It hasn’t been a full week as of yet, but fans are thrilled to be playing as Sora from Kingdom Hearts in Super Smash Bros Ultimate. This was the most-requested character to be put into the game based on surveys and fan votes, and now, he’s finally here. But as we alluded to before, it wasn’t an easy path to get him in the game.
In his now-published Famitsu column, Super Smash Bros Ultimate lead man Masahiro Sakurai broke down what it took to get Sora into the game, and even he admitted that it was the hardest DLC character to get:
“We had to jump over incredibly high hurdles to get Sora in the game. Obstacles unlike anything we had with the other DLC characters. Fans’ hopes were so high we weren’t sure we’d reach expectations, and I’m sure our negotiations team felt the same.”
Sakurai then re-confirmed that things changed when at an awards ceremony he met with a Disney rep and explained what he wanted. He was just as shocked as everyone that Disney was up for it.
What followed was long conversations between Nintendo, Square Enix, and Disney, and in the end we were given the go ahead. We had our sixth fighter for Fighters Pass Vol. 2.
He went on to relay that the journey to making Sora in Super Smash Bros Ultimate playable was another beast entirely:
Everything we did with Sora was under the supervision of both Square Enix and Disney. There were many obstacles to overcome and different rules we had to adhere to during development. The Smash team produced high quality models from the start, and we were so comfortable with other parts of the project that we faced fewer problems making Sora than we thought we would.
… That’s not to say it was without its challenges. To keep Sora faithful to his games, we emphasized aerial combat and slower timings in his combos. I think you get a solid sense of Kingdom Hearts playing Sora.
You can get Sora via Fighter Pass 2 which is available for purchase in part or in full right now!