• Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!

    You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!

Delzethin Offers Up First-Party DLC Predictions

delzethin dlc 1.jpg

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate may be out already, there's still speculation to be had with its lineup of DLC characters, and as with the base roster, Delzethin is continuing to offer up his predictions for likely picks, starting off with potential first-party characters.


Before starting up the list proper, Delzethin makes two important notes. First, his list is broken up into three categories - front-runners, plausible picks and conditional picks. Second, he lays down some ground rules.
  1. Timing matters. - While being from an older title doesn't disqualify a character from making it in, a recent release is typically a mark in their favor. However, the opposite can also be true - characters with upcoming major appearances might be passed over if the release date is too far out. The only exception to this is retro throwback characters, for obvious reasons.
  2. Keep potential in mind. - One of the biggest factors determining whether a character makes it in - especially in the later titles - is how much their source material gives the developers to work with when designing a moveset.
  3. It's not as simple as "representing." - The developers aren't focused on deciding which franchises are and aren't worthy, and more on which characters would make for interesting inclusions. On top of that, every Smash game has had multiple newcomers from the same franchise.
  4. Summons/Miis/Spirits are... complicated. - While multiple characters have gone from NPC roles to playable characters between games, it hasn't happened within a game's life span so far. That doesn't rule out the concept entirely, but we can't really trust that characters that appear in non-playable roles will make it in either. Of these characters, Spirits, those who had Mii costumes in Smash 4 and those who have standalone Mii headgear but no full Mii costume have the best odds of becoming full playable characters.
  5. "Promotion" picks? Well... - Sakurai may have said that Nintendo was heavily responsible for picking the Fighters Pass lineup, but that doesn't necessarily mean the chosen characters are all cynical marketing ploys.
  6. It's not a power struggle - Not everything has to have winners and losers.
With all of that in mind, the lineup includes both expected and unexpected picks - including some that Delzethin has previously designed moveset concepts for.

Author's Note: Which first-party characters do you want to see as DLC? Which ones do you think are most likely? Do you agree or disagree with any of Delzethin's possible predictions?
 
Scribe

Comments

I've actually never considered Revali before. Perhaps he could take up any of the moveset crafting Sakurai did for Decidueye before he got the axe?
 
It’s actually just going to be Joker and four more of Bowser’s low level henchmen.

And everyone will be happy.
 
All I know is that my most wanted newcomer is already a summon (Krystal), and that any Summons getting promoted is unlikely
 
I still don't get Del's fixation on Lycanroc, especially now that we know that Decidueye was the one Pokémon that was "competing" with Incineroar, with Lycanroc presumably never being so much as considered.
 
At this point I have extreme doubts on all of them, I've given up hope on any first party characters and I find that very depressing
 
Honestly, I can see a Gen 8 Pokemon happening simply because Sakurai has reserved spots for Pokemon in both Smash 4 and Ultimate's base roster, they could easily do something similar here.

Now regarding Lycanroc:
-Gen 7 is on its way out, I don't see any reason for Nintendo to sell a character from a previous Gen in 2019, when we have an entire new Gen on the horizon.
-And even if they somehow decide to go that route, Lycanroc now has another major competitor in Decidueye, who was actually considered for the Gen 7 base roster slot.
As much as I like Lycanroc, I don't think it's happening, especially not as DLC. I'd love to be proven wrong though.

As for Revali, we already have Breath of the Wild content in Smash:
-Considering one of the 4 new base game stages is from Breath of the Wild, I have serious doubts we're gonna get a second.
-We have Breath of the Wild music in the game already, 5 songs. Of course they could add more, but... I don't really see why they would.
Like Lycanroc, I don't see it happening.

I agree with everyone else in the video though.
 
I haven't seen the video yet, but it sounds like Del cites Revali as a possible character. I wanted to suggest my far out, kind of a stretch idea that makes sense to me once again. Ahem, let me just get this out *brushes dust off of my soap box and stands on it* now, BotW was massive for Zelda and it's even still hot in everyone's minds, the game has staying power due to what a shakeup it was to Zelda for the better. When everybody talks about an official BotW representative, most almost unilaterally agree that it would be one of the champions, but which one? Each were unique and charming in their own way, as well as important to the story, but none of them (in my opinion) act the standout or really have anything that makes them outshine any of the other champions to justify their being picked over the others. That is to say, to pick any one champion over the other three would undoubtedly annoy fans of those other three, and none of the champions could be reasonably justified to be picked over the other in any significant factors.

