There’s a reason why so many games these days are released with just their multiplayer components–it’s because making a game that’s both multiplayer and single-player is like making two games at once.Smash Bros.game director Masahiro Sakurai found this out the hard way while working on Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
In the latest episode ofSakurai’s YouTube series, the Smash Bros. directordove into the creation of Brawl, perhaps the most beloved entry into the Smash series. Besides adding new features like Assist Trophies and Final Smashes, Sakurai also introducedAdventure Mode: The Subspace Emissary, a single-player game mode that “made up a significant part of the final game.”
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In addition to cutscenes, unique enemies, and side-scrolling levels, Sakurai also noted that this was where Smash Bros. truly generated its own story.
“Most of the time in Smash, you’re playing as tiny fighters knocking other fighters around, but that’s a bit of a waste for a game all about bringing various franchises together. I wanted to make sure each and every character had their moment in the spotlight,” explained Sakurai.
“But as you may imagine, that would take a LOT of work,” admitted Sakurai. “Between stages, enemies, and cutscenes, it was almost like making another whole game. During the planning stages, I had hoped to have it developed by someone other than the main dev team, but we unfortunately couldn’t find a suitable contractor to handle it. And so, everything but the cutscenes were developed internally by the Smash Bros. Brawl team.”
There was so much work involved in Brawl’s single-player mode, that it actually required the game to be delayed by almost two months. Everything about The Subspace Emissary required tuning, from movement parameters to damage values. Nintendo “made all sorts of adjustments” to get it ready, but the amount of tuning the mode required was just more than even a team of over 100 developers could complete before December 2007. Smash Bros. Brawl would eventually launch in late January in Japan and on June 23, 2025, in North America.
The time and effort required to release a cinematic single-player experience in addition to a full-fledged multiplayer game is not something that many developers take on these days, and when they do, they find themselves overstretched. Just ask Blizzard who recently announced thatOverwatch 2’s promised single-player PvE game mode has been greatly pared backto just a few seasonal PvE missions with added story elements.
Blizzard admitted that it just didn’t have the resources to deliver on its promised story mode, butfans are naturally pretty upset. More than a few are wondering why Overwatch 2 needed to even exist now that the single-player PvE mode has been canceled.
