Development for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate concluded this year, a landmark achievement in video games, crossover and hype generation — but people are (somehow) already speculating about what’s next. Beloved Director Masahiro Sakurai doesn’t seem to have any particular idea at the moment, not committing to no more Smash games ever while also making it clear that there isn’t one in the pipeline. Heck, he doesn’t even seem sure about his general future in video game development. So, in translated direct words, he’s stated that “Doing anything else is going to take some time, so it’s probably best to forget about me for a while.”
The final question is whether he has a message for 4Gamer readers, but he says he doesn't really have anything to say except this:
"Doing anything else is going to take some time, so it's probably best to forget about me for a while."— Kody NOKOLO (@KodyNOKOLO) December 29, 2021
He was being interviewed (along with countless other game developers) by 4Gamer about their 2021 in review. Besides an interesting handful of tidbits (Sakurai’s favorite game this year was Inscryption, his favorite general entertainment was the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and a dev he found interesting was Hidetaka Miyazaki), he offered his very Sakurai-esque statement as a message to fans.
Countless internet users have begged — practically demanded — that Sakurai take a long vacation to rest his weary bones, and considering the wry exhaustion in the above statement I hope his next project is a sabbatical, if not outright retirement. He’s already given us legendary games in a legendary career — the man invented Kirby, for heaven’s sake — and I think that he deserves whatever he wants at this point. So let’s fulfill his wishes and just leave him be for all of 2022, shall we?
Sakurai, picturing himself in Dream Land where he can take more than a week’s worth of vacation days.
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Written by Amelia Fruzzetti
A writer and Nintendo fan based in Seattle, Washington. When not working for NinWire, she can be found eating pasta, writing stories, and wondering about when Mother 3 is finally going to get an official localization.
