It’s been over seven years since Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was first released. Post-launch support for the game continued until about four years ago when patch 13.0.1 was released, which contained the final set of fighter adjustments for the game.
Just recently, Masahiro Sakurai wrapped up development for Kirby Air Riders for the Switch 2. Unlike Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Kirby Air Riders will feature no DLC as the development team behind the game will be disbanding soon.
What could be next for Masahiro Sakurai? More than likely, he already has his next project planned. Nintendo will probably contract him to develop another game for the recently released Switch 2.
“Being able to include every fighter is a real luxury, and — knowing that opportunity doesn’t knock twice — I seized the moment and twisted some arms to make this dream a reality.” — Masahiro Sakurai
In terms of fan speculation, the current frontrunner is a new entry in the Super Smash Bros. series. It might even be possible for Sakurai to once again work alongside Bandai Namco to develop this theoretical Super Smash Bros. game.
Regardless, there’s a decent possibility that the next iteration in the series could play quite a bit differently compared to past entries. Thanks to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s “Everyone Is Here” theme, it will be difficult to continue simply building upon the Super Smash Bros. formula while adding new characters to the mix.
Prior to the release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Sakurai wrote in his Famitsu Column that the opportunity to bring back every fighter for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was something that he felt only could’ve happened just this one time. A special thanks goes out to Source Gaming for the translation.
“Being able to include every fighter is a real luxury, and — knowing that opportunity doesn’t knock twice — I seized the moment and twisted some arms to make this dream a reality,” wrote Sakurai. “Thankfully, the folks at Nintendo agreed to help, despite the risks involved.”
“We had a choice between completely overhauling the game systems and feel, or working off of what we had established in the last game.” — Masahiro Sakurai
Funnily enough, when Sakurai first revealed this information to the rest of the development team, they were stunned into silence. Sakurai apparently remembers this moment well.
“From where I stood, all I heard was dead silence,” said Sakurai back then.
Regardless, the decision to bring back every fighter for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the sake of “Everyone Is Here” did come with a certain opportunity cost attached to it. Indeed, it seems that Sakurai had considered a different route that they could’ve gone with instead.
“We had a choice between completely overhauling the game systems and feel, or working off of what we had established in the last game. We ended up going with the latter,” said Sakurai according to Source Gaming’s translation of his Famitsu Column.
“We’ll have to face that decision again someday, but I decided that now was not that time.” — Masahiro Sakurai
“If we went with the former, we might have ended up with only a third of the fighters we have now. Had we gone down that route, surely some fans would have complained and said, ‘I preferred the way it was last time.’
“We’ll have to face that decision again someday, but I decided that now was not that time.”
With the mindset that the next Super Smash Bros. might not be able to continue expanding upon Ultimate’s roster, this means that we could see the series go in a whole new direction.
Having said all of that, it’s probably fair to assume that Sakurai and Nintendo probably didn’t expect Super Smash Bros. Ultimate to be as successful as it was. This could change the variables in some interesting ways.
To this day, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has achieved over 36.93 million sales. This is especially impressive when considering that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is still priced at its launch retail rate.
This has marked Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as the most successful entry of the entire series and the third best-selling game on the Switch after Animal Crossing: New Horizons (48.62 million units) and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (69.56 million units).
Nintendo might be willing to allot Sakurai an even larger budget to develop the next Super Smash Bros. iteration. It might be wishful thinking, but a huge budget might somehow inspire Sakurai to push for an even greater roster.
Ultimately though, it’ll likely be a few years before we even get confirmation that Sakurai is working on his next gaming project. We’ll just have to wait until then to find out what the future of the franchise will be like.