Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

[Noipoi]

How many newcomers do you guys think we'll get next game base? I can't imagine we ever getting over 10 newcomers base game ever again but i could be wrong.

Counting clones, around 12.

 

[Guynamednelson]

How many newcomers do you guys think we'll get next game base? I can't imagine we ever getting over 10 newcomers base game ever again but i could be wrong.

15 unique newcomers, that's what both Brawl and 4 had.

 

[Perkilator]

How many newcomers do you guys think we'll get next game base? I can't imagine we ever getting over 10 newcomers base game ever again but i could be wrong.

I mean...taking aside Lucina and Dark Pit, Smash 4 had 15 unique newcomers in the base game, so maybe a total of 15 newcomers would be a reasonable upper limit for the next game's base roster.

 

[Godzillathewonderdog]

I really want Scorpion to be a playable fighter, he is iconic and Mortal Kombat is such an important & classic gaming franchise that is still going strong, but Mortal Kombat hasn’t had a release in Japan in 26 years and the new games are now banned from purchase in Japan I can’t imagine a MK character would ever make it into Smash. It’s for those reasons that if Scorpion miraculously made it into Smash I would freak out from excitement.

I would also love Chun-Li and having a Soul Calibur character would make me pretty happy too, every other option for a fighting game character I’d be rather indifferent about.

 

[Wonder Smash]

But WS, we WANT Sol in. Because then that's one less hurdle between us, and Kunio/Riki and Billy/Jimmy.

And a longer time to wait. I want my MWs as soon as possible.

 

[Gengar84]

And a longer time to wait. I want my MWs as soon as possible.

That’s my main reason I don’t really care to see Conker in Smash before the Battletoads or Fulgore. I’d have honestly rather had the Toads or Fulgore over Banjo too. I really enjoyed the first Banjo-Kazooie game but I’m mostly indifferent to them as characters. I’m okay with getting Banjo first but I actively dislike Conker. I have a feeling Conker would completely kill the chances of two of my most wanted characters because most people would be more than content with two RARE characters.

I apologize to any Conker fans here. These are just my personal opinions and I’m not saying anyone is wrong for liking him, he’s just not my type of character.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

I like Conker and all too. He's great. But I definitely want Fulgore more. I'm indifferent to the Battletoads, but definitely think they'd make a great option too~

 

[Godzillathewonderdog]

He didn’t debut in a fighting game, but if we get a Dead or Alive character I really think it should be Ryu Hayabusa. He needs to get his revenge on Ridley.

 

[Gengar84]

I like Conker and all too. He's great. But I definitely want Fulgore more. I'm indifferent to the Battletoads, but definitely think they'd make a great option too~

The thing with the Battletoads is that I like them a lot more as characters than I like their games. The first three levels of each game are awesome but I could never get past the fourth. After watching some Let’s Plays, it looked like the later stages don’t quite stack up in quality either. I just think the Battletoads look awesome and I love their transforming gimmick. Battletoads and Double Dragon was legit a great game the whole way through though and I beat the game multiple times. The arcade game was awesome too. The series also has pretty amazing music which is a big plus for Smash.

The biggest reason they’re at the top of my list is that they’ve been my brother’s favorite game characters since we were kids. I got Sephiroth in Ultimate so I really want to see my brother get his favorite too.

 

[JOJONumber691]

what happened to sakurai?

Fun fact relating to this! We almost got an Epic Yarn stage in Smash Wii U. And the only reason it was axed was because Wooly World happened and it would’ve been too similar visually.

 

[Wonder Smash]

He didn’t debut in a fighting game, but if we get a Dead or Alive character I really think it should be Ryu Hayabusa. He needs to get his revenge on Ridley.

Yeah, I'd love to see that in his reveal trailer.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

How many newcomers do you guys think we'll get next game base? I can't imagine we ever getting over 10 newcomers base game ever again but i could be wrong.

The reason we got so few newcomers in Ultimate's base game was BECAUSE of Everyone Is Here!, and bringing back older veterans likely ate away at the time they would usually take for more newcomers.

