Release Date of Next Super Smash Bros. Game Seemingly Very Far Away

Don’t expect to play the next Super Smash Bros. game anytime soon. Nintendo has yet to reveal the next Super Smash Bros. game, despite Super Smash Bros. Ultimate being seven calendar years old. That said, the last few years, fans of the Nintendo series were operating under the assumption that the next Super Smash Bros. game was being actively developed. This appears not to be the case though.

During the recent Nintendo Switch 2 Direct, Nintendo revealed Kirby Air Riders, which is scheduled to release on Nintendo Switch 2 sometime this year. What does this have to with Super Smash Bros? Well, it’s being made by Sora Ltd, helmed by Masahiro Sakurai. The former is the studio behind Super Smash Bros, while the latter is the creator and creative director of it. In other words, the team that would make a new Super Smash Bros. game has been working on Kirby Air Riders.

Traditionally, Sora Ltd has not been a two-game studio. Unless this changed, then this means it hasn’t been working on the next Super Smash Bros. game in anything more than a pre-production capacity. This would consequently mean it’s still many years away from releasing.

How many years? Well, this is where it gets tricky. There will be seven calendar years between the release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in 2018 and Kirby Air Riders this year. However, Sora Ltd has not been working on Kirby Air Riders for seven years. It was busy supporting Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for a few years after its release.

That said, four years separated the releases of 2014’s Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and 2018’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. And this was when video games, generally speaking, were made quicker.

Suffice to say, it seems reasonable to say it will be at least four years before we see the next Super Smash Bros. game, if not longer. To this end, fans may be waiting until the early 2030s and the end of the Nintendo Switch 2 generation before they get their hands on the next installment in the long-running series.

Nintendo can’t leave Super Smash Bros. fans with nothing for this long though. To this end, it’s reasonable to think Super Smash Bros. Ultimate support may be revived with a Nintendo Switch 2 port or perhaps an older game from the series will be re-released. This is just speculation though.

Super Smash Bros. not showing up at the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct was already bad news for fans of the series, but what some fans may not understand is that Kirby Air Riders being revealed made the bad news even worse.