Kirby Air Ride shares numerous concepts with Kirby's Air Ride, a similarly titled game that was in development for the Nintendo 64 only to be cancelled. When the game was first announced, it was known as Kirby Bowl 64. A year later, the name was changed to Kirby's Air Ride along with many elements. Reportedly, the game's development was very long and was mostly quiet. After the game went through many changes, it was eventually cancelled. While it was widely believed that the project was revived as the GameCube title Kirby Air Ride, series creator Masahiro Sakurai denied they were related in a 2025 YouTube video, stating that Kirby's Air Ride was more in line with a snowboarding game than a kart racing game, but nonetheless shared many similar ideas.