The roster ofSuper Smash Bros. Ultimatewill come in at an astounding 74 fighters, which makes one wonder how exactly the development team chose which character would get in. Fortunately,Smash Bros.Creator, Director, and overall gaming auteur Masahiro Sakurai gave some insight into how exactly this process works in a recent interview withGameInformer.
As Nintendo has well-publicized,Super Smash Bros. Ultimatecontains every fighterthat has appeared in a priorSuper Smash Bros. game. As Sakurai was working with the same development team fromSuper Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DSon this title, it made implementing all the fighters from those games a somewhat smoother process. He also wanted to please the fans of all these Nintendo franchises, though he has finally come to terms with the fact that he will never please everyone:
“This time, I worked with the same company and same team that worked onSuper Smash Bros. for Wii UandSuper Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DStitles. And in those titles, we were able to include quite a few fighters. So I thought, if we work a bit harder, we can make the dream of including all fighters come true, so we went for it.
There will be people who might feel disappointed if fighters that appeared in a previous title are not included. I didn’t want any players to feel that way, so we worked really hard to make this happen.
But what I learned is that regardless of doing our utmost, no matter how hard we try, and no matter how many fighters we include, there will always be people who feel that way.”
When discussing brand new fighters, Masahiro Sakurai revealed that several different elements influence a character’s inclusion. In addition to things like workload and relevancy of the character, the development team also considered feedback from the Smash Ballot and discussed which fighters would balance out the roster well.
He went into further detail about both Incineroar and freeDLC character Piranha Plant. He revealed that the developers initially left a blank slot for a Generation VII Pokémon before they got more information on those titles, though Incineroar was chosen soon after he got that information. When it comes to Piranha Plant, he acknowledged that it was an extremely well known enemy so it would make a noticeable and enticing limited-time free DLC character:
“It is a project after all, so we take into consideration things like labor, man-hours, the time in which the title will be sold. We decide on the fighters from the very early planning stage, and from there, we calculate and begin production. We don’t add or remove any characters during the project. We do things like base our consideration on the results of the Smash ballot, and also balance things out so that there’s a difference in the types of fighters.
By the way, as for Incineroar, during our planning stage we knew that a newPokémongame was coming, so we intentionally kept one spot open for that, and we decided which character to create once we received more info on the title…
Also, unlike some main characters from some (not widely known) franchises, Piranha Plant is a character everyone knows well. And, I want to make sure to remind everyone that it is a limited-time offer fighter everyone can get for free as an early-purchase bonus.”
So there you have it - recycling the development team and some of the work done on the previousSuper Smash Bros.games help ensure that every previous character could make it in. Meanwhile, new characters' inclusions relied on a combination of popularity, relevancy, and feasibility. Now, don’t mind me as I stare longingly into the distance hoping for Geno to make it in as a DLC fighter (all of whom have already been decided by Nintendo).
Super Smash Bros. Ultimatefor Nintendo Switch will finally bring the long running crossover fighting game series to a crescendo on December 7, even if Reggie Fils-Aimewished it launch earlier this year. The gamecan also still be pre-ordered on Amazon.DualShockers recently attend aSuper Smash Bros.event where we were able to try out every new fighter, soyou can check out impressions of all of them.
