Project Sora Fades to Darkness

Project Sora rose to fame when the studio became involved with Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Not a bad project to begin with.  The only other title published by Project Sora  was Kid Icarus: Uprising.  Both games were huge hits and seemed to show the potential of the company.  Unfortunately, as of last night, the below message was posted on their website:

Translated:

This company was dissolved on June 30th 2012.
We thank you truly for your patronage.
This home page will close on July 31st 2012.

Project Sora

So what does this mean for the future of the Upcoming Super Smash Bros. Title?  Obviously, Namco Bandai is working on it, but Project Sora was a partner in the development.

Sakurai had this to say when the Smash Bros. project was announced, “Bear in mind that not only are we developing two titles simultaneously, but we announced the project before we even started actual development, so I’m afraid we will likely have to keep you waiting for quite a while.”

I would guess that Sakurai’s main company, Sora Ltd., will continue to operate as normal even though Project Sora has succumbed to the darkness.  At this time, there has been no official announcement from Sora Ltd, other than the small blurb on their homepage.  It could be something as minor as renaming the project, or maybe just that they are going to drop the name of the project altogether.

What ever happens, I wouldn’t worry too much about the new Smash Bros., according to the Harada, there were a “lot of people involved with that particular project,” from all corners of Namco.  So it seems that Namco is appropriately staffed to handle the project.