Sakurai Can't Imagine Future Super Smash Bros. Games Without His Involvement

Oh I wish he would get over himself.

Thing about this to me is with someone as brilliant as Masahiro Sakurai is why not have someone put under him to learn from and soak in all that know how and possibly take over the franchise, even if they don’t take over the franchise it’s a great way to develop younger talent.

Last game was amazing, my second most played game on the Switch, and that is something. Difficult to surpass.
I imagine a new one coming out with the next console.
I can't imagine it having EVERYONE again sadly, but even with a smaller roster, I hope that whoever takes the reins will finally embrace it's competitiveness in tournaments, good online play etc...

He is probably right.

If the Mario and Zelda franchises could be lead by newer/younger team members, I'm pretty sure the same thing could happen with Smash Bros.

I don’t see how they can top ultimate anyway. Honestly at this point I would like to see a DX version with another round of characters and balance updates.

I do think that Sakurai-san hadn't really thought about a successor as I feel like getting the game out the door to finish up the last of the irons Iwata-dono had in the fire took precedence. After all the game was sorta his and Iwata-dono's baby and he hadn't been really thinking much further than that; especially since Sora Ltd is basically him as a contractor. No real reason to train someone when you are essentially a contractor unless you are going to turn it into a full business, and I don't think Sakurai-san has any interest in doing that (with him being semi retired). And Smash is a licensing nightmare to boot.

I'd be very interested to see what Nintendo/Sakurai would do if they decide to take Smash in a different direction.
Because, as many others have said, there's only so much you can build on top of Ultimate, it's such a well-crafted game it's ridiculous!
Having said that, I'd also be completely satisfied with a re-release too.

I agree with everyone here. Sakurai is kinda drifting away from reality with his statement, but at the same time, it's kinda hard to imagine something topping Ultimate, Sakurai or not.

Even with 1/2 of the roster being swordsmen from Fire Emblem that I can't even tell apart

@Princess_Lilly
I agree that they do need to remove some fire emblem, hopefully nintendo will find someone though

@Princess_Lilly Fire Emblem currently have 8 characters. If they kept all and added two new ones, you would have to cut the roster down to 20 characters for Fire Emblem to be half of the roster. Even with cuts being very likely, they would probably not make the next game smaller than Melee.

@Wakkawipeout It could happen, but that does not mean that it should. If they want to maintain the quality Smash has had so far, they would need to find another stubborn perfectionist like Sakurai.
And as far as third parties goes, without Sakurai's clout in the industry, it would probably go the way Playstation allstars battle royale did.

Nintendo will always think of a way to create new surprises.

I'd imagine Sakurai will be involved, (and probably heavily), in the next Smash game as well. He seems happy to at the moment so I'd imagine that will happen easily.

As for topping Ultimate. For now I don't know if they will or can. Thet might try too anyway or they might try a new/different approach. (With or without topping it). If a new/different approach is decided, without topping it, then a game or a few later, they can do another Ultimate and even top it.

I don't know what direction they'll choose but yeah they'll be another Smash game.

And it's possible Ultimate will get a Deluxe but I hope they make something new of some kind. Although Deluxe might actually work well for Smash. It depends.

Mostly just me guessing though but they'll be another Smash game.

obviously smash can continue without sakurai, 2d crossover fighters arent a patented. but it's been his vision for the past 2 decades so things WOULD be different, for better or worse whose to say

im still more on the negative side. games with new directors and devs can improve the existing formula, but those are the exception not the rule. he honestly set the standard so high id be worried for who else wants to try making the next smash

its not like he's even making bad games, he still overly delivers on this series. the most complaints come from a technical aspect cause playing a game competitively will never be perfect

It is likely that smash bros will go a different direction with a different vision instead, such as 3Dimensional fighting. If the next switch is backwards compatible, then legacy players could still go back to ultimate for a more traditional style and allow a new entry to experiment with a new gameplay style.

While a brand new Smash is inevitable, I still think they can get away with just adding more to Ultimate's package in the same way Nintendo did for Mario Kart 8.

Away from that, I feel like the next Smash should take a step away from the platform fighting genre and try a different style. I'd be down for a traditional 2D fighter, but an arena fighter would be more likely to maintain that broad appeal.