For the next game, there's no reason for them to stray away from the usual ~15 we've had in every game before... other than just not wanting a lot of newcomers.

 

[Captain Fun]

Say, a bit random, but what's everybody's thoughts on Story of Seasons (or Harvest Moon, if you prefer) in Smash? I remember there was a brief bit where the main character (who was just called "Farmer", though I think was referring to Pete) was seen as something of a sleeper pick, but that was awhile ago and I was curious how it is now.

I’m down for it. I think a farmer character could be interesting, and SoS was certainly a very influential series.
That said, I’m biased and would probably do a Rune Factory character first. It’s billed as “A Fantasy Harvest Moon” so it kind of works.

 

[Hadokeyblade]

I would also love Chun-Li and having a Soul Calibur character would make me pretty happy too, every other option for a fighting game character I’d be rather indifferent about.

I want Chun Li entirely because of my OCD.

She's always in the crossovers alongside Ryu so Smash being the exception is weird to me.

 

[DarthEnderX]

How many newcomers do you guys think we'll get next game base?

I'm gonna say either:
A. 6 at launch. With 2 6-character Fighter's Passes.
B. 8 at launch. With 2 5-character Fighter's Passes.

Either way, FP2 ends with Fighter #100.

And a longer time to wait. I want my MWs as soon as possible.

Sure, but, I know I'm not going to get all of them at once.

I'm okay with getting Hayabusa and Rizer/Bean in Smash 6, while getting Sol out of the way. Then getting Arthur and Kunio/Riki in Smash 7.

 

[Gengar84]

I'm gonna say either:
A. 6 at launch. With 2 6-character Fighter's Passes.
B. 8 at launch. With 2 5-character Fighter's Passes.

Either way, FP2 ends with Fighter #100.

6 seems a bit too few base game newcomers so I’d lean towards option 2. Now that they’ve already brought up all the veterans to modern standards in Ultimate, I don’t think it would take as much in the next game. I feel like Ultimate to Smash 6 is likely a much simpler transition than Melee or Brawl to Ultimate. Time will tell though.

 

[DarthEnderX]

For the next game, there's no reason for them to stray away from the usual ~15 we've had in every game before... other than just not wanting a lot of newcomers.

There is absolutely a reason for them not to do ~15 newcomers in base game. It's called "DLC Seasons are a thing now".

Why give you 15 newcomers at launch, when they can give you 5, then sell you the other 10 separately instead?

because of my OCD.

This is a reason I can get behind.

 

[osby]

Personal preference, I think I'd like Akira to stick with the retro look. I think that choice might be controversial among Virtua Fighter fans, pigeonholing him as another character that critics may say Smash isn't serving as faithfully as it could be, but I think it'd make him a tremendously dynamic and silly character to stand apart from the more visually similar martial artists in the cast.

There's no reason that they should pick one. Since he'd play exactly the same either way, blocky Akira can just be an alt costume - it's already one in VF5 Ultimate (heh) Showdown.

 

[Noipoi]

There is absolutely a reason for them not to do ~15 newcomers in base game. It's called "DLC Seasons are a thing now".

Why give you 15 newcomers at launch, when they can give you 5, then sell you the other 10 separately instead?

5 is way too low. Be reasonable.

At the lowest we’d see something like Ultimate again, which had 10 or so newcomers at launch.

 

[GoldenYuiitusin]

5 is way too low. Be reasonable.

You're asking for a bigger miracle than he is.

 

[DarthEnderX]

5 is way too low. Be reasonable.

NO!

At the lowest we’d see something like Ultimate again, which had 10 or so newcomers at launch.

C'mon man. 5 of those were Echoes. Base Ultimate only had 6 real newcomers.

If you're actually counting Echoes, then sure, you can totally have your 10 newcomers.

 

[Scrimblo Bimblo]

I'd say 12 new characters at most is the most likely outcome.
Especially if, in terms of design, they pick up from where they left off with the Ultimate DLC and keep doing these complex fighters with tons of little weird mechanics and references.

