Masahiro Sakurai’s final Weekly Famitsu column has leaked online and within it he is asked whether he would like to return to the Smash Bros franchise if a new entry in the long-running series is announced and green-lit by Nintendo. Mr. Sakurai said in the column that at this point in time he hasn’t actually thought about a new entry, but if Nintendo enquired whether he would like to create one he said that he would need to have a long hard discussion with them about how they could make it notably different from what has come before. He also said that he has tried to leave the franchise with others, but he is always pulled back in as it just hasn’t worked out. It would certainly be a huge challenge for Mr. Sakurai to top Super Smash Bros Ultimate so we shall have to wait and see what happens.
Q: As far as a new entry to Smash is concerned, would you come back?
Sakurai: I’m not even thinking of a sequel at all. This happens with every release. But I can’t say that this will be the last Smash ever.
[We would] need to consider whether [we] should release a Smash Bros. at the cost of disappointing users. Currently, I can’t see a way to produce a Smash Bros title without my involvement
To be honest, I’d rather leave it to others. I’ve tried, but it hasn’t worked out [so far?]. If there is a continuation of Smash, Nintendo and I would need to have a long serious discussion on how to make [the next Smash] successful.
If Miyamoto managed to be more hands-off, so should he
Remember that almost everyone on the internet wants Miyamoto to stay as far away as possible from game design and development since star fox zero (i don’t oppose the idea of him producing a new SSB). Maybe Koizumi is the best candidate to helm a new SSB.
Or you know, he himself. He hasn’t touched Kirby since Air Ride. I think the main issue is since we only get one Smash game for each console, if he hands it to the wrong person and they completely screw it up then fans could ve screwed for an entire decade.
There’s only room left for one more smash bros game, Nintendo knows this, it won’t be the massive game the previous one was, but it will give us most of the characters that we all still want, there’s only enough energy left in that poor mans body for one more, then they will finish the series. Hopefully they will start remastering older games like Melee.
????
What do you mean “there’s only room left for one more Smash Bros game”?
I think he meant the next one would be the last game in the franchise.
Yeah I know, and that’s not a guarantee at all. Unless the next Smash game flops hard, I doubt Smash Bros will ever stop getting new entries
Why would you assume there’s only going to be one more Smash game? Nintendo will continue to make them as long as they continue to bring in a profit.
As much as I love him, they don’t need Sakurai at the helm for every entry in the series. If anything I’d look forward to seeing what new ideas and concepts a new lead would bring to the series.
I think they should just make an Ultimate Deluxe where the roster is added to very minimally and the main focus is adding modes, but the third party contracts may make that difficult. If the next game won’t be as big I think it needs a breather before a “reboot” happens.
A Ultimate Deluxe would be perfect for the next Nintendo System, but here is my only question. Will some fans and gamers be please with that just like almost like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe?.
I feel that would be different though. We will have gotten 3 Splatoon Games since the launch of MK8 one S3 releases. Nintendo hasn’t put out a new MK specifically for what is possibly the most influential game system of the decade. That’s a little weirder…
I can’t speak for other people, but I think Smash Ultimate has a big enough roster to warrant the Deluxe treatment, whereas MK8 may have four more cups than your typical modern Mario Kart, but that isn’t really enough to go a whole decade without a proper new entry. I’ve been hungry for MK9 for quite some time.
Yeah, during the Nintendo Switch reveal trailer, I thought it was going to be a new Mario Kart game and later, I realize a few years ago, it was a ported version of Mario Kart 8. You know, I’m still a little disappointing that there is no new Mario Kart game for Nintendo Switch and people expected another Mario Kart game for Nintendo Switch using Mario Kart double dash elements as a return.
As for another Super Smash Bros. game, we all know we will never have any type of possibilities and content like this ever again in the next game. It won’t be a massive hit like this one honestly. I know this game is going to win the game awards this year due to Sora inclusion. So, I think its best to let the series take a break for a while even if Sakurai is not involved with another game or not.
I’ll just say this about the next Smash game: Everybody Won’t Be In.
So let us mod the current Smash game, maybe even split the timeline between what modders can put together and what Nintendo/Sakurai see as acceptable.
Honestly, I look forward to the day Sakurai isn’t at the helm of Smash. Like Miyamoto, he’s done enough for the franchise. Let someone else take over already.
It’d also be nice to see less of the Kirby franchise getting special treatment in a Smash game. Kirby was the only character to survive the beginning of the game’s story, for instance. Seriously, Sakurai!? As if the Wii U/N3DS games that preceded Ultimate didn’t have enough Kirby franchise nepotism in there. Personally, I would have had 12 alternate beginnings to the story mode where you, the player, can pick one of the original Smash roster members to survive the beginning of the story. This would have also been another way to celebrate the franchise. (Bringing back older game modes (like platforms & targets) would have been nice, too.)
