What Is The Future Of Smash Bros?
The Japanese video game magazine Weekly Famitsu has been publishing a column from Smash Bros creator Masahiro Sakurai for several years. This week, Sakurai’s final column came out, and it is of course all about Smash Bros — his experiences developing the latest installment, the truth behind some behind-the-scenes decisions, and where the franchise could possibly go from here. It’s that future question that’s most interesting.
Ultimate was the largest Smash ever made…so large, in fact, that we can’t conceive of it getting bigger without it becoming unwieldy. But any REDUCTION in size will just be met with anger from the series’ VERY outspoken fanbase. If every single one of these eighty-plus characters does not return for another game, the Internet will be filled with “WHERE IS SO AND SO” demands. And if the next game doesn’t add anything new on top of that, the fanbase will ALSO be angry. But like we said…unwieldy.
Sakurai doesn’t seem to know either. He says in Famitsu that he’s not thinking of a sequel right now and has no idea if he will even make one. He also revealed that he tried passing the torch to someone else to make a Smash, but “it didn’t work out well” and Sakurai quickly had to take the crown back. So if he decides not to make another Smash, would Nintendo really stop the series there?
Even though Smash has never been bigger, Nintendo has walked away from gazillion-dollar-making properties before and will do it again. Ask a Metroid fan how long they had to wait for Dread. We hate to say it but there’s a very real possibility Smash could be the next Metroid…or even the next F-Zero.
In the same issue, Sakurai also revealed Sora was the winner of the Smash popularity poll years ago, followed by Banjo-Kazooie. In the Sora reveal trailer, Mario was meant to pick up a Keyblade, but then Sakurai found out only “keyblade wielders” can use one, so it was changed to a fireball. Banjo’s reveal trailer was the same setting as K. Rool’s to keep costs low (apparently the reveal trailers cost some serious bucks to produce).