The Justice Department revealed today that Japanese consumer electronics and software development company Nintendo has been implicated in a plot to assassinate hundreds of US citizens suspected of downloading and playing a modified version of Super Smash Brothers Brawl titled “Project M”.

The unofficial mod became popular when competitive Super Smash Brothers Melee players were dissatisfied with its slower and less competitive sequels developed by Masahiro Sakurai, Nintendo’s Wakagashira of Casual Entertainment.

“Every man who has played smash has looked up to the light and imagined canceling their aerials, of punishing rolls, of approaching their enemy in Smash 4, and like shipwrecked men turning to seawater from uncontrollable thirst, many have died trying,” said Sakurai, while wearing a black facemask and drinking sake from the hollowed out skull of an unidentified Project M developer.

He added: “There can be no true despair without hope and no true fun without casuals. As I terrorize your competitive community, I will feed its players hope to poison their souls. I will let them run their itemless one-versus-one platformed abominations and when they have truly understood the depth of their failure, I will fulfill Smash 4’s destiny. I will torture and destroy competitive smash and when it is done and its community is in ashes, then Project M has my permission to die.”

Sources say Nintendo hired several groups of hit men to target PM players around the United States, growing so bold to carry out assassinations during daylight hours and even during tournaments.

“These guys dressed as Diddy Kong just rolled up and grabbed the PM players,” said one distraught Smash 4 competitor who watched Aaron “Professor Pro” Thomas be thrown into an unmarked van. “I think that was a true combo but I’ll call it a string on r/smashgifs just in case.”

He added, “M2K probably would’ve teched that.”

The stunned Smash 4 crowd, unable to punish any of the kidnappers’ constant rolling, moaned “hoo-hah” in horror as several PM players were forced to ingest cyanide filled bananas.

“This is the first time a violent felony was streamed live on our channel,” said VGBC founder Calvin “GimR” Lofton. “Tune in to Xanadu tomorrow where we’ll have an announcement about whether the victims survived.”

Later that evening, Lofton added that the VODs could not be made available to the authorities as the footage included several minutes of Project M gameplay in the background.