It’s still crazy to think that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate concluded its development with a roster consisting of 86 characters. During development, even Masahiro Sakurai himself was unsure of how future entries within the series will be able to top Super Smash Bros. Ultimate considering its unbelievable ambitions.
Perhaps it’s finally time to add Dragon Ball’s Goku as a playable fighter? Though Sakurai acknowledges that there are fans that seriously want characters such as Goku and Iron Man in Super Smash Bros., he doesn’t believe that this is something that will ever happen.
Ultimately, Super Smash Bros. started as a celebration of Nintendo. Once third-party characters got added to the mix, the series then became a celebration of gaming.
In fact, leading up to the event that revealed Sora as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s final DLC challenger, Sakurai himself described the event as one last celebration of gaming. Indeed, this turned out to be an event to remember.
Ever since Sakurai introduced the concept of third-party characters during Super Smash Bros. Brawl’s development, he’s been adamant that only characters with origins tied directly to gaming would ever be considered. This eliminated the possibility of those that hailed from manga, anime, or other forms of media.
Of course, it should be mentioned that Sakurai has been known to go back on the things that he’s said before. For example, Sakurai had previously eliminated the possibility of Ridley ever being playable due to him being too big, and yet he’s playable in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
Hilariously enough, fans kept requesting Ridley during the Smash Ballot, so Sakurai decided to take the plunge once more in hopes of trying to make him work. He was apparently able to accomplish this by studying Ridley’s hunched appearance from the original Metroid on the NES.
“He studied the art, and he hunched his shoulders,” said Nate Bihldorff of Nintendo about Sakurai’s development process for Ridley. “I think he’s got a specific size, but he did put a lot of work into making it look like the NES sprite where he has a hunched back most of the time.”
Sakurai was willing to make Ridley work specifically because he had a place in video game history as one of the main antagonists of the Metroid series. Additionally, it’s worth pointing out that Ridley has fulfilled roles within the Super Smash Bros. series itself with regards to background elements, cutscenes, stage hazards, and even boss battles.
Earlier this year, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa confirmed plans that the Switch successor is slated to be revealed within this fiscal year, before April 1, 2025. As such, we’ll probably see the continuation of the tradition in which a new entry within the Super Smash Bros. series is released for every console, especially considering how Smash Ultimate has sold over 34 million units worldwide at this point.
It turns out that Sakurai himself recently stated that he’s still creating games for the time being. A little while later, he also revealed that he has already wrapped up the filming of his final YouTube video, leading us all to speculate that he’s been ramping up his focus on game development again.
Coincidentally, Bandai Namco’s Studio 2 & Studio S, the studios that developed Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, have recently stated that they’ve filled their positions for game designers experienced with action games played from a “side-view.” Finally, it was also very curious to see one last batch of Spirits being added to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate after years of inactivity.
The signs seem to pointing towards the notion that development on the next Super Smash Bros. has already begun. Many of us have been speculating that we could be looking at a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Deluxe, which would allow the developers to continue adding to Smash Ultimate’s massive roster similar to what Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the Switch did for Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U.
Ultimately though, Sakurai will likely continue pushing the Super Smash Bros. series as a celebration of gaming. While Dragon Ball’s Goku does have an impressive list of games, the character’s origins actually stem from manga and anime.
In other words, it’d probably be best for fans of the Dragon Ball series to not get their hopes up as Sakurai will likely be sticking to this design philosophy for this particular series.