Yes it can, if they choose to go a different road with smash.
Smash is ready to go a different route.
I would love for smash to have gameplay in the way of a Naruto fighting game/demon slayer etc.
I still hop they add one more season pass.

Sakurai is not being unreasonable with this statement. Of course, when you take a single line and make an article out of it, even if you elaborate, people are only going to read that and not actually watch the full video. Never mind this statement wasn't actually said; this was translated from another language where the form and tone can be very different.

He needs a protégé ... or four. Teach others to do the grunt work you did and retain only the tasks that require your unique talents.

Sure, I do see where people are coming from with the "Sakurai drifting away from reality" statements, but you guys have to remember: this man is a PRODIGY. He is a huge part in why the Kirby games have such consistent quality after 31 years, and the reason why both the Kirby series & Super Smash Bros. EVEN EXIST (Sakurai made Kirby when he was 19, after all). And considering the quality of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Sakurai’s statement is far from unreasonable.

@Dev9417 I truly miss trophies. They were my main motivation to play in every Smash since Melee. Wii U and 3DS even had their own separate sets of trophies! So when Ultimate nixed the feature, that killed any interest I had in the game even though I know it's the best Smash yet.

Makes sense, really, Sakurai is just too integral to these projects, it isn't just a matter of some producer taking over his day to day and that's that. The game is very much his brainchild. We all saw what happened to Star Wars when Lucas is no longer involved.

@Dev9417 People will be very salty but I think Pokemon showcases that it's possible to both cut down a roster and not actually lose any sales after the inevitable backlash.

I remember as a kid when Smash 64 came out it only took Mario & Pikachu being in the game to convince me, I didn't even really know who half of the roster were. (Didn't know Link, Cpt. Falcon, Ness, Kirby, Fox or Samus)

I think as long as they keep a key set of popular characters they would be free to change the roster however they want.

All I can say is I hope an attempt is made to reinvent the wheel a tad with the addition of another attack option. A for smash, B for special, and Y for something new - with X remaining as the jump option.

But...must say, certainly wouldn't complain about getting more Ultimate DLC - even though I'm no longer holding my breath to see it.

@Ruler-Of-All-Evil I'm not sure Sakurai's been involved with Kirby for the last 20 years or so. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Kirby Air Ride his last game in that series?

@Dr_Lugae Exactly. They could take the approach every other fighting game series has done. Less focus on 'Everyone Is Here!' and more emphasis on look at all the cool new things we've done to evolve the formula.

I think Smash largely is the way it is due to Sakurai's remarkable work ethic. I could tell that Smash 4 was a product of blood, sweat, and tears.

However, I also believe Smash can continue under someone else. He has essentially trained multiple studios to helm the franchise after him (Sora, Namco, and maybe even HAL). We'll see!

So don't worry about the next game, keep supporting Ultimate

@Ryu_Niiyama Maybe the focus shouldn't be on how they can top Ulitmate. Maybe the focus should be on not retreading ground they already have and trying to move the series forward. Certainly, I don't think they need to completely reinvent the wheel where it's unrecognizable. I think some fresh perspectives coming on board would only be a good thing for the series

@Dr_Lugae

"I think Pokemon showcases that it's possible to both cut down a roster and not actually lose any sales after the inevitable backlash."

Idk if that's true. I mean, Pokemon obviously isn't struggling for game sales, and even if it was, they have the rest of their merchandising empire to fall back on. The series is simply too big to fail, no matter how little time they afford their developers.

That said... look at Pokemon's sales, as a series, relative to each other, and then compare how other games in other series sell on Switch. Mario, Zelda, Fire Emblem, Kirby - all easily outselling previous titles, setting new records on Switch. But Pokemon? Let's Go and Legends "only" sold around 15 million. Sword and Shield took years to outsell Gen 2, and will never outsell Gen 1. SV haven't reached that, and may not ever.

The games are still selling incredibly well for how budget they are, with a shoestring development team that pales in comparison to the size of most AAA games. It's clearly working, for TPC. But, I wouldn't say they haven't lost sales over it.