If the next game is Ultimate 2, 12 more characters and we reach 94... Start counting the Echo fighters and we reach the big 100.

C'mon man. 5 of those were Echoes. Base Ultimate only had 6 real newcomers.

If you're actually counting Echoes, then sure, you can totally have your 10 newcomers.

I'd say Ultimate had 13. They're not newcomers newcomers, but Snake, Wolf, the Ice Climbers, Pichu, Young Link, Squirtle and Ivysaur didn't exactly materialize out of thin air.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Ultimate had 11. Echoes still count as full characters being new. Veterans aren't "new"(even if reimagined a bit, like Roy was).

Then we had 13 total DLC(but only cause Pyra and Mythra are separate fighters in the numbering system).

Overall, this is what we had;

• Smash 64: 12
• Melee: 14
• Brawl: 18
• Smash 4: 21(3 of them were DLC)
• Ultimate: 24(13 were DLC, marking a notable change where there's more DLC newcomers than base game)

It slowly has gone up every time, interestingly enough. The roster will very likely shrink next game anyway, but it won't be clear exactly how big the final one could be.

 

[Louie G.]

How many newcomers do you guys think we'll get next game base? I can't imagine we ever getting over 10 newcomers base game ever again but i could be wrong.

I'm not saying anything that hasn't already been said, but I did want to break it down a bit.


Ultimate gave us six unique newcomers - the lowest amount on any base roster, naturally due to Everyone is Here being a priority. Brawl had 18, Smash 4 had 15. While it still leaves Ultimate as the least amount of base newcomers since Melee, it does even the playing field a bit more to consider which characters were added to the game who were absent from the previous title. These characters likely required a lot of extra fine tuning if not being built from the ground up.


That levels Ultimate out to 13 characters added who were not carried over from Smash 4. Since that more or less lines up with the previous series standard, I agree with everyone saying somewhere around 12-15 new characters. This is assuming the next Smash continues to follow the philosophy of the series we've seen thus far though. If there's a heavier emphasis on reworking veterans, maybe less work goes into new characters and so forth.

But especially after Ultimate, a new game is going to have to sell itself hard on bringing in exciting new characters to make the inevitable cuts burn less. I'm sure we'll be seeing more of an emphasis put on that in contrast with Ultimate's completionist route.

 

[Arcanir]

Ultimate had 11. Echoes still count as full characters being new. Veterans aren't "new"(even if reimagined a bit, like Roy was).

Then we had 13 total DLC(but only cause Pyra and Mythra are separate fighters in the numbering system).

Overall, this is what we had;

• Smash 64: 12
• Melee: 14
• Brawl: 18
• Smash 4: 21(3 of them were DLC)
• Ultimate: 24(13 were DLC, marking a notable change where there's more DLC newcomers than base game)

It slowly has gone up every time, interestingly enough. The roster will very likely shrink next game anyway, but it won't be clear exactly how big the final one could be.

It had 11 new characters, but not all characters took the same amount of time, resources, and development which is likely what was meant by the previous post. The Echoes like Dark Samus and Daisy certainly did not take as much time as those like Ridley or K. Rool for instance, and thus in that respect Ultimate only had six unique newcomers with the other four being full clones spun off from their original base (and Ken who's an oddball).

 

[DarthEnderX]

I'd say Ultimate had 13. They're not newcomers newcomers, but Snake, Wolf, the Ice Climbers, Pichu, Young Link, Squirtle and Ivysaur didn't exactly materialize out of thin air.

...what? Those are returning veterans. That's the exact the opposite of newcomers.

Echoes still count as full characters being new.

I disagree. They're borderline alt costumes for old characters(except Richter, who is a borderline alt costume for a new character).

You might as well count Alph as a newcomer in Smash 4. When someone asks me how many newcomers Smash 4 had, I don't count Bowser Jr. as 8.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

It had 11 new characters, but not all characters took the same amount of time, resources, and development which is likely what was meant by the previous post. The Echoes like Dark Samus and Daisy certainly did not take as much time as those like Ridley or K. Rool for instance, and thus in that respect Ultimate only had six unique newcomers with the other four being full clones spun off from their original base (and Ken who's an oddball).

