Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is truly a special game. It first launched back in December 7, 2018 with a starting roster of 74. Fast-forward to October 18, 2021 when Kingdom Hearts’ Sora was released as the final DLC character, the roster was then expanded to 84.
On multiple occasions, Masahiro Sakurai has discussed the huge undertaking of assembling Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s massive character select screen. Needless to say, it’s difficult to imagine how the next entry in the series is supposed to top this without the “Everyone Is Here” theme.
Apparently when Sakurai first revealed to the rest of the development team that he wanted to bring back every fighter that ever appeared in a Super Smash Bros. title into a single game, he was met with dead silence. Indeed, this would prove to be a gargantuan task.
However, Sakurai intended to see this through since he saw it as the last mission given to him by the late Satoru Iwata. Sakurai felt as though he owed much to the previous Nintendo President.
According to cliff notes from Source Gaming about a Famitsu Column posted on December 13th, 2018, Sakurai believed that the “Everyone Is Here” theme of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was nothing short of a miracle. Additionally, he believed that it would probably only happen this one time.
Since then, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has gone on to sell over 34.66 million units worldwide, cementing it as the third best-selling game on the Nintendo Switch after Animal Crossing: New Horizons (45.85 million units) and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (62.90 million units).
In total, the Super Smash Bros. series has sold over 75.96 million units since its inception. That means that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate alone represents around 45.6% of the franchise’s total sales.
We have to imagine that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was able to greatly exceed Nintendo’s initial sales projections. As such, Nintendo will more than likely be willing to allot an even greater budget to Masahiro Sakurai for whenever it’s time for development on the next entry to begin.
Nothing is confirmed at the moment, but there are plenty of reasons to speculate that development on the next Super Smash Bros. entry has already begun. Masahiro Sakurai himself recently confirmed that he’s still creating games for the time being and has also stated that he’ll be finished with his YouTube channel project before the end of the year.
As for the Switch successor, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa declared plans that the console is slated to be announced sometime within this fiscal year, before April 1, 2025. Coincidentally, Bandai Namco’s Studio 2 & Studio S recently filled positions for developers experienced with action games played from a “side-view.”
Of course, Sakurai has stated previously that the only reason why Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s “Everyone Is Here” theme was even possible in the first place was due to Bandai Namco returning from the development of Super Smash Bros. 4 to develop the next entry. Nothing is set in stone at the moment, but history appears to be repeating itself once more.
Nintendo would no doubt want to continue the success of the Super Smash Bros. franchise considering how profitable it’s been for them. With that in mind, similar to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s continuation after Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U, perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea for Nintendo to oversee the development of “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Deluxe” on this mysterious Switch successor console.
Essentially, this would mean that the developers can expand and adjust what was already created within Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. We could potentially see a roster featuring over 100 fighters in the next few years.
Though Sakurai probably didn’t envision the “Everyone Is Here” theme repeating in the future, the success of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has broken records in ways that nobody could’ve imagined. Suddenly, the possibility of this happening a second time actually feels very real.
Ultimately though, we’ll have to see how things play out once the Switch successor and next Super Smash Bros. entry are inevitably revealed.