Rumor claims new Super Smash Bros. could arrive in 2027 with Sakurai directing

A new Super Smash Bros. game is being talked about as a possible 2027 release, with Masahiro Sakurai once again floated as director after finishing Kirby Air Riders. For Nintendo, that is not just a fan-service headline. It would be a signal about how the company allocates one of its most trusted creative leaders, and how much of the Switch 2 era it is willing to build around a single franchise architect.

The timing makes the rumor especially pointed. Nintendo has Kirby Air Riders set for November 20, 2025 on Nintendo Switch 2, which leaves a narrow path if Sakurai were to move straight into another full-scale crossover project afterward. A 2027 Smash would imply a fast handoff between two of the company’s most demanding first-party productions, with little room for drift in engineering, character approval, localization, balancing, and QA.

That matters because Smash is not a normal sequel. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate launched on December 7, 2018 and went on to sell more than 35 million units worldwide, making it one of Nintendo’s biggest evergreen drivers. By the time Nintendo unveiled Sora as Ultimate’s final DLC fighter in October 2021, the company said the game had passed 90 billion KOs. Those are the kinds of numbers that turn one series director into a platform-level asset, not just a producer on a single title.

Sakurai has also helped create the expectation that Smash is inseparable from his judgment. In a public YouTube discussion, he said, “I can't imagine a Smash Bros. title without me.” That line has lingered because it captures the same problem Nintendo faces across its biggest properties: the creative identity is strong, but the dependency on one person is stronger still. When a franchise scales into the tens of millions, succession becomes a business question, not just an artistic one.

That is why this rumor lands differently inside Nintendo than it does in fan forums. If Sakurai really is being positioned for another Smash, it would suggest Nintendo still sees him as the safest steward for a series that has to satisfy legacy players, new Switch 2 owners, and a large global development machine at once. If he is not, then the company is closer to the hard work of proving Smash can outlast the director who defined it.