Masahiro Sakurai Reveals When The Finale Of His YouTube Series Will Be Released

Key Takeaways

• Masahiro Sakurai’s final YouTube video will premiere on October 22nd, 2024 at 20:00 JST.
• The finale will be 40 minutes long.
• Fans are wondering if Sakurai will return to game development post-YouTube.

Super Smash Bros. director and creator Masahiro Sakurai has announced that the “special finale” episode of his game development YouTube series will air on October 22, 2024. The Super Smash Bros. creator has been focused on his YouTube channel, “Masahiro Sakurai On Creating Video Games,” ever since August 2022. Sakurai’s content is primarily focused on the principles of game design, and many viewers like to see the legendary creator’s insight into various topics.

Masahiro Sakurai’s YouTube series ran for a little over two years. Across his English and Japanese language channels, Sakurai has roughly over a million subscribers in total. Sakurai announced that he’d be finishing work on his YouTube channel in 2024, with the last scheduled video being uploaded on October 15, 2024. This isn’t the last video for his channel, however, as Sakurai has one more “special finale” episode that will be airing near the end of October.

Sakurai revealed in a YouTube community and Twitter post that the finale will be posted on October 22, 2024. The special finale of Masahiro Sakurai’s YouTube channel will run a little over 40 minutes long, which is much longer than a lot of Sakurai’s uploads, which are roughly five minutes or under. Sakurai notes that the timing of the episode’s airing might be a little difficult for international viewers, as it will be premiering at 8 PM Japan time, which translates to 8 AM EST or 6 AM PST. He notes that the video will be available for view after its premiere on his YouTube channel afterward.

• Tuesday, October 22nd at 20:00 JST (11:00 GMT)

Reception to Sakurai’s announcement regarding the finale was mostly bittersweet, as many congratulated and thanked him for his time giving his perspective on various gaming topics or development anecdotes on Super Smash Bros., Kid Icarus: Uprising, and Kirby, among other titles he worked on. Many also voiced their intent on watching the finale episode, while also wondering what Sakurai will do next.

With a runtime of 40 minutes, some fans are theorizing that Sakurai’s final video will be a retrospective about working on the YouTube channel itself, or his entire career. Many are also wondering if Sakurai will be going back into game development once work on his YouTube channel is finished, with many wondering if he’ll be spearheading a potential Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo Switch successor. Regardless, fans thanked Sakurai for his hard work in providing high-quality entertainment and educational videos.