With the success of Mario Kart 8 and Hyrule Warriors DLC, many long-time fans of Nintendo have wondered if new characters will be added to Super Smash Bros. for Wii U through DLC. According to developer Masahiro Sakurai, the answer is no. He says that Nintendo has no plans to release premium downloadable content for the game because he wants fans to feel as though they’ve got the complete version once they buy it.
I understand that DLC could add a lot to the appeal of Smash Bros. and I appreciate that a major part of the excitement for these games come from which characters will appear in the roster, so I think fans could really enjoy DLC that could keep this excitement going. However, I think there might be criticism that we are cutting up content to sell characters one by one, or that we are adding things later that should have been there from the start.
Sakurai went on to reiterate that the amount of time invested in a single fighter means roster cuts had to be made and that adding new content in the form of DLC would be a ton of work for everyone involved. In respects to paid DLC, Sakurai confirms that his team isn’t working on anything at the moment as all of their efforts have focused on getting the actual game ready for release. The Mewtwo DLC that was announced during the previous Nintendo Direct is a reward for those who purchase both games.
However, what I can say now about paid DLC is that we aren’t working on anything at the moment. We’ve put all our efforts into making the actual game. Creating DLC would involve large additional costs and require the involvement of a lot of people. I can’t yet give you an answer about whether the price would justify the costs and criticisms mentioned above.
For once, it’s nice to see a developer who realizes that cutting characters only to add them later really creates distrust among your most loyal fans. That being said, once the game is out, would you be willing to see more previous characters from the roster made available as DLC in the future? Let us know in the comments.
