UPDATE
Did you enjoy hearing about how this game evolved and got to bring everyone in? What do you think can be done to make the next game better? Let us know below!
ORIGINAL STORY
Many gamers have enjoyed hearing the “origin stories” of titles made by Masahiro Sakurai, and today, they got the “ultimate treat” by hearing the breakdown of Super Smash Bros Ultimate! The game is the latest in the beloved gaming line, and as a result, many were curious about what was going to be brought up by the legendary developer. He did make lots of interesting things known, including how the timeframe between the Wii/3DS titles in the series and the title that would be on the Switch was essentially zero. Seriously, when they did the “final video” for the Wii U/3DS games, he was making his pitch for the next one!
The reason he did that was that the development teams from game to game had generally changed by large amounts as they either moved into new buildings or got entirely new teams like working inside the Bandai Namco headquarters. However, since Bandai Namco helped with the Wii/3DS games, Sakurai went right to work on the next pitch to keep a large chunk of those people for Super Smash Bros Ultimate!
Since he knew he would have a similar team and wanted to do as much as possible, he came up with the “Everyone Is Here!” moniker that would come to define the game. Ironically, between the “4th games” and the Switch one, only seven characters were missing. But still, bringing them back was a big deal, as was the arrival of new characters, many of which were influenced by the player’s ballot that had brought Bayonetta into the previous games.
Another big change that Sakurai had to work with was the hardware, specifically the Switch’s cartridge software. The Wii U game had 25 GBs to work with on its disk, while the cartridge had just 16. Given all Sakurai wanted to do, he thought he’d have to put out lots of free DLC to get everything in. But instead, because of new compression technology, he didn’t need as much room as he wanted!
The story behind World of Light was also interesting because he wanted to do something big, and not like past games, but the timeframe his team had was stacked, so he came up with the Spirits and their boosts in gameplay to help create a fun new single-player mode.
Finally, he noted that while he doesn’t know what will come next for the franchise, he does think that Super Smash Bros Ultimate will be quite hard to top, and he doesn’t know how he will top it. At least, not yet.
