The Super Smash Bros. franchise has been known to pit some of gaming’s biggest mascots against one another in entertaining duels. While the series once thrived on using only Nintendo characters, it branched out with third-party characters the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog and Snake. The next entry in the series will likely feature a robust roster once more, but it may not bring back several classic characters for one more romp.

Speaking to NowGamer, series designer Masahiro Sakurai stated that some characters may be left out due to time constraints. “We don’t have the time to fully recreate every single character who’s been in Smash Bros. at this point,” explained the dev. “Adding new characters is not a simple addition – it’s really multiplication. The amount of work, adding a character is multiplied and becomes bigger and bigger as you go. We can’t because of the amount of work it takes.”

Of course, nothing is set in stone just yet, and the team is hoping to bring along as many characters from previous Smash Bros. entries as possible. “However, I do believe I understand that each character has its own set of fans out there who really like that character,” continued Sakurai. “So we’re not going to cut characters out of the way, we’re going to put in as many characters as we can, we really want to do that, because it’s good for the fans and good for all of us. But in the event that we do have to cut some characters, I’d like to apologise in advance to those fans.”

Here’s hoping the major players from past titles make a return in Smash Bros. for the Wii U and 3DS. Specifically, I really, really hope King Dedede comes back, because that character is awesome.

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