Super Smash Bros.
is a series of platform fighting video games published by Nintendo. Created by Masahiro Sakurai, the Super Smash Bros. series is a crossover featuring many characters from other video game series created by Nintendo and other developers. Its gameplay is distinct from traditional fighting games, with players aiming to knock each other off of stages after accumulating damage with numerous attacks. The games have also featured a variety of side modes, including single-player story modes.
Sakurai conceived the idea of Super Smash Bros. while working at HAL Laboratory in 1998 with the help of Satoru Iwata. The series's first game, Super Smash Bros., was released for the Nintendo 64 and used characters from Nintendo franchises including Mario, Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Kirby, and Pokémon. The game was a success, and Sakurai was asked to make a sequel for the then-upcoming GameCube, Super Smash Bros. Melee, which was developed in 13 months and released in 2001.
After Sakurai left HAL Laboratory, Iwata, who had become Nintendo's president, convinced him to continue directing the series. Sakurai directed Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U for the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. The series's most recent game, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, was released in 2018 for the Nintendo Switch, with Sakurai again returning as director and Bandai Namco Studios aiding Sora Ltd., Sakurai's own company, in the game's development.
The Super Smash Bros. games have received critical acclaim and commercial success, with the series selling over 77million units combined as of 2025 and multiple of its games being considered among the best of all time. The series has also attracted a dedicated community of competitive players who compete in esports tournaments, and Super Smash Bros. has inspired numerous other platform fighting games and has been credited for bringing popularity to several of the franchises whose characters it features.
History and development
1996–1999: Conception and first game
After developing Kirby Super Star, Masahiro Sakurai, a game developer at HAL Laboratory, wished to experiment with 3D graphics and animation following the release of the Nintendo 64 video game console. Sakurai proposed two games to Nintendo for release on the system: a four-player free-for-all fighting game and a RC robot stealth exploration game where the player progressed through levels by hacking into security cameras. While both proposals were praised by Nintendo, HAL Laboratory was currently developing several other games for the Nintendo 64, including Mother 3, and was unable to begin full development on either prototype. After HAL's other projects were cancelled, however, the company needed to produce a finished game as soon as possible. The fighting game prototype was chosen as the studio's next project after Sakurai determined it would take less time to complete than the RC game.The fighting game prototype, titled Dragon King: The Fighting Game, was developed by three people: Sakurai was responsible for the game's planning, design, graphics, modeling, and animation, while his coworker Satoru Iwata handled the programming and a third developer was responsible for the game's audio. Because he was leading another project at the time, Iwata created Dragon King
File:N64-Console-Set.png|left|thumb|Super Smash Bros. was made for the Nintendo 64, whose capacity for 3D graphics and joystick heavily influenced the game's design.
Sakurai had developed the idea for a new type of fighting game in 1996, because he felt that existing fighting games had become too complex, with gameplay over-reliant on combos that reduced the importance of player strategy. He sought to create a game that allowed for more player improvisation and interplay, creating a system of accumulated damage to force players to react differently to each attack instead of making the depletion of the other player's life bar the only goal. He created "smash attacks" that could be triggered with a more aggressive "flick" of the joystick while searching for ways to best integrate the Nintendo 64 controller's joystick into the prototype's gameplay.
While Dragon King had largely the same gameplay as what would become Super Smash Bros., it lacked any crossover elements. Sakurai had reservations about including a cast of original characters, saying that existing fighting games had too many "main characters" competing to be the focus of marketing, making it more difficult for players to care compared to games that have fewer protagonists and several side characters. While Sakurai said that would be acceptable in fighting games released for arcades, the transition to home consoles meant that it was important to establish the game world's "atmosphere" as soon as possible, and he did not want new players to encounter a large roster of unfamiliar characters. Therefore, he asked Nintendo's permission to use various characters from its other games. The proposal to use pre-existing characters was controversial, and Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto rejected the idea. In response, Sakurai and Iwata created a demo of the game featuring Mario, Fox McCloud, Samus Aran, and Donkey Kong, and ensured that it was well-balanced before presenting it again. Upon seeing the revised demo, Miyamoto gave permission for the game to use Nintendo characters.