The various comments on how "they can't possibly go back to a smaller roster, they HAVE to top ultimate in some way" confuse me. The next game could safely have a roster of around 40 with mostly brand new movesets for veterans that absolutely need the reworks after 20 plus years, and people would be happy. A lot of the smash roster could easily be cut without much complaints from most fans - there is inherently a good chunk of "filler" and less popular characters that could get the axe easily.

As long as this next game gets a healthy amount of modes and a substantially sized roster, people won't care too much. They'll cry that they removed sora or cloud or banjo etc and then move on and proceed to buy and play the game regardless. Smash sells on the name alone, it doesn't NEED to one up ultimate when a reboot of sorts would be very much welcome and appreciated by a massive amount of the fanbase.

Keep your staples, redo the old-timers' movesets, balance out the representation - thats all the next roster needs.

Just port Ultimate to the next console. I don't mind waiting another decade.

@Wakkawipeout I said he is a huge part in why the games have their consistent quality. I didn’t say he worked on every game after Air Ride.

Smash is one of very few game series where you really want it to stick close to the original template laid out with the original game (or in this case Melee). There’s a beauty in the fact that you could play Melee and then go to Ultimate and everything plays pretty much the same despite there being 18 years between releases. With that in mind I don’t see why other directors are out of the question for Sakurai as long as the core gameplay remains the same since what most people want from Smash is just more stages, characters, things to collect.

He sounds incredibly self-satisfied, but in my opinion he’s one of the few that is very much allowed to .

@BLD Let's go is the franchises best selling remake though. 15million puts it on the verge of outselling Pokemon Black/White.

Sword/Shield only took just over two years to outsell Gen 2 and SV sold over 22million in four months with 1.4m being last quarter. its selling over 1m in a quarter outside of the Christmas season and it only needs to sell 2million more to beat Gen 2.

At this rate SV will likely outsell Gen 2 in less than half the time it took Sword/Shield to, so I don't know where you're getting the idea it may never reach it.

So, he's begging for work?
🤔

@UmbreonsPapa and that will likely be the path forward, especially with Sakurai-san being semi-retired. But I think the unique origins of Smash and that Sakurai-san is basically a contractor (so there is no real need/push for him to train others) means that Smash here on out with have new DNA, even if he helps with a new one because he will be passing the torch so to speak. But part of the draw to smash vs other brawlers is the attention to detail. Which is why I am fine with a DX version of Ultimate but would probably exit for a series soft reboot. But I also don’t love smash as a fighting game/platform brawler. I love it as a homage to gaming. So I wouldn’t be the target audience anyway.

It’s so cool that Nintendo has created so many blue oceans for themselves. Game genres that it’s incredibly difficult to improve upon. Smash is one of them. Out of my head their unique or outstanding gaming genres or franchises with a unique fan base are:

• Smash: Franchise Brawler
• Pikmin: cute rts / adventure
• Luigi’s Mansion: horror for everyone / adventure
• Metroid Prime: 3D metroidvania
• Animal Crossing: cutesie animal simulation
• Paper Mario - cutesie RPG
• Splatoon - 3d dimension splatfps
• Wario Ware - minigame mayhem
• Fire Emblem - Strategy RPG (since SE doesn’t make many of m)
• Unique stuff like Clubhouse Games, Nintendo Switch Sports, Mario Sports and Party, Brain Age, Picross, Fitness boxing, Ring Fit adventure

And they’re also the king of 2D3D action/adventure, platformer and kart racer with Mario, Zelda, Yoshi, Kirby, Donkey Kong and Mario Kart.

They are so unique as a game developer in so many ways.

@Tobiaku yeah it was an overdramatization to show the scale of the problem. I have nothing against Fire emblem fans and if they enjoy these characters, I'm all for it. I just felt that they could have gone a bit more creative with those character slots

I wish for a non-Smash Sakurai game, it's been more than a decade now... he's capable of so much that we may never get to see. Y'know he was really interested in VR for a while right?

If he's concerned about having no proteges, become a game design professor or something maybe. His YouTube channel is already used in game design colleges to teach people.

@Princess_Lilly It's easy, Ike has blue hair, Marth has cobalt hair, Byleth has teal hair. Chrom and Lucina both have cerulean hair since they're related.

I respect Sakurai so much but he and Nintendo really do need to work something out if they want to have that 'worthy' successor taking his place in the Smash series as soon as humanly possible, sometimes it feels like Sakurai (and Nintendo too for that matter) isn't too serious about that.

