Super Smash Bros Melee will return to Evo this year (with Nintendo's permission, too)

After a brief round of negotiations between Nintendo and tournament organizers, Super Smash Bros. Melee will return to this year's Evo Championship Series tournament, avoiding a repeat of last year's ugly confrontation.

Ozzie Mejia

March 12, 2014 1:30 PM

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Nintendo was at the center of a debacle last year when it denied permission to Evo Championship Series tournament organizers to broadcast Super Smash Bros. Melee for its annual event. The move was particularly galling to many, since the game's fans had raised over $90,000 for charity to bring it to Evo. This year, all parties aimed to avoid such ugliness and, after a brief round of negotiations, Super Smash Bros. Melee will make its return to Evo this July.

"The fact that Super Smash Bros. Melee is being used to help determine champion status for competitive gamers so many years after it was released is a testament to the strong fan passion for both this individual game and the Super Smash Bros. franchise overall," a Nintendo representative told Polygon. "Nintendo is happy to work with both Evo and Major League Gaming to help make their tournaments come to life using the game, and we hope it helps make their events enjoyable for video game fans everywhere."

Last year's Melee grand finals broke an all-time viewership record on Twitch, hitting well over 100,000 concurrent viewers. Such positive publicity for the series could mean a lot to Nintendo, given that a new installment of Smash Bros. is headed to Wii U and 3DS later this year.

To see what the hype was about, check out last year's Top 8 below.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?