Missed the context. My bad.

That said, DLC model sounds pretty silly. We always have a pretty large base new character set(it's never been below 10), and DLC always comes up after the initial project plan is completed. Characters aren't "saved for DLC" either. Mewtwo was something of an oddball at best(since they couldn't bring back the data from Melee and reuse it, so it had to be pushed to DLC to complete), and not really a good precedent when we already learned that nobody was added to the project plan but Incineroar either for Ultimate. That, and we know that the initial project plans do not include DLC. That's because it's not how Sakurai ever does things. He makes a game and treats it as "this game is a complete game at launch". DLC is only for after-game stuff, which is also why Ultimate's DLC concepts were in 2017, not 2015(Nintendo pretty much sanctioned it). Besides that, Mewtwo was also a more unique case in that it was the only DLC planned at the time and was made free if you bought both games(well, a cheesy type of free, anyway). There was no paid DLC model until after Mewtwo was already had to be far in development(Sakurai outright stated no other ones were in development with Mewtwo at the same time, but they blatantly had to come up during some of the time it was being worked on, due to the timelines matching up logically).

I'm forgetting some hard details, but that's the gist of it. It's a bit wonkily put together as a paragraph, so I apologize. Been a crazy set of days for me lately(back injury, hard to focus, dizzy sometimes, etc).

 

[DarthEnderX]

That, and we know that the initial project plans do not include DLC. That's because it's not how Sakurai ever does things. He makes a game and treats it as "this game is a complete game at launch". DLC is only for after-game stuff, which is also why Ultimate's DLC concepts were in 2017

Well that's just ridiculous.

Ultimate's first Fighters Pass was announced before the game even launched. How can they have considered the game complete at launch when the game literally launched with them going "And also, preorder the Fighters Pass".

It's true that's not how Sakurai DID things. But it is ABSOLUTELY how he did things for Ultimate.

 

[osby]

It had 11 new characters, but not all characters took the same amount of time, resources, and development which is likely what was meant by the previous post. The Echoes like Dark Samus and Daisy certainly did not take as much time as those like Ridley or K. Rool for instance, and thus in that respect Ultimate only had six unique newcomers with the other four being full clones spun off from their original base (and Ken who's an oddball).

The thing with not all newcomers taking equal time to develop, the same thing can be said for previous games. Almost half of Melee's newcomers were clones. It's hard to say anything about the new character count without knowing how clones will be handled.

 

[DarthEnderX]

I guess since TheQuester asked the question, it's up to him to tell us whether he includes Echoes as "newcomers" in his count or not.

But either way, my answer still stands.

Smash 6 Base = 6 unique Newcomers, and an indeterminate number of Echo Newcomers.
Fighters Pass 1 = 6 unique Newcomers, and an indeterminate number of returning veterans.
Fighters Pass 2 = 6 unique Newcomers, and an indeterminate number of returning veterans.

FP2 ends at Fighter number 100.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

The thing with not all newcomers taking equal time to develop, the same thing can be said for previous games. Almost half of Melee's newcomers were clones. It's hard to say anything about the new character count without knowing how clones will be handled.

And then Brawl and 4 had barely any clone-based newcomers among those(Lucas, Toon Link, and Wolf, with the last one barely being one). 4 had way less. Ultimate had about half. It's all over the place indeed~

And that's not including veteran clones who get minor changes at best. It's also worth noting that Pichu had to be re-cloned from scratch, along with Young Link. So they spent even more time on gameplay clones than normal. Sure, it's still a returning veteran, but they didn't have usable coding outright. Pichu and Young Link luckily weren't that different from Pikachu and the other Links animations-wise, but returning Wolf is even harder. And those were the "easier veterans", heh.