Another new Smash game after Ultimate isn't surprising at all, but how they will top Ultimate is anyone's guess. Far as the roster goes I always just expect they will cut some fighters despite knowing there will be some heavy protests.

Continuing to add more stuff to Ultimate would be the best outcome but I'd imagine licensing will make that difficult given the current speed at which companies are being acquired. At this rate by the time the next Nintendo console releases Square Enix will be owned by Sony, SEGA will be owned by Microsoft, etc.

Nintendo will have a very task in surpassing Super Smash Bros Ultimate, when they release the next game of the franchise on Switch sucessor.

I think he is right to a certain point. A lot of the contacts and sway to instil his vision is tied up with him as an individual. Another director might have an equally strong (or stronger) vision but they won’t have the goodwill and political sway to push it through uncompromised as he has.

I think that a stripped back game focused on a slightly smaller cast would be fine. Then again a “Ultimate Deluxe” release before Square/Konami/Capcom get gobbled up by Sony would be a good idea.

could do the return of features instead of fighters for the next iteration, board the platforms, smash run, subspace emissary. though all the references from spirits and classic mode are hard to imagine being done again.

tbh i'm not sure i'd want a new smash, smash groups are everywhere and i'm tired of competitive games.

@Uncle_Franklin Hey his pride is warranted. There is still nothing that eclipsed Smash [especially Ultimate] among the clones.

@Wakkawipeout Mario and Zelda have extremely different types of games within their series. It’s easy to have all sorts of different people take helm for their various style of games.

Smash is consistently one style: A party brawler.

@Matl Let’s be real. There will always be people that always buys the game that has just “Smash bros” on the box. However, Ultimate is proof with its stellar sales [even compared to past Smash game standards] that there were PLENTY of people that usually won’t play/buy Smash normally, but caved because X character was in the game.

That was Ultimate’s strength: Chances was very good you would find a single character you were a fan of. Kingdom Hearts and Minecraft alone introduced so many new people to Smash.

Smash doesn’t need to copy the current trend of “less is more” rosters. If Smash only kept the “core” Nintendo picks like Mario or Link like it’s another Melee roster game then the new Smash game loses the magic that Ultimate had.

@Arawn93

It was cute the first 10 times he said it.

I can easily see Nintendo doing to smash what they have done to paper Mario, Mario golf series, Mario party, Yoshi series, etc. Nintendo can't be completely trusted 100% on first party games anymore and that began on the Wii.

I love smash 64 and melee. I lost interest in smash after melee. Subspace was cool, the board on smash 4 was cool (I think I am the only one that likes it), but the campaign in ultimate is a chore.

Smash as a whole has only been meh since melee. They don't inovate enough and when they do it's either too short or despised by everyone. It also feels like they are trying to squeeze water out of a rock.

Sakurai has nearly killed himself multiple times pumping these games out for Nintendo. When he talks about there being nobody ready to replace him I rather suspect he means nobody else is stupid enough to take the gig.

Kinda sounds like Sakurai/Nintendo are in the planning stages of the next brand new Smash Bros at the moment, and that it won't launch until several years from now (like 2027/28).

I'm going to be sad whenever the new game comes out because I'll have to say goodbye to the 400+ mods I have in Ultimate.

All they literally need to do, is make Super Smash Bros Ultimate Deluxe (or Plus) and add new characters and stages and more waves of DLC on top of what they already have. It would still be a complete package and (hopefully) satisfy fans who didnt get their picks into Ultimate. Easy move.

@Princess_Lilly
Huge fire emblem fan but I agree it’s ridiculous. Plus most of them are shadow fighters anyhow.

I really would want them to port ultimate and try to keep as many of the third party characters as possible, and just build upon that, I honestly think ultimate is everything we could want in a smash game. Stages, characters, gameplay, I would hate to see it all go.

With all due respect to Masahiro Sakurai, there will come a day where he will have to step back from the role as lead developer of the Super Smash Bros. series and let someone younger take the reins. It's too popular of a franchise for Nintendo to simply abandon just because Masahiro Sakurai either retires or passes away.

