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Sakurai Discusses His Career, Smash Ultimate's Future in Latest Famitsu Column

Sakurai Column.jpg

The latest issue of Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu has been released, and with it comes the latest installment of Smash developer Masahiro Sakurai's bi-weekly column. Kody "NOKOLO" and Robert Sephazon of Source Gaming have provided a summarized translation via a pair of twitter threads.


While Sakurai often uses his column to look back on development for titles he has worked on, this installment looks to the future. During his time off work for Golden Week — a series of four major Japanese holidays that happen in the same 7-day span — he thought about how long he wants to keep working in game development. The idea of early retirement is appealing, and he doesn't want to spend the rest of his life working. At the same time, there are aspects of his work that he enjoys, and that he wants to pursue for as long as he can.

With that in mind, Sakurai announced that there will be no additional DLC fighters for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate after Fighters Pass 2 is finished. On top of that, after all of the game's DLC is released, development on Smash Ultimate will officially be over. It's currently unknown when either of these will happen, though Sakurai also implies that this may come soon.

Sakurai then goes on to confirm that he will continue working in game development after development on Smash Ultimate ends, though it seems that he plans on ending his Famitsu column soon.

A full translation of the column will be available on Source Gaming later today.
 
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Comments

While I’m all for “more is more” in terms of characters, stages, and content, there is a nice bit of closure knowing we’ll have the “complete” game by the end of 2021. I’m honestly thinking the last two packs will be done by early fall, based on the fairly regular 3 month schedule they’ve kept this year so far.

So yeah, so many characters and additions I’d love to see, but speculation years isn’t something I’ll miss. Finally we’ll be able to see trailers for other games and immediately not have people harp “Oh, Monster Hunter Direct, must mean Monster Hunter is coming to Smash, etc etc”. I love SSBU to death, favorite game ever, but I’ll be happy when the last of the DLC comes out and we have essentially a “final” version that we can just play instead of speculate on. But to each their own, I know some people live for the speculation hype game.

Also, Sakurai for sure needs a rest. I’ve never played a Kid Icarus game but if any make their way to the Switch I’ll have to check it out!
 
But don't worry, kids will still manage to find a way to pretend that we are getting a 3rd pass or more DLC at all, and we are gonna continue having to tell them that it is not the case 🙄 people just need to accept the reality that it is that we can't all be pleased, we just gotta be grateful with this massive milestone of a game that this developer has given to our lives.
 
Sakurai definitely deserves some rest after Ultimate.

That said, I wonder if this means some kind of double reveal (with the second one getting a small teaser) at E3.
 
Had a feeling Ultimate would be his last hurrah in smash. If anyone deserves an early retirement when it comes to game development it's this man, not only does he work himself to the bone but also finds time to be engaging with fans of his work.

I had some hope of their being a FP3 but without Sakurai at the helm of it best to wait until the next generation of smash with someone new calling the shots for any roster additions.
 
Had a feeling Ultimate would be his last hurrah in smash. If anyone deserves an early retirement when it comes to game development it's this man, not only does he work himself to the bone but also finds time to be engaging with fans of his work.

I had some hope of their being a FP3 but without Sakurai at the helm of it best to wait until the next generation of smash with someone new calling the shots for any roster additions.
I do agre that smash ultimate is probably his last smash game but honestly i dont think smash will be worse without him after all the non Sakurai Kirby games are much better
Dreamland was simple, Adventrue had heavy performance issues and Superstar looked ugly and had was pretty unpolished!
 
I do agre that smash ultimate is probably his last smash game but honestly i dont think smash will be worse without him after all the non Sakurai Kirby games are much better
Dreamland was simple, Adventrue had heavy performance issues and Superstar looked ugly and had was pretty unpolished!
Hey, Superstar's pretty fun.
 
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