Masahiro Sakurai, the man behind Super Smash Bros. and Kid Icarus, has said "it's probably best to forget about me for a while".
One of the internet's most consistent jokes is that Sakurai needs a break. As one of the main developers behind one of the biggest fighting and crossover games of all time, Sakurai himself always jokes about wanting a vacation and working too hard. Now that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has finished development, it looks like he's living up to that promise and won't be working on anything soon.
As reported by Nintendo Life, Sakurai was interviewed by 4Gamer, alongside several other developers. In the interview, Sakurai says that he's been invited to take part in the interview every year, but has declined due to his work on Smash Ultimate not being done. He also reveals that he's been playing a lot of Inscryption and that he thinks some of 2021's most impressive filming comes from the MCU and Disney+.
As translated by KodyNOKOLO, Sakurai ends the interview by being asked if he has any special messages for anyone reading. Although several of the other developers who took part in the interview used this part to advertise or tease any upcoming projects, such as Koei Tecmo saying we'll see its full power in 2022, Sakurai went for something a little different.
According to the translation, Sakurai said, "Doing anything else is going to take some time, so it's probably best to forget about me for a while". This lines up with pretty much everything that he has been saying over the past few months regarding his career after Smash Ultimate and seems to imply that he's interested in doing something else in the future, but that it's not going to be happening for some time.
Really what Sakurai is saying here is "please stop asking me when the next Smash game is", but it's interesting to see that he's at least thinking about future projects.