Masahiro Sakurai will be overseeing and supervising future Super Smash Bros. Ultimate developments remotely. The news came directly via his Twitter. Sakurai mentions that this is a difficult process, mostly because Ultimate is a “high security project,” however, he has no choice but to continue development on future updates this way.
私もテレワークに移行しています。
つまり、遠隔でさまざまな場所に監修などを行います。
『スマブラSP』は極めて高いセキュリティを保つべき企画であり、持ち出しは難しいところもありますが、それでもやらねばならない時です。
みなさん、頑張って乗り切りましょう!!— 桜井 政博 (@Sora_Sakurai) April 7, 2020
Last month, Sakurai mentioned to gaming magazine Famitsu, that the extra fighters for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate might get delayed. Due to this circumstance, Sakurai said that even if a new fighter was announced, that development may not proceed accordingly. He expressed that due to the situation regarding COVID-19, there may be game delays and that the situation is ultimately out of their hands.
Despite this, Nintendo did announce the next Fighter Pass character in the most recent Direct. The latest addition to the Ultimate roster will be a character from the Nintendo Switching fighting game, ARMS. This character is scheduled to release sometime in June 2020.
Masahiro Sakurai isn’t the only developer working remotely. Other studios and teams have since announced that they will be working on projects out of the office. This is due to concerns regarding COVID-19. Other studios working remotely include Kojima Productions and Sega of America.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is available for Nintendo Switch.
