Super Smash Bros. 4 Model Project

[The Prawn]

Well, this is interesting. Meta Knight's model in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is almost an exact copy of the one that he had in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, just with remapped textures, additional bracers and an extra piece for his boots, and a few tweaks to his mask, shoulderpads and wing claws.

SSBB model preview
SSB4U model preview

It only makes sense that they'd reuse most of the Brawl model and just touch it up a bit to make it more modernized. Trust me, it's better than having to rebuild from scratch, which would be far more time-consuming and potentially cost more.

Think about it: Game developers have a deadline to meet most of the time, so they'd obviously reuse pre-existing assets as opposed to rebuilding it from the ground up, unless of course the original is rather dated (i.e. Mewtwo and Roy). If you were a game designer of sorts and you had a deadline to meet, you'd be reusing assets from a previous installment too. Not only is it time saving, but also can help the budget be less, so it works.

Even a bit of laziness can prove to be effective, whether or not we see it that way, at least that's how I view this.