Earlier this month, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate director Masahiro Sakurai confirmed that work on the game was now being carried out entirely remotely, due to concerns related to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Sakurai also announced that he would continue supervising the project from his home.
In the bi-weekly column which he writes for Famitsu, Sakurai confirmed that remote work on the game was going well. He displayed an extremely positive attitude when discussing the unusual situation, joking about being more productive than ever before due to his decreased work commute and no longer being stuck inside a “sweaty office.” Hopefully, Sakurai’s increased productivity also comes with some breaks as well; it’s a well-known fact that the poor guy pretty much never gets enough sleep.
Sakurai also acknowledged that one of the reasons work on Ultimate is going so well is the fact that the game has already released, and they are focused entirely on the development of upcoming DLC fighters. He stated that things would be much more difficult if they were in the early stages of creating Ultimate, and expressed his sympathies to game developers who currently find themselves in a similar situation.
At the moment, the Smash team is working on the first entry in the second wave of DLC, Ultimate Fighters Pass vol 2. The set will consist of six fighters, one more than the first volume of the Ultimate Fighters Pass. In the most recent Nintendo Direct, it was confirmed that the fighter would hail from the ARMS series and that more information would be released sometime in June.
As in previous columns written over the past several weeks, Sakurai admitted that his current focus is entirely on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and the Fighters Pass DLC. Earlier, we reported that Sakurai considers his post-Ultimate future to be a “blank slate,” and this still seems to be very much the case.
We wish Sakurai and his team the best as they continue to develop new and exciting fighters for their amazing game (and encourage them all to take breaks and get plenty of sleep).
Who do you think the ARMS representative coming to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate could be? Let us know!
