As you know, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has been a great success and has broken several sales records in and out of the franchise. However, the game’s director, Masahiro Sakurai, continues to believe that the future of the series after the next DLC is uncertain.

This has been shared in his latest article published in the Japanese magazine Famitsu. He writes that he has no plans beyond the second Fighters Pass. In the article, he has also spoken about Western realistic games and how to compete with them.

Of course yes. [Developers] in the West have a lot of games with photorealistic graphics, and there’s really no way to beat that, so I feel like you have to beat those games in other areas. You have to beat your rivals somehow, so if you don’t have something in your game that people can’t find anywhere else, they won’t buy it

This is how I approach game development every time I start a new project… although, honestly, there is no guarantee that I will continue to make games after this. Right now, all I’m thinking about is developing the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate DLC. Having done that, I really have absolutely nothing in mind.

According to Eventhubs Sakurai says “You may have to endure announcements for a lot of games having their release dates postponed or their development halted entirely, but it can’t be helped. With less production available, things aren’t going to go quite as planned. A lot of people in a lot of different industries have had the brakes put on their work, and I’m feeling it as well. It’s a very harsh time right now, but we must overcome it. I hope that people will understand each other and cooperate through this.”