It’s been a while since we had a new Kirby game, and the upcoming Kirby and the World Beyond may explain why.

The last major entry in the Kirby series was Kirby and the Forgotten Land . This was a masterclass in game design and offered distinct areas with cunning level design.

However, like with Bowser’ Fury , Kirby is now eyeing a discrete open-world setup, and I think it could work brilliantly.

The problem with most open-world games is that they are too big and often feel empty. Simply because there isn’t enough content to fill them.

Open-world games are also incredibly expensive to make, because every tree and rock needs to be built, and then all the functional content needs to bring that world to life.

Now, the approach taken in Bowser’s Fury was still open-world, but in a smaller, more discrete, and focused setup, and it’s this that appears to be what Kirby and the World Beyond is using.

In that, you can see Kirby using his abilities in a specific and quite large area (shown below), only to break into another open world section at the end of the video.

In short, I think this game will be stitched together with discrete open areas, so as to make the game feel more manageable and also more populated with things to do.

Plus, we know that Kirby’s abilities and how you interact with the environment worked brilliantly in Kirby and the Forgotten World , so it follows that a similar approach would work similarly in a discrete open-world setup.

In any case, I am really looking forward to this, and while my heart longs for a Kirby: Planet Robobot remake with all the Gurren Lagann trimmings, Kirby and the World Beyond does look very compelling indeed.

Kirby and the World Beyond will be released for the Switch 2 in Spring 2027.

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