You might recall that Super Smash Bros. Brawl had a story mode called The Subspace Emissary. In between levels, players were treated to cutscenes that were mashups of characters from different properties. It was pure fan service. And it's not happening again.

Series creator Masahiro Sakurai recently shared his disappointment that the cutscenes were uploaded to the internet. In a regular column on Weekly Famitsu (translated by Kotaku), he explained why he won't be including them in the series' next entry.

"I felt if players saw the cutscenes outside of the game, they would no longer serve as rewards for playing the game, so I've decided against having them," Sakurai wrote. Instead, characters will get intro sequences similar to what we saw at E3 with the introduction of Mega Man, Animal Crossing's Villager and the Wii Fit Trainer.

The piece also mentions character customization, though no details are offered beyond the feature being more than cosmetic. There is also a hint about a new mode for the 3DS version that is different than the core versus experience.

[Source: Weekly Famitsu via Kotaku]

Our Take

There are a lot of reasons to ditch the campaign mode for a fighting game. Nonsensical story? Sure. It diverts resources from the core versus mode? Absolutely. Fans reacted poorly? Definitely a good call to drop it. YouTube? No.

I played the entire Subspace Emissary mode. It wasn't fantastic, but it was worth trudging through for the cutscenes. If they had been on YouTube immediately at launch, I wouldn't have played it either.

I still would have marveled at the videos (they were consistently enjoyable) and appreciated the work. I had already paid for the game, and it would have focused my time on the versus mode.

There are so many reasons Sakurai could have given for this change. The one he chose shows a serious disconnect with contemporary technology, especially in light of how many people watched one of his earlier titles during EVO 2013.