You do know Kirby is a very good character to start in a Smash Bros game, his jumps and combos don’t require a lot of skills.
“Kirby franchise nepotism”
Uh… where, exactly? If anything, the Kirby franchise is massivly under-represented in Smash. There’s only three Kirby reps in Smash and the last new one was way back in 2008. The newer Kirby titles in particular have had little to no representation, baring a couple of music tracks.
Kirby being the starting character in WoL hardly counts as “nepotism”. He’s the most fitting character for the role as he’s one of the easiest characters to play as.
Yeah. This is exactly why Sakurai chose Kirby for the main story in World of Light to save other characters from Galeem. Yes he is the best fitting character in the franchise to be playable.
Most of the enemies in Smash Run were from Kirby. No, wait. It was mostly full of Kirby & Kid Icarus enemies which are two franchises Sakurai was involved with at one point or another. Pretty nepotistic if ya ask me. And that’s the problem with Kirby being the starting hero: too easy to use. Some people might have wanted to start the story out with a harder to control character. It’s a nice excuse, though, to defend Kirby being the starter. More like Sakurai just wanted to put the spotlight on his own personal creation. Again, 12 different beginnings with one of the original 12 escaping would have been perfect to celebrate Smash. But nope. Gotta give Kirby that rub. Honestly, Captain Falcon deserved it more than Kirby since F-Zero is effectively a dead franchise.
It’s whatever, though.
Really? You’re calling Sakurai nepotistic because there were a lot of Kirby and KI enemies in a single mode that was only in Smash 3DS? Talk about blowing things out of proportion.
How exactly is it an “excuse” when it’s a perfectly valid reason for choosing Kirby as the starting character? You can disagree with the reason all you want, but it’s perfectly valid.
You seem to have an intense loathing for either Kirby or Sakurai because, with all due respect, your arguements here are either blowing small things way out of proportion, or just don’t make any sense at all (Captain Falcon? Really?).
It’s true. I do have some resentment toward Sakurai. The fact Ganondorf is a slow clone of Captain Falcon to this day still irks the hell out of me. And why!? Because his ass likes him that way! So we can add a tad bit selfish next to his nepotism. And he doesn’t have to flood the game with his stuff to be nepotistic. For instance, hiring one friend at your job simply for being your friend is still nepotism. Don’t have to flood your job with your friends to be nepotistic.
Years ago somebody said that HAL laboratory was more like Nepostism laboratory…so you can take the guy out of HAL but you can’t take the HAL out of the guy.
I agree to an extent. As far as the intro to World of Light goes, aside from Kirby, two other fighters could have evaded Galeem’s attack, those being Palutena and Ness (through the use of PSI Teleport)- however, the logic was that those two are significantly more difficult to play than Kirby. Additionally Kirby is on the base roster whereas those two are not (one could argue that Ness is close enough to it as he’s been in every Smash since the N64 original, but I digress).
I think Sakurai has done a good job on bringing these every wonderful characters to the crossover in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Sakurai did almost tried his best to take a breather from the Super Smash Bros series after the last DLC release in Ultimate, but it seems like he won’t be taking a long break anytime soon from the franchise and it feels like his body is sucking the life out of his work duties.
Maybe they should let the franchise take a break for a while before Him and Nintendo discuss what’s next for Smash Bros and we all know by now, we will never have any type of possibilities and content like this ever again in the next game. It won’t be a massive hit like this one.
I think if they start from fresh and give everyone the treatment that the DLC characters got. Characters that they really went all out for like minecraft, final fantasy and kingdom hearts. Tell me they didnt do them justice!
Now imagine mario with new moves from his newer games. You can swap out some of the old moves, taunts etc and add new ones. Or even add more costume skins to all the old characters. Bring previous modes. Bring back old stages that didnt make it. Make ice climbers great again. :)
I like Sakurai but I still stand by my stance that he should retire from Smash and let someone he trust handle SSB6 and future titles from there on. Judging by this final column he really do want to leave the series in capable hands but for various reasons (like Nintendo always dragging him back as one example) hasn’t been able to. I really hope he and Nintendo can work out these ‘issues’ as soon as possible so he can focus on other non-Smash related gaming developments that he wants to do.
Nice Blog , Hope we see another smash
Dude just finished probably the biggest game of his career and someone’s asking him about the next Smash? Give the guy a break, people; Sakurai deserves a long vacation somewhere nice after all this. It’s too soon to even bring up the idea of the next Smash if you ask me.
“The show must go on!” That saying should die in a fire.
Reminds me when Daniel Craig was asked right after he finished shooting SPECTRE if he’d do another one and said he’d “rather slash his wrists…”