After all, look at how Shigeru Miyamoto stepped back from being the lead developer on The Legend of Zelda series and let Eiji Aonuma take over development for the franchise. He's trying to cultivate the next generation of developers at Nintendo.

Masahiro Sakurai should take a page from him and start finding someone he can trust to eventually replace him. Otherwise, Nintendo's execs may do it for him, and they may end up going with someone he may not want. So better he do it now rather than wait.

Smash Calibur anyone?

Probably start by having usable online.
And then, maybe not add 7 frames of input delay.
Fixing the buffer system...

That's just for starters. Sakurai never wanted smash to be competitive and it shows. Maybe the series will be better without him.

seriously get some rest sakurai

Sakurai really just seems like he has an utterly massive ego.

I'm almost certain the next Smash is gonna reboot the franchise. That would be the perfect time for someone else to take the helm and honestly, if Sakurai hasn't been training someone to take over that's foolishness on his part.

I'm expecting some sort of great change for the next one.

If Sakurai is still involved then it could be something like all characters getting new move lists.

If its someone else it could be more an reinvention of gameplay itself. An absolutely massive risk, something like making it 3D

Sakurai is incredibly well respected, and very well connected, that's not something you can just learn from someone. That takes a lot of time, effort, great work and requires showing respect and reverance for other people's work over the course of your career.

Smash's guest characters may seem like nothing now compared to the ridiculous reach Fortnite has, but it was no mean feat, and is a licensing nightmare.

I'm willing to bet a new Smash would bring things back to basics, and focus on making sure the core cast has unique moves that properly represent them. That and bring the online up to current standards.

He means they have not yet begin production of next Melee game for Switch 2 or its just his way to say he will be leading the next game

For now he needs some rest and free times cause once Nintendo call him up for Super Smash Bros. again there will be no rest for the entirety of the development.

@Princess_Lilly Did you watch the video?

He is being objective, and isn't delusional about it, presenting facts for making that statement.

There needs to be someone like him for Smash to be the way it is.

The level of polishing Smash has is not present even in other Nintendo games. It's a bad thing that he crunches himself, but that's thanks to his perfectionism, which isn't a good thing for one's health, but it has helped make Smash Bros. what it is.

@Dev9417 He tends to make games run the smoothest possible in the systems they are developed for.

I'm pretty sure with him at the lead, Forgotten Land wouldn't have had those framerate issues, even being kind of "open world" and all that.

@AstroTheGamosian He is a contractor. He doesn't really care if Nintendo goes with someone else.

He's just stating a Smash game without him would be so, so, so different. And he isn't delusional about it. Smash as it is since Brawl, wouldn't be the same without him.

Brawl, Smash 4, Ultimate. Every of those games has been perfect from a technical and game representing viewpoint. He actually cares about representing the characters as faithful as possible to how they look and act in their source games.

That's the thing. You could get someone else not giving two cents about that and just do the characters the way they want wihout caring at all.

He wouldn't sweat at Nintendo going with someone else, but that sure would be a Smash game with a lot of frame rate issues, loved characters turning into mush and mediocre gameplay.

@Olmectron I beg to differ, many Nintendo games have very high level of polishing, it's the quality of 1st party games that sold every Nintendo console.

I think you overestimate his impact. He is in charge of the series, yes, but it's not Stardew Valley, it's not a 1 person project. There are countless people that actually make the game happen, and saying that Smash is a great game thanks to Sakurai's crunching is not recognizing many people's skill and effort. Especially when as a head of the project, his work is probably mainly supervisory. Also especially when crunching is actually counterproductive and it only looks like it helps, but that's another topic, a topic of the grind culture.

I am not saying Sakurai is not contributing to Smash's success, but saying it's all thanks to him is an overstatement. I can't tell what you meant exactly, so let's just settle on that

@Princess_Lilly He is the director.

Different to other directors, mostly from western studios, he has lots of input in design and programming, even if he isn't actually programming.

He isn't simply a money guy telling everyone what to do, he GETS involved in the games.

Of course every game is a collective effort. But the reason Ultimate, Smash 4 and Brawl doesn't have frame rate issues is thanks to him, and the team of programmers, and the families of the team of programmers, and the textures designers, and the families of the texture designers. And etc, of course.

