Popular Super Smash Bros. Mod Project M Is Shutting Down

It’s a bittersweet day for Project M fans, as the popular mod development team for Wii's Super Smash Bros. Brawl is finally closing shop. The silver lining is that working on those mods for so long has gained the team a boatload of experience; experience they plan to channel into a new, unnamed project.

If you’re a fan of the Smash Bros. series, you’ve probably at least heard about Project M. Nintendo games aren’t typical targets for mod communities, but it turns out that a hugely popular fighting game is all it takes to change the norm.

When Project M first started out, it was simply designed to retool the then-most-current version of Smash Bros. to play more like the previous games in the series. Some fans thought that Brawl was too slow and random, and preferred the antics of the original Smash Bros. and its first follow-up, Melee.

Project M began in 2010 and has been going strong ever since. The developers have introduced several versions of their mod over the years, all of which did things like tweak the game’s physics, re-work characters, add in costumes and new levels, etc. Here’s a gander at what Project M was all about.

As you can see, everything looks really, really good. That’s the result of a lot of time, love and effort being poured into Project M. The current state of the mod is now considered final, which is probably for the best since many Smash players have now moved onto the latest version of the game available on Wii U and 3DS.

It should probably come as no surprise that, after half a decade of plugging away on the same mod, the team has grown antsy to move on to something new. As a result, a recent announcement on the Project M website has made it clear that the project is finally being put to rest.

According to the announcement, the team has taken as much from Project M as they’ve given.

We’ve learned so much in the process of making Project M—accumulating life-changing lessons in communication, team work, professionalism, work ethic, and more—but there’s only so far we can take those skills in a volunteer project. With this in mind, we’ve made a difficult business decision: We’re ready to finish development here and move on to bigger and better ventures.

What those new ventures might be is anybody’s guess, but the announcement promises they’ve been built from the ground up. In other words, these folks might actually be able to make some money off of all that hard work moving forward!

Ryan Winslett

Staff Writer for CinemaBlend.