After the game's completion, it was met with mixed reception internally; many other developers reacted positively, while Nintendo's sales team did not want the company's characters to fight each other. The game was ultimately titled "Super Smash Bros." after Iwata suggested the inclusion of the word "brothers" to indicate that the characters "weren't simply fighting" but "were friends who were settling a little disagreement." Super Smash Bros. was released for the Nintendo 64 in Japan on January 21, 1999, and in North America on April 26, 1999. To help appeal to players used to the gameplay of traditional fighting games, Sakurai created the "Smash Bros. Dojo!!", a website intended to teach players strategies and techniques for the game.
1999–2001: ''Super Smash Bros. Melee''
In May 1999, at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, Sakurai privately revealed that he was developing a sequel to Super Smash Bros. for the then-upcoming Nintendo GameCube, and the design plan for the game was completed on July 5, 1999. HAL Laboratory returned to develop the game, and was assisted by other studios, including Creatures Inc. By May 2001, over 50 people were actively working on the game, while over 100 had been involved with the project at some point in time. The game was officially revealed as Super Smash Bros. Melee at E3 2001, seven months ahead of its release in North America. Because the GameCube was both more powerful and easier to develop games for than the Nintendo 64, Melee was able to include much more content than its predecessor, including 14 new characters and many multiplayer options and modes.The development of Melee lasted only 13 months, during which Sakurai described his lifestyle as "destructive". He said the game was the "biggest project had ever led up to that point", and during development he took no holidays and only short breaks on weekends. Development was held back by technical limitations, with the GameCube not being powerful enough to allow features such as eight-player multiplayer. Collectible "trophies" were introduced, allowing players to collect 3D models of various Nintendo characters as a way to include more characters than could be developed as fighters. Sakurai designed Melee to appeal to people who were "well-versed in video games", compared to the more casual audience targeted by the first Super Smash Bros. game, and Melee
2005–2008: ''Super Smash Bros. Brawl''
In May 2005, at a press conference prior to E3 2005, Iwata—who had become the president of Nintendo—said that a new Super Smash Bros. game was in development for the Wii and would launch alongside the system the next year, featuring online multiplayer using the system's Wi-Fi capabilities. The announcement came as a surprise to Sakurai, who had left HAL Laboratory in 2003 and had not heard about an upcoming Smash Bros. game. Iwata had made the announcement after many people polled by Nintendo showed a desire for a new Smash Bros. game with online play, despite planning on the next game in the series having not yet begun. After the announcement, Iwata met with Sakurai and asked him to create a new Smash Bros. game for the Wii, saying that Nintendo would simply port Melee to the system with online functionality if he refused. Sakurai accepted, and completed the planning document for the next Super Smash Bros. game in July 2005.The former Super Smash Bros. team at HAL Laboratory was busy with another project, so Sakurai assembled a team including staff from Game Arts, another studio. Sora Ltd., Sakurai's own company, was also involved. The game's development team included over 100 full-time staff, with over 700 people involved altogether. One year after its announcement, the trailer revealing the game as Super Smash Bros. Brawl aired at E3 2006.
Brawl was designed with a focus on creating online multiplayer as well as a lengthy single-player story mode intended to flesh out the game's characters and give them more time in the spotlight. Sakurai had wanted the single-player mode to be developed by a separate team, though all except for its animated cutscenes were created by Brawl
Brawl was the first game in the Super Smash Bros. to feature characters from third-party developers, with Solid Snake from Konami's Metal Gear and Sonic from Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog being playable fighters. Snake was revealed in the E3 2006 trailer, while Sonic was announced in October 2007 on the Smash Bros. Dojo!! website. Sakurai designed both Snake and Sonic to have a "distinct feel" from the other characters, though said he did not consciously try to treat Nintendo characters differently from non-Nintendo characters in terms of design. Both Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima and Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator Yuji Naka had asked Sakurai to include their respective characters in Melee, though time constraints meant that neither character would be added to that game. Brawl
Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released for the Wii on January 31, 2008, in Japan, and March 9, 2008, in North America. The game's release followed a delay; Nintendo had said the game would release in December 2007, but pushed its release date back to early 2008 two months ahead of its scheduled launch.