SO, with that in mind, the best option would probably be to appease all of the fans of all four champions by representing them all equally in a character, but how would one do this? You couldn't just have all four champions be one character, could you? Well...

Enter Kass!

Kass loves the champions as a bard of lore and history enthusiast, to the ends that he's always there to offer lore and insight on the fallen warriors. He's a fan favorite character who oozes charm and personality with a vibrant design. He's not too big, like Daruk, and he's not super small like Mipha, his body shape being about the same frame as Revali/Urbosa while still being fairly stocky while also having attributes of all the champions. It's true you'd have to build him up as a fighter from the ground up, but he could be built to essentially be the Breath of the Wild fighter some people hoped Link would be, utilizing skills and abilities from BotW as his own character, with his main draw being that he harnesses the abilities given to Link from all four champions. He gallantly darts around the stage wielding the champions weapons in his numerous tilts, smashes, aerials, and other moves, and his specials utilize Revali's Gail, Daruk's Protection, Mipha's Grace, and Urbosa's fury. He swaps the champions weapons as fit to do so for the move used, using Daruk's boulder breaker for smash attacks, Mipha's spear and Urbosa's scimitar and shield for tilts, and Revali's Bow for aerials. Kass could act as the mediator for all of the champions to represent them in equal measure.

Now obviously this more than likely won't happen, but I had the idea a while back as a "lol what if" kind of thing and this Revali speculation reminded me of that.
 
I still don't get Del's fixation on Lycanroc, especially now that we know that Decidueye was the one Pokémon that was "competing" with Incineroar, with Lycanroc presumably never being so much as considered.
To be fair, we didn't even know Decidueye was considered until the article. A lack of information doesn't necessarily mean something didn't happen. In this case, we don't know if it was literally "Decidueye vs Incineroar" or if other Pokémon were being looked at too.

As for Revali, we already have Breath of the Wild content in Smash:
-Considering one of the 4 new base game stages is from Breath of the Wild, I have serious doubts we're gonna get a second.
-We have Breath of the Wild music in the game already, 5 songs. Of course they could add more, but... I don't really see why they would.
Like Lycanroc, I don't see it happening.

I agree with everyone else in the video though.
There wasn't a need for two EarthBound stages in Melee, but we got them anyway. We didn't get a Su/Mo stage in Ultimate, yet we still got six remixes.

Maybe I'm just hopelessly biased with the Champions, but I don't see an issue. We're talking about BotW, a revolutionary Zelda game that became the best-selling title in the franchise. Is adding more BotW content really a problem that should dissuade Sakurai from adding another character?

I haven't seen the video yet, but it sounds like Del cites Revali as a possible character. I wanted to suggest my far out, kind of a stretch idea that makes sense to me once again. Ahem, let me just get this out *brushes dust off of my soap box and stands on it* now, BotW was massive for Zelda and it's even still hot in everyone's minds, the game has staying power due to what a shakeup it was to Zelda for the better. When everybody talks about an official BotW representative, most almost unilaterally agree that it would be one of the champions, but which one? Each were unique and charming in their own way, as well as important to the story, but none of them (in my opinion) act the standout or really have anything that makes them outshine any of the other champions to justify their being picked over the others. That is to say, to pick any one champion over the other three would undoubtedly annoy fans of those other three, and none of the champions could be reasonably justified to be picked over the other in any significant factors.

SO, with that in mind, the best option would probably be to appease all of the fans of all four champions by representing them all equally in a character, but how would one do this? You couldn't just have all four champions be one character, could you? Well...

Enter Kass!

