Long live Melee?
The rise of the Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament scene has been almost impossible to ignore, even to casual players of the series. Even as of this year (year three of Luigi, mind you), Smash players travel all across the world with their worn-down GameCube controllers and bigass CRTs just for the love of a fourteen-year-old Nintendo game. This dedication eventually transformed into Project M, a community-driven modification that brings the speed and fluidity of Melee to the Brawl engine, as well as new characters and costumes. It grew into something rather large — and a potential concern to Nintendo.
Six years, hundreds of grassroots tournaments around the world (some not so grassroots), and many updates later, a post on the official Project M website states that the team has ceased all development on the mod, to the dismay of a community built around the love of the game.
…We realize that this will come as a shock to many of our fans. Please, forgive us. Again, it’s been an excruciating call to make, but it’s been made a bit easier by our satisfaction with the previous and final release, v3.6. We’ve spent six years polishing Project M, and rather than let it drag on through another several years of dwindling development and change-fatigue in the competitive circle, we’re going to consider our work complete.
In the mean time, we plan to be hard at work on new projects, built from the ground up. We can’t spill the beans just yet, but know that we’re looking towards a fresh start with brand new designs. Rather than splitting our focus, many of us want to dedicate ourselves to this new venture fully. In this way, we hope to maintain the level of quality and professionalism you’ve come to expect from us.
In summary, we are ceasing development of Project M (effective immediately) and will be making no further releases as we turn our attention towards an entirely new venture.
As for what this “new venture” might be, we’re left guessing. I for one am excited to see what the team announces in the future.
Project M [Official website]
