Rumors were flying that we’d hear about a new Smash Bros. game during this year’s Nintendo Direct at E3 — and those rumors turned out to be true, but no one could have anticipated it to have turned out to be such an ambitious project. This seems like it could be Smash‘s final form — though that is surely not the case.
The new entry to the series, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, aims to pull Smash of all generations together to make for one big cohesive fight-off. Within its roster lies every single fighter previously found in a Smash Bros. game. Newer combatants, like Kid Icarus, will be able to fight with old staples like Ice Climbers and each crossover character the series has seen in previous entries, such as Snake and Sonic.
There’s a lot more to get excited about in this upcoming release than just the character roster, though. The game was shown to have a number of changes from previous iterations during today’s Nintendo Direct Smash presentation with Masahiro Sakurai. Instead of boring you with a bunch of paragraphs, let’s go over some of the new features/changes in some easily digestable chunks.
- The game will have directional air dodging
- Perfect shielding will be done upon release of the block button
- Many characters have different Final Smash moves
- Ryu will automatically face opponents
- There will be male and female Pokemon Trainer options and players will be able to “main” a particular Pokemon out of their three
- “Echo Fighters” are being introduced, which are slight variations of the character they are echoing (Daisy is an echo for Peach, for example)
- Returning stages have been balanced or changed aesthetically
- All stages will now have the standard as well as Omega forms, with the Omega form being universal across all stages
- More assist trophies are being added, including the Squid Sisters from the first Splatoon
- Many characters now have unique mechanics that will be displayed above their health gauge, like Cloud’s Limit Break and Villager’s pocket
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate will release on December 7, 2018
Announced roster
As it stands, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has 65 characters announced and three Echo Fighter variations. You are sure to see some of your favorites from previous entries below, as Ultimate will feature every character ever introduced into the Smash Bros. Universe.
Two new characters have been announced for this release: Inkling and Ridley.
- Mario
- Samus
- Kirby
- Bowser
- Link
- Donkey Kong
- Falco
- Marth
- Fox
- Shiek
- Zelda
- Meta Knight
- Villager
- Mewtwo
- Sonic
- Ice Climbers
- Pikachu
- Captain Falcon
- Zero Suit Samus
- Wii Fit Trainer
- Pokemon Trainer
- Ness
- Lucas
- Peach
- Captain Falcon
- Inkling
- Cloud
- Sonic
- Ike
- Snake
- Jigglypuff
- Donkey Kong
- Pichu
- Roy
- Olimar
- Lucario
- Dark Pit
- Lucina
- Robin
- Bayonetta
- Greninja
- R.O.B.
- Corrin
- Bowser Jr.
- Rosalina & Luna
- Wario
- Mii (3 modes)
- Little Mac
- Young Link
- Toon Link
- King Dedede
- Shulk
- Wolf
- Yoshi
- Ganondorf
- Ryu
- Luigi
- Mega Man
- Pac-Man
- Wii Fit Trainer
- Pokemon Trainer
- Mr. Game & Watch
- Dr. Mario
- Palutena
- Ridley
Nintendo had a pretty great Direct this E3, but Smash Bros. was by far the icing on the cake. Look out for more Smash Bros. Ultimate news on GameSkinny. Don’t forget that ever-important December 7 release date!
