Namco Bandai Making Next Super Smash Bros. Game

Nintendo is teaming up with Namco Bandai for the next game in the Super Smash Bros. series. Leaders from several Namco development teams have gathered to collaborate on the new fighting game for Wii U.

Nintendo announced at the same time as its Nintendo Direct presentation that several developers from the Namco Bandai stable will be working on the next Super Smash Bros. game, which will probably be released for Wii U. Yoshito Higuchi of the Tales series, Tetsuya Akatsuka of Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme VS and Masaya Kobayashi of Ridge Racer are involved in the project. SoulCalibur’s art and sound director also participate, as well as the development team responsible for several Tekken games.

In Nintendo’s “message to fans,” Smash Bros. production manager Masahiro Sakurai of development studio Sora reports that the first demos Namco Bandai has produced are promising, but fans will have to be patient for a while. According to Sakurai, it is good for the development process to release the news about the collaboration with Namco Bandai, but that does not mean that the game will be ready in the foreseeable future. “It’s still very early. Remember, we’re not just making two games at once, but we announced the project before development actually started,” Sakurai said.

Although nothing is known about the game yet, Namco Bandai’s Masaya Kobayashi already claims that Namco-developed Super Smash Bros. game will become the best game in the series. However, it is not yet known when that game will be released.