In a bit of tragic news, famed Nintendo director Masahiro Sakurai has suggested the 3DS game Kid Icarus: Uprising will likely be the last in the series for some time.
In the new episode of his Game Concepts video series (via Eurogamer), Sakurai yet again expressed his desire to see Kid Icarus Uprising make the leap from 3DS to a home console like Switch. "It's a shame that it's only lived on 3DS, as I'd love to play on a bigger screen with smoother graphics," he said.
Unfortunately, Sakurai expressed a fair bit of skepticism that we'll ever see a new Kid Icarus game, whether that's a remaster or a completely new entry. "Without a team around to work on it, crafting a follow-up seems difficult."
That sucks, frankly, as Kid Icarus Uprising is one of the best 3DS games ever and brings back some of my fondest memories with the console. Its graphics were stunning for the time, its rail-shooting battles were epic and challenging, and its story was crafted with a clear love for the series and plenty of well-written humor. I'm genuinely bummed to hear it probably won't get a follow-up of any kind, especially since Sakurai has repeatedly said he'd like one.
Kid Icarus Uprising was developed by Nintendo's own Project Sora, a studio built with the express purpose of making just the one 3DS game. As such, it was closed when development on the game finished. Of course, Nintendo still owns the rights to the franchise and could appoint a new studio to make a sequel, but it sounds like it isn't interested in that for the moment.
At least we have these upcoming Nintendo Switch games to look forward to.
