According to Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa, the Nintendo Switch successor will be revealed within this fiscal year — sometime before March 31, 2025. At this point, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the Nintendo Switch has reportedly pushed out 34.66 million units worldwide, marking it as the third best-selling title for the console.
Needless to say, chances are extremely high that Nintendo will want a new entry for the Super Smash Bros. on this mysterious new console. This means that Masahiro Sakurai will probably have to act as the Director once again. Even Sakurai believes that his involvement is needed for the series to continue, though he’d probably rather leave it to someone else.
Either way, Sakurai mentioned that he’s still creating games for the time being, leading many to believe that development on the next entry in the Super Smash Bros. franchise has already begun. This notion seems to be further supported by how a job opening posted by Studio 2 & Studio S of Bandai Namco has seemingly been filled.
At the time, Studio 2 & Studio S were looking for those experienced in developing action games, specifically those played from a “side-view.” Needless to say, this is a valid descriptor for Super Smash Bros.
With all of this in mind, it makes a lot of sense to pay close attention to the things that Masahiro Sakurai is saying on his YouTube channel for things that might be on his mind as he’s likely working hard on his next game. One of his recent videos had him talking about cutscenes.
Ultimately, something that Sakurai says in this video ended up rubbing some fans the wrong way. Based on he says here, we probably shouldn’t expect a repeat of Super Smash Bros. Brawl’s Subspace Emissary mode.
“Sometimes, the cutscenes themselves are the selling point — a reward for playing well,” declared Sakurai. “But seeing as those scenes end up all over the internet these days, it’s hard to consider that a reward.”
“Sometimes, the cutscenes themselves are the selling point — a reward for playing well. But seeing as those scenes end up all over the internet these days, it’s hard to consider that a reward.” — Masahiro Sakurai
Us longtime fans of Super Smash Bros. know that Sakurai is actually speaking from experience here. In particular, there was an especially long gap between the Japanese and North American releases for Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
After the Japanese version of Brawl was released, YouTube videos unveiled all the cutscenes for the Subspace Emissary mode. Indeed, this is a fact that Sakurai was not too pleased with considering all the work and resources that went into making those cutscenes happen in the first place.
For Super Smash Bros. 4 and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the budget was instead focused on creating those amazing character reveal trailers that fans have become quite familiar with. This is likely what we should also expect for the next title.
Of course, it should be mentioned that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s World of Light mode did have a few cutscenes of its own, but these scenes did not have quite the frequency compared to those from Brawl’s Subspace Emissary.
For better or worse, it would seem that the Subspace Emissary is slated to just be a one-time thing for the Super Smash Bros. series.