New Super Smash Bros. Game is Still 'Several Years' Away

One of the biggest announcements at Nintendo's E3 Press conference this year was when Satoru Iwata announced that a new Super Smash Bros. game will be coming for the Wii U and the 3DS. The only problem with that is, well it doesn't exist yet. 

Series creator Masahiro Sakurai clarified that statement a bit, not disputing that there will be a new SSB game for the Wii U and 3DS, but he wants to be clear that he hasn't even started thinking about it yet.

Sakurai used his weekly Famitsu column (which has been translated by 1UP) to dispel the thoughts that the new Smash Brothers game was anywhere near completion. Sakurai's studio, Project Sora, is currently working on Kid Icarus: Uprising for the 3DS, and that's all they're working on right now.

"We've got two new games out in the open when there's no extra time to work with them at all," says Sakurai. "It makes me cringe, and I'm not sure it's the smartest thing to make gamers wait for several years, but the early announcement was made chiefly in order to attract new team members."

The key words there are "several years" which no one wants to hear, but Nintendo has never had a problem with making us wait for games anyway. Fortunately, Sakurai did have plenty to say about making the game for both Wii U and 3DS as opposed to one or the other.

"If we went solely for the Wii U," he said, "the HD graphics would really bump up the visual effects, but then we'd be stuck in another arms race. If we made this game another extension over previous one, we'd have to cut out the new things we could possibly do on the 3DS hardware and compete with ourselves again over the size of the character roster and the amount of gameplay we can put it. It wouldn't be a fruitful competition, but doing something completely new would be difficult for many reasons, not least of which that the gamers may not be satisfied with it. That's why we decided to think about ways to link the personal connection one has with his portable system to the gather-around-and-play aspect of console systems."

So we can be sure that Sakurai has been thinking about what he wants to do with the next installment of the wildly popular brawling series. Still, it sounds like he's becoming a little uncomfortable and worried about the huge strain that has been placed upon him.

"The hardest part about game development is the burdens it places upon me," he said. "With previous projects I had a game design document in place before forming a team, but with this I don't have the time for that. I won't be able to look at every aspect of the game and balance out all the characters by myself this time. I'm trying to think about how this is going to work out, but probably I'll have to discuss it with my future development team. The future of this project really depends on the people I can get involved with it."

Hopefully he can find those people to help him lift some of the weight off his shoulders and make another masterpiece.