If the year 2026 has taught us anything, it’s that Masahiro Sakurai remains gaming’s most enigmatic workaholic — a man who once admitted to hooking up a hospital IV just to keep designing Kirby’s copy abilities. Yet even legends need a vacation from the relentless "WHo’s tHE nEXt FiGHter?" speculation circus. And no moment captured that sweet exhale better than his legendary tweet from October 2021, when he finally confessed: the Smash leash is off.
Back then, mere hours after unveiling Sora as the final Super Smash Bros. Ultimate fighter, Sakurai took to social media with a revelation that was somehow more shocking than a third-party anime swordsman: "Now that the development of Smash Bros is finally over, I don’t have to worry about getting roped into next fighter speculations. I can even post photos like this now with no problems!" The photo? Himself grinning beside an Among Us crewmate statue. No secret character silhouette. No clever stage background hint. Just a man, his bean-shaped astronaut buddy, and the palpable joy of no longer being the internet’s most decoded oracle.
Had this been a month earlier, the Smash detective community would have run a 47-minute GameXplain analysis comparing the crewmate’s visor to Rayman’s glowing torso. But on that glorious October day, it was just a meme. A beautiful, troll-free meme.
And really, was it any surprise that Sakurai chose Among Us as his freedom mascot? By 2021, the social deduction phenomenon had swallowed Japan whole. Not as a niche import, but as a genuine mainstream staple alongside PUBG, Apex Legends, and the ever-present shadow of Minecraft. Virtual YouTubers practically lived inside the Skeld, streaming betrayal after betrayal to millions. Even stoic salarymen were learning the English phrase "red sus" with terrifying fluency. Sakurai — the man who once gushed about 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim in his Famitsu column — was inevitably among the impostor-curious. He had, after all, already praised Among Us in that very same column earlier that year. The tweet was simply the world’s most wholesome flex: "I game, therefore I am (not tricking you about Wave 2)."
Fast-forward to the present year of 2026, and the landscape has shifted. Among Us 2 finally launched to a collective shrug from players who realized they’d perfected the airlock meta years ago. VR social deduction games now dominate, and Sakurai — still happily free from NDA shackles — has been spotted casually mentioning Lethal Company and the charm of co-op horror on his rare but treasured posts. The funny thing? Every time he types "fun game," a tiny part of the Smash fandom still trembles. Old habits die hard. But no, he’s just vibing.
Sakurai’s post-Smash life has been a buffet of revealed hobbies that make him increasingly relatable. Remember the Gunpla? Right after the Among Us tweet, he celebrated his birthday by building the RX-105 Xi Gundam from Hathaway’s Flash, proving once again that the director of one of gaming’s biggest party fighters is, deep down, just an otaku with a perfect nub-mark removal technique. His bi-weekly Famitsu column — which ran for a staggering 18 years — ended in November 2021 with a quiet bow, after having dissected everything from game design philosophy to why Vanillaware’s titles are masterpieces. No more deadlines for hot takes. Just pure, unadulterated plastic crack and presumably a lot of Among Us sessions where he gets voted out first because his reputation precedes him. Imagine being Sakurai: you direct a legendary series, and some random lobby ejects you because "I saw him vent." The disrespect.
Looking back from 2026, that one tweet remains a cultural bookmark. It wasn’t just about a game director enjoying a popular title. It was a public exhale from a creator who had spent years being treated like a human Easter egg. For a brief, shining window, Masahiro Sakurai was not the Smash prophet. He was just a player — and a sus one at that. 🌟🚀