Kass loves the champions as a bard of lore and history enthusiast, to the ends that he's always there to offer lore and insight on the fallen warriors. He's a fan favorite character who oozes charm and personality with a vibrant design. He's not too big, like Daruk, and he's not super small like Mipha, his body shape being about the same frame as Revali/Urbosa while still being fairly stocky while also having attributes of all the champions. It's true you'd have to build him up as a fighter from the ground up, but he could be built to essentially be the Breath of the Wild fighter some people hoped Link would be, utilizing skills and abilities from BotW as his own character, with his main draw being that he harnesses the abilities given to Link from all four champions. He gallantly darts around the stage wielding the champions weapons in his numerous tilts, smashes, aerials, and other moves, and his specials utilize Revali's Gail, Daruk's Protection, Mipha's Grace, and Urbosa's fury. He swaps the champions weapons as fit to do so for the move used, using Daruk's boulder breaker for smash attacks, Mipha's spear and Urbosa's scimitar and shield for tilts, and Revali's Bow for aerials. Kass could act as the mediator for all of the champions to represent them in equal measure.

Now obviously this more than likely won't happen, but I had the idea a while back as a "lol what if" kind of thing and this Revali speculation reminded me of that.
I don't have a problem with Kass being a playable character (Sidon is better), but the odds of it happening are just sooooo slim. Honestly, randomly shoving the Champions into Kass's moveset would be unfitting and out of place, as none of them even know who he is.

Still rooting for the Champions though. My personal favorite is Mipha, but I'll take any of them TBH.[/QUOTE]
 
Last edited:
I don't have a problem with Kass being a playable character (Sidon is better), but the odds of it happening are just sooooo slim. Honestly, randomly shoving the Champions into Kass's moveset would be unfitting and random, as none of them even know who he is.

Still rooting for the Champions though. My personal favorite is Mipha, but I'll take any of them TBH.
I know it's pretty slim, and I'm not really seriously rooting for the idea, but I was just reminiscing about the idea I had when pondering how to represent the champions in Smash. For real though hopefully some of BotW characters become mainstay supports a la Beedle and Tingle. I need some more Sidon and Kass in my life.
 
Last edited:
Del: "Timing matters"
Also Del: "Gen 7 pokemon number 2 while Game Freak has pretty much said Gen 8 is 2019 and the DLC planned to last until 2020"
 
Said it before, and I'll say it again. The support for Bandana Dee is a humongous circlejerk. He doesn't even have a proper name within the kirby games-- he's just any old waddle dee. If folks wanted an inconsequential kirby enemy, they could've at least chosen one out of the dozens of cooler ones lmao

I could be down with Bonkers or Knuckle Joe tbh
 
Last edited:
Said it before, and I'll say it again. The support for Bandana Dee is a humongous circlejerk. He doesn't even have a proper name within the kirby games-- he's just any old waddle dee. If folks wanted an inconsequential kirby enemy, they could've at least chosen one out of the dozens of cooler ones lmao

I could be down with Bonkers or Knuckle Joe tbh
Tbh I wouldn’t be too shocked if Sakurai chose just a normal Waddle Dee as a character and incorporated the spear into its move set.

Any Kirbo character is fine by me at this point
 
D
I still don't get Del's fixation on Lycanroc, especially now that we know that Decidueye was the one Pokémon that was "competing" with Incineroar, with Lycanroc presumably never being so much as considered.
Because Dusk Lycanroc is our lord and savior and would have obviously have been chosen if Sakurai knew about it earlier.
Decidueye and Incineroar would never have even been considered, you know.

Sakurai totally wouldn't have ignored it for the same reasons he likely ignored Midday.
 
To be fair, we didn't even know Decidueye was considered until the article. A lack of information doesn't necessarily mean something didn't happen. In this case, we don't know if it was literally "Decidueye vs Incineroar" or if other Pokémon were being looked at too.
The exact wording of the interview was that "up until the end" it was between Decidueye and Incineroar. For reference:
Up until the very end it was between Decidueye and Incineroar – which one should I choose?
This kind of shows that they were the only ones being seriously considered, or at the very least were leaps and bounds above any other Pokémon options, until the very end where Incineroar was chosen.
 
I haven't seen the video yet, but it sounds like Del cites Revali as a possible character. I wanted to suggest my far out, kind of a stretch idea that makes sense to me once again. Ahem, let me just get this out *brushes dust off of my soap box and stands on it* now, BotW was massive for Zelda and it's even still hot in everyone's minds, the game has staying power due to what a shakeup it was to Zelda for the better. When everybody talks about an official BotW representative, most almost unilaterally agree that it would be one of the champions, but which one? Each were unique and charming in their own way, as well as important to the story, but none of them (in my opinion) act the standout or really have anything that makes them outshine any of the other champions to justify their being picked over the others. That is to say, to pick any one champion over the other three would undoubtedly annoy fans of those other three, and none of the champions could be reasonably justified to be picked over the other in any significant factors.

