2015-12-02

Members of the Super Smash Bros community are in mourning today as the team behind the beloved mod Project M officially announced they will cease development.

The announcement came on Project M’s official site. In an open letter to their community, the team reflects on the growth of the project and the bonds it’s created with it community but ultimately they had reached the “end of that road.”

“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.”

As far as the “bigger and better ventures” go, the development team states they will be working on new projects but unfortunately can’t reveal the details of those just yet. It is made abundantly clear that the team as a whole will shift their focus onto the newer projects and release no further updates to Project M.

“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.”

Currently the site has been wiped clean of any other content aside from the disbandment announcement. In the past the mod was made as a free download and in June the development team released the final version, Project M v3.6.  The team does not elaborate on whether or not they will put the game files back up.

Project M started in 2010 as a fan effort to make the – at the time – currently released Super Smash Bros Brawl for the Wii play more like its predecessor Super Smash Bros Melee. Focus was mainly on modding the Falco character but eventually it grew into a full game modification adding popular characters such as Mewtwo back onto the roster and as well as stages. The mod’s popularity grew exponentially and had national tournaments dedicated to it. Downloads of the mod exceeded 3 million. Despite the national attention this project drew, Nintendo never officially commented on it’s presence nor did they ever deliver a cease and desist order.

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