But look at Game Freak games. Of course they need to get an agenda to go with anime and merchandising, but a different direction would make wonders. Their programmers and designers are not bad in their jobs, they just lack time and a better direction. And no, I don't talk about crunching, just someone actually caring about the games as passion projects, and not only money makers.

Sakurai's crunching has been of himself testing and re-thinking design/changes to gameplay/features after testing. The teams working at smash bros games hasn't been subject to this, as far as we know. He took the extra time himself to think of ways to improve what was already not bad.

I've read basically all of Iwata asks for my comments. And basically every translated interview he has been in.

@Olmectron Personally, I disagree. Based on statements he's made in the past, I don't think he's entirely comfortable with the idea of someone else taking the reins over from the series that he created, regardless of whether he's a contractor or not. What I'm saying is that, regardless of how he feels, he has very little say in the matter in the end. Nintendo will do whatever they want with the series, with or without his input.

And while I do love Brawl for its wealth of content (especially the Subspace Emissary), and is my favorite entry in the series, I think many hardcore fans of the series would disagree with us on that. There are quite a few flaws with the game, which did not go over well with those fans. After all, many of them still consider Melee to be the benchmark of the series due to its hectic, fast-paced nature, and is the entry they continue to play in fan tournaments.

Sakurai's a bit of a diva...but who can blame him? I think most people as successful as this guy would be prone to suffering from narcissism / Main Character Syndrome.

@Princess_Lilly Sakurai-san’s very hands on involvement is pretty well known and documented at this point. It’s part of the reason why he was essentially contracted when he left HAL. That doesn’t mean someone else can’t helm Smash but the game is going to feel differently without his involvement. He spent an obscene amount of time playtesting and making changes before having his team implement those changes. He is very specific about details of character and stage design, hitbox placement and even what music arrangements are used. He even voices characters in the Japanese version. He essentially fills 5-6 roles during production. And that is even before he gets stuck as the marketing pony.

@Olmectron Well, I have to admit, I haven't followed his career as closely as you, but we can be pretty sure that we don't know how much imput he has exactly on the series. I remember when Sakurai said that he had some reservations towards putting more characters from his games so as not to make it look like he's autopromoting, but some of his colleagues/workers told him to go ahead and do so. I'm not saying he's lying, but:
1. those were his words
2. I doubt any subordinate would tell him otherwise, especially in Japanese working environment, where the work ethic is notably bad.

So I have some reservations when it comes to interviews as a source of info. It's not exclusive to Sakurai, I just don't trust company higher ups as a whole.

When it comes to crunching, I just think it's setting a bad example for the workers and people that are influenced by him in general. It's his time, his life, of course, he can do whatever he wants with it, but I don't think it's something to talk about as a positive thing. Crunching is very bad for both mental and physical health, and it really does nothing. Countless research results show that it's counterproductive, and encouraging such behavior is toxic. Again, I'm not saying he's doing anything bad, or encouraging crunching, but I think it might have some negative impact on his fans. I really hope I'm wrong. Take it from a former cruncher.

I completely agree with the comparison of Smash and Pokemon though , it really highlights how much a good higher up is worth. Pokemon company is struggling right now, but I think it's more of a supply and demand issue. People still buy half baked pokemon games, so to the board and the investors it doesn't make any sense to put more money and time into the project. That's a very short sighted strategy, but that's what it looks like from the outside.

Especially when, as you said, the company does not lack talented and skilled people. SV was great in terms of writing, new pokemon designs, and mechanics. I really liked it. It's just that the game should have been in production for at least another year.

As a fan of Kid Icarus Uprising that doesn't like Smash, I've been hoping that he'd apply his talents to something else for a while now.

Sakurai needs to learn how to teach what he knows. Dude acting like that boomer at the office who knows how to do something but is afraid if he teaches it to someone else, they will lay him off the next day.

@Ryu_Niiyama sorry, I was caught up responding to someone else and omitted your comment. I'm not saying he's not doing much, but saying that he's not as irreplacable as he would have wanted to. For his involvment, check my comment #79.

I kinda wonder how much he really does and how much of this is Kojiming. I have to say, this discussion has actually turned my attention towards him, and I'd like to have more solid info on him. I think we'd have to dig very deep to uncover the truth tho