Nintendo designer Masahiro Sakurai has revealed that the next entry in the Super Smash Bros. franchise will not include every character from past iterations of the game.
Speaking to NowGamer, Sakurai stated that they would like to include every character who has ever been in a Super Smash Bros. title, but there is not enough time left in the development cycle to make that happen.
“I can answer that: no. We don’t have the time to fully recreate every single character who’s been in Smash Bros at this point,”
“Adding new characters is not a simple addition – it’s really multiplication. The amount of work, adding a character is multiplied and becomes bigger and bigger as you go. We can’t because of the amount of work it takes. However, I do believe I understand that each character has its own set of fans out there who really like that character.”
“So we’re not going to cut characters out of the way, we’re going to put in as many characters as we can, we really want to do that, because it’s good for the fans and good for all of us. But in the event that we do have to cut some characters, I’d like to apologize in advance to those fans.”
On the surface, Sakurai’s comments are a little disappointing for long-time Super Smash Bros. fans, as it seems likely that certain favorites will not make it into the final game. While nothing was specifically mentioned by Sakurai, it seems likely that any missing characters could be inserted into the game post-launch via (hopefully free) downloadable content. This is just a bit of speculation on our part, so don’t take it as fact until Nintendo gives the high sign.
The Wii U and 3DS versions of the next Super Smash Bros. are scheduled to launch sometime in 2014. We will keep you updated with all the latest news about the game, and its roster of characters, as it is announced.