Oh, right, the fact we got Isabelle, who is a semi-clone of sorts as a newcomer shows it's not just "Echoes or nothing" too. And even then, ones like Dr. Mario(who is very unlikely to leave. In fact, he was never meant to leave) are regular clones that aren't meant to be Echoes either. Brawl was the only game to have no regular clones(they all were semi at best), and that's kind of a special situation(as, again, Dr. Mario was meant to return, same with Roy). We do actually see at least with how they redesigned Dr. Mario, he was likely going to still be rather similar to Mario, but we don't know if he would've been more heavily changed up like how Ganondorf was. So he may have remained a clone or became a semi-clone. Roy's return goes the opposite way, becoming much more unique, basically no longer being a near alternate to Marth anymore, but way too different for that to even work(hence why he easily got his own Echo. He plays too differently from Marth to be a regular clone of him).

 

[Arcanir]

The thing with not all newcomers taking equal time to develop, the same thing can be said for previous games. Almost half of Melee's newcomers were clones. It's hard to say anything about the new character count without knowing how clones will be handled.

You could, though in turn you could make the counterargument that Ultimate's Echoes overall are closer to their original counterparts than even Melee's (again, aside from maybe Ken). So even in that respect Ultimate's clones may not have taken as much time or resources, though that's getting a bit more speculative.

That said, this argument in general is being muddled since we may all be missing the intent of what was asked.

 

[Scrimblo Bimblo]

...what? Those are returning veterans. That's the exact the opposite of newcomers.

It's characters who were not in the previous game and had to be made mostly from scratch. They most likely ate into the development time of newcomers, not into that of veterans.

Whatever happens with the next game, no veteran is going to need to be remade from the ground up.

 

[fogbadge]

Fun fact relating to this! We almost got an Epic Yarn stage in Smash Wii U. And the only reason it was axed was because Wooly World happened and it would’ve been too similar visually.

yes and he also turned a super mario land stage into a kirby's dreamland stage.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

There is absolutely a reason for them not to do ~15 newcomers in base game. It's called "DLC Seasons are a thing now".

Why give you 15 newcomers at launch, when they can give you 5, then sell you the other 10 separately instead?

And yet Tekken 8 started with 32 characters despite most fighting games these days starting with around 16 for the exact reason you said. For further context, that is more fighters at launch than Soulcalibur VI has after all of its DLC.

Just because "everyone else does it" doesn't mean Smash will also have a ridiculously low amount of newcomers at launch to account for DLC. Having a good amount of newcomers at launch and having DLC seasons are not mutually exclusive prospects.

I will, however, agree that this would likely be done for specifically third-parties.

 

[osby]

I can't imagine a game with Sakurai at the helm being launched with anything less than a frankly overwhelming amount of content.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

I can't imagine a game with Sakurai at the helm being launched with anything less than a frankly overwhelming amount of content.

Yeah, even looking at Ultimate, it had a LOT of content.

That content just happens to be anything but newcomers.

Over 100 stages, over 1000 spirits which can alter gameplay with most having themed battles, an entire adventure mode based around said spirits, character-exclusive classic mode routes, over 800 songs, etc. The game is by no means barren of content if you look outside of [number of newcomers].

 

[Gengar84]

Here’s my logic: “Everyone is Here!” worked as well as it did because that wasn’t true for the previous two Smash games. Even though we didn’t get as many unique newcomers as we usually do, it was still really exciting to finally get to see everyone in one game. For Smash 6, “Everyone is STILL Here!” doesn’t quite have the same impact.

I look at it as: What’s the incentive to pick up this game over the one we already have? If the next game is largely the same with only 6 new characters, I imagine a lot of people would just stick to Ultimate. $60-70 for 6 characters is a bit of a hard sell.

 

[Scrimblo Bimblo]

Ultimate has so many characters that it's like it has base game DLC. Sometimes I still find myself going "Hey the Wii Fit Trainer is kinda fun, why did I never pick her up?"

Though in the year of our lord 2024 I've finally kinda slowed down with Smash

 

[Perkilator]

The fact of the matter is, the next Smash isn’t gonna do EiH again. Sakurai has already stated as such. The next game is going to feature a lot of cuts, some more heartbreaking than others. Because of that, anything less than at least 14 or so newcomers in the base game isn’t gonna make up for all the veterans cut.