A chance meeting is part of the reason Sora from Kingdom Hearts joined Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as its final fighter.
In the latest Masahiro Sakurai Famitsu column, translated by @PushDustIn and @KodyNOKOLO on Twitter, the Smash director pulled back the curtain on Sora's inclusion.
According to the translation, Sakurai reiterated that getting Sora in the game was much more difficult than other fighters. However, Sakurai managed to bump into a Disney representative at an awards show, which seemed to kickstart the discussions that made Sora in Smash a reality.
Sora's inclusion was finalized later than the rest of Ultimate's DLC roster. Sakurai said Fighters Pass 2 originally only had five fighters: Min Min, Steve, Sephiroth, Pyra/Mythra, and Kazuya. Then, after long discussions between Nintendo, Square Enix, and Disney, the Fighters Pass grew to six fighters.
Originally FP2 was planned to only have 5 fighters in the Pass — just like FP1. All the fighters had been decided, but it looked like Sora would be able to join after all. So even though it was quite challenging, it was decided to increase the number of fighters in FP2! pic.twitter.com/hS73pc8Xdc
— PushSusIn (@PushDustIn) October 20, 2021
This is a full-circle moment for Sora and Kingdom Hearts. Kingdom Hearts Director Tetsuya Nomura said Square Enix and Disney originally started talking about the Kingdom Hearts franchise when Square Enix Producer Shinji Hashimoto ran into a Disney executive in an elevator. Now, two decades later, another chance meeting is what eventually led to Sora joining Ultimate's roster.
Sora was the most requested fighter in the Smash 4 ballot, and he finally joined Smash Ultimate as the game's final character. The internet went crazy after his announcement, and #ThankYouSakurai was trending to congratulate Sakurai and the whole Smash Ultimate team on reaching the end of development.
We don't know what Sakurai plans to work on next, but he did confirm to Famitsu that he plans to work on a few more games before he retires. For more, check out our supercut of the final Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.