The announcement of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl shocked fans from multiple different communities. It shocked the Nickelodeon fanbase, which will get a game bringing all of its favorite cartoons together. It shocked the Super Smash Bros. fandom to see another game that could prove to be competition. But more than any, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl shocked the fighting game community. The devs at Ludosity make it clear that this was the team's intent, as Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is intended to be a competitively viable experience.
In an interview with Kotaku, Ludosity CEO Joel Nyström was asked about Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl's competitive prospects. To start, he was asked if Nickelodeon wasn't "really interested in making a competitive fighting game," the question seemingly implying that Nickelodeon's young target demographics would lead to a casual-minded game. Nyström dismisses that idea entirely, saying that, "Nickelodeon is absolutely on board with having the game be competitively viable," and that it has been a part of the deal from the start.
What Nyström is saying is that Nickelodeon approached Ludosity knowing that the development team had a competitive mindset for fighting games. Nickelodeon chose Ludosity because of its work on the Super Smash Bros.-inspired game Slap City. As such, Ludosity signing on to make Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl ensures that it was planned to have the depth of other competitive fighting games from the outset.
That said, fellow developer Elias Forslind also makes clear that Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl isn't being made with the specific goal of it being extremely competitive. Rather, like with what Ludosity did with Slap City, it's approaching Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl as an experience that's fun for everyone. Forslind explains how he doesn't have the "mad skills" to be as good as competitive fighting game players, so he's making a game that's also fun to play in casual free-for-all matches, too.
Otherwise, Ludosity says that Nickelodeon has largely left it to work on Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl as it pleases. Nyström adds that, if it has to do with gameplay, then the idea probably originated from within Ludosity. Nyström even says that the team was able to provide input on which characters are part of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl. Perhaps that's why the roster is so diverse.
It's one thing to say that Ludosity has the freedom to make Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl a high-level competitive fighting game and to add rollback netcode. However, making a genuinely competitive fighting game with a robust competitive feature set is another thing altogether. Just because Super Smash Bros. is lacking competitive features doesn't mean Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl can get away with it. If Ludosity says to expect a competitive experience, the FGC is certainly going to have high expectations.
Nickelodeon All-Stars Brawl releases fall 2021 on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: Kotaku
