Smash Bros. Ultimate's Sora DLC was tough to make happen

The addition of Kingdom Hearts' Sora to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as the game's final DLC character was a complicated process, creator Masahiro Sakurai has revealed.

Writing in his latest Famitsu column, Sakurai initially thought the rights issues to include Sora in Smash would be too insurmountable to sort out (thanks, PushDustIn).

Because of this uncertainty, early plans for Smash Bros.' second Fighter Pass were for it to contain just just five extra fighters. Sora eventually joined as a sixth.

But Sakurai and his team persevered, since Sora had topped the series' fan vote for future DLC characters. Sakurai and a Disney representative met at an award venue, and the ice was broken. Still there was work to be done, including deciding on a look for Sora which satisfied all parties. (And notably, there's no classic Disney characters at all.)

"Sora was supervised by Disney and Square Enix," Sakurai wrote, translated by PushDustIn. "This meant there were a lot of high hurdles to his inclusion and many guidelines to follow.

"That meeting alone wouldn't be able to get Sora into Smash Bros. The higher-ups could feel differently and talks could fall apart. After long and careful discussions with Square, Nintendo and Disney, the okay was finally given. Fighter Pass 2(FP2) has six Fighters."

Sora joined Super Smash Bros. Ultimate this week, and is now available to play. As the game's last new character, development on the game will now wind down after a mammoth production schedule and three years of work on its post-launch support.