Nintendo has called off the Halloween event in *Kirby Air Riders* on Switch 2 partway through its run, after players hit a bug that froze the screen during matches.
The event, called "Trick or Treat!", was cancelled on October 30 in a notice from Nintendo's Japanese support account on X, according to Kotaku and Nintendo Life. We couldn't read that post directly, so everything below about what Nintendo said comes from those outlets and from AUTOMATON, which covered the notice in Japanese.
What Nintendo said
All three outlets report the same reason: Nintendo confirmed an issue in the ongoing event that makes the screen temporarily freeze during play, and decided to cancel the event because of it. Kotaku and Nintendo Life both report that Nintendo said it plans to hold the event again, so players can still earn the rewards tied to it. Nintendo Life adds that Nintendo apologised for the cancellation, and Kotaku that Nintendo promised more details once they are finalised.
There is no date for that rerun yet. Kotaku says it has reached out to Nintendo to ask about timing.
What the event was
AUTOMATON reports that "Trick or Treat!" was a City Trial event scheduled from 12:00 on October 29 to 12:00 on November 3, Japan time. Kotaku describes it as arriving with a Halloween update on October 28 and running until November 4, and Nintendo Life gives the same October 28 to November 4 window. Either way, it was cut short by several days.
The draw was cosmetic. AUTOMATON says event points earned during the run unlocked Halloween items, including a ghost hat for riders, and Nintendo Life likewise points to the event's spooky Ghost headwear.
The rules were the more interesting part. According to AUTOMATON, attacking rivals made more items drop than usual, and taking a single hit wiped out every stat boost a player had collected. AUTOMATON notes that Nintendo's cancellation notice does not mention that rule at all, and that players were split on it: some found the chaos fun, others felt the novelty wore off quickly.
The freezes
Nintendo Life reports that many players saw the screen freeze during early matches, and points to a clip shared on Bluesky by user TAHK0 showing the problem. Kotaku describes the screen locking up for seconds at a time and says players flagged it right after the Halloween update went out.
AUTOMATON goes a step further and suggests a possible link: with every stat boost dropping at once, more items may have ended up on the field, adding to the load. That is the outlet's own suggestion rather than anything Nintendo has said, and Nintendo has not disclosed a cause.
Not the first time
AUTOMATON reports that this is the second event *Kirby Air Riders* has cancelled. The first was a December 2025 City Trial event, pulled because a race-only rule carried over into regular City Trial. Five days after that cancellation, AUTOMATON says, Nintendo ran a replacement event using rules that had worked before, and players could earn the rewards there.
Kotaku notes the game is about ten months old and describes it as a passion project from Masahiro Sakurai.
Mason's take: Pulling a broken event within about two days of its start is the right call, even if it stings in Halloween week. A seasonal cosmetic is never worth a racing game that stutters mid-match. What I'd watch is whether Nintendo repeats last December's fix, a quick rerun on rules it already trusts, because that would get the ghost hat to players while it still feels like spooky season. If the rerun drifts into next year, the reward loses most of its point.
Reporting notes