SO, with that in mind, the best option would probably be to appease all of the fans of all four champions by representing them all equally in a character, but how would one do this? You couldn't just have all four champions be one character, could you? Well...

Enter Kass!

Kass loves the champions as a bard of lore and history enthusiast, to the ends that he's always there to offer lore and insight on the fallen warriors. He's a fan favorite character who oozes charm and personality with a vibrant design. He's not too big, like Daruk, and he's not super small like Mipha, his body shape being about the same frame as Revali/Urbosa while still being fairly stocky while also having attributes of all the champions. It's true you'd have to build him up as a fighter from the ground up, but he could be built to essentially be the Breath of the Wild fighter some people hoped Link would be, utilizing skills and abilities from BotW as his own character, with his main draw being that he harnesses the abilities given to Link from all four champions. He gallantly darts around the stage wielding the champions weapons in his numerous tilts, smashes, aerials, and other moves, and his specials utilize Revali's Gail, Daruk's Protection, Mipha's Grace, and Urbosa's fury. He swaps the champions weapons as fit to do so for the move used, using Daruk's boulder breaker for smash attacks, Mipha's spear and Urbosa's scimitar and shield for tilts, and Revali's Bow for aerials. Kass could act as the mediator for all of the champions to represent them in equal measure.

Now obviously this more than likely won't happen, but I had the idea a while back as a "lol what if" kind of thing and this Revali speculation reminded me of that.
I was half expecting Kass as an assist trophy, but this is a neat out-there idea. Had one myself in the form of a Pokemon Trainer/Ice Climbers hybrid that sees 2 Champion couples that can switch out. A swift Revali/Mipha couple and a tougher Urbosa/Daruk couple. Obviously the Divine Beast Ganon Cannon as Final Smash.

Would be the most technically complex character, though.
 
So, I do think we are going to get first party reps, or at least 1 as DLC, It only makes sense, since we got 2 first party reps in smash 4, being :ultmewtwo: and :ultlucas:, and the rest being third party. That actually wouldn't be to bad of an Idea for this fighter pass
 
Del: "Timing matters"
Also Del: "Gen 7 pokemon number 2 while Game Freak has pretty much said Gen 8 is 2019 and the DLC planned to last until 2020"
Del dismissed Gen 8 because he felt that games releasing the second half of 2019 were too late for consideration when the lineup was decided before November 2018. You can disagree with this idea, but it's logically consistent within his argument.
 
Del dismissed Gen 8 because he felt that games releasing the second half of 2019 were too late for consideration when the lineup was decided before November 2018. You can disagree with this idea, but it's logically consistent within his argument.
You really want me to believe Sakurai can't get a peek at the next gen, which I can assure you takes more than a year to make? Here's how the conversation would go
"What up I want more Pokemon in Smash!"
"Aight, we cooking some good **** right now, wanna look? Should be done by 2019"
"Sure thing fam we got time, Oh, I like this one! Can you get your marketing team to push this one? Got a feeling that'd make people get REALLY excited and work well for promotion of both of our games"
"Say no more bro!"
 
You really want me to believe Sakurai can't get a peek at the next gen, which I can assure you takes more than a year to make? Here's how the conversation would go
"What up I want more Pokemon in Smash!"
"Aight, we cooking some good **** right now, wanna look? Should be done by 2019"
"Sure thing fam we got time, Oh, I like this one! Can you get your marketing team to push this one? Got a feeling that'd make people get REALLY excited and work well for promotion of both of our games"
"Say no more bro!"
You really made them all sound like idiots lol
 
You really want me to believe Sakurai can't get a peek at the next gen, which I can assure you takes more than a year to make? Here's how the conversation would go
"What up I want more Pokemon in Smash!"
"Aight, we cooking some good **** right now, wanna look? Should be done by 2019"
"Sure thing fam we got time, Oh, I like this one! Can you get your marketing team to push this one? Got a feeling that'd make people get REALLY excited and work well for promotion of both of our games"
