Kid Icarus and Smash Bros. fans were greeted by a very unwelcome surprise when they tried to visit developer Project Sora’s homepage today — the company’s website has been taken down and replaced with a short message stating that the development team responsible for Kid Icarus: Uprising has been dissolved.
The message gives no reason or explanation for Project Sora’s sudden dissolution, and only states that the team will cease work on June 30th. Project Sora’s closing comes only weeks after Nintendo’s announcement that the upcoming Super Smash Bros. sequel for Wii U and 3DS was being co-developed as a collaboration between Project Sora and Namco-Bandai.
Project Sora head Masahiro Sakurai (best known as the creator of Kirby and director of all previous Smash Bros. games,) is still apparently directing the next Smash Bros. himself, though it’s currently unknown what’s become of the rest of Project Sora’s staff. I’d assume that they were absorbed back into parent company Nintendo, but Nintendo has yet to comment on what happened to their newest second party. Sakurai, who is usually pretty active on Twitter and often answers fan questions directly, has yet to comment on the situation as well. As far as I can tell, Kid Icarus: Uprising sold pretty well and was equally well received by fans, so I’m not sure why the studio would be shuttered so suddenly.
Source: Project Sora official site
