the money

Collectors looking at the Kirby & Warp Star price tag are paying for three things at once:

• A large, detailed physical figure of Kirby.
• An equally substantial Warp Star vehicle figure.
• A writable amiibo base that can store a persistent FP racer and its stats.

Within Kirby Air Riders, the practical benefits are straightforward:

• A durable FP opponent that levels up with use and can be moved between Machines.
• Flexibility to reshuffle Riders and vehicles across the Kirby Air Riders line as more amiibo release.
• Access to smaller bonuses and cosmetics when the figure is scanned in other compatible games.

If your interest is mainly in Kirby Air Riders’ AI training and the toys-to-life aspect, Kirby & Warp Star is the baseline purchase: it gives you the FP feature from day one and leaves room to expand the Machine roster later with Bandana Waddle Dee, Meta Knight, King Dedede, or Chef Kawasaki as they arrive.