Masahiro Sakurai Confirms Super Smash Bros Ultimate Has Ended Development

Masahiro Sakurai has made the expected announcement about Super Smash Bros Ultimate.

The legendary game director shares this statement on Twitter, translated via Google:

“Thank you very much to everyone involved. (I think it’s amazing)

The original perfect design and the color coding are precise and perfect.

The sculpt and pose are both good.

Now that all the fighters have been made into amiibo, I guess my work on “Smash Bros. Ultimate” is finally coming to an end. Thank you for your hard work.”

Sakurai also shared pictures of the Sora amiibo, presumably his own. Of course, we know that today is the official release street date for this amiibo, which is also the last amiibo released for this game.

We had also reported yesterday that Super Smash Bros Ultimate received an update specifically to add compatibility with this amiibo. The patch notes for the update brought the implication that they were winding down.

Of course, part of the reason of this news’ relevance is that Super Smash Bros Ultimate had been a huge success in its own terms. It is the best-selling game in the franchise, and is one of Nintendo’s many titles that had that long tail in sales. Nintendo subsequently continued support for the game for the past six years.

While Super Smash Bros Ultimate owners will continue to have online play for the next few years to come, and subsequently, new Spirit Battles, end of development means that players can expect that if they master this game, they won’t have to worry about new characters or content to change that up.

Sakurai has spoken frequently through the years about his uncertainties about future Super Smash Bros games. He has had mixed feelings about wanting to retire, but also, worries that the game won’t be able to continue if he wasn’t at the helm.

Sakurai is obviously not being self-effacing here. But his dilemma is reasonable and understandable. Sakurai worked on the franchise consistently since it started, and seemingly for the worse, he did not cultivate any successors or pupils to whom he would properly pass knowledge on the Super Smash Bros template.

For the near future, at least, we should probably expect Sakurai to make the next Super Smash Bros again. In fact, after the abovementioned tweet, he made another tweet pondering the large size of Super Smash Bros Ultimate amiibo. Implied, in that, of course, is the large number of playable characters, a growing number of which are crossover characters.

Here’s what Sakurai said, again translated by Google:

“Once again, the numbers are overwhelming… Many things go through my mind.”

So it seems Sakurai is already teasing fans about what he is looking at, and even planning to do, with the next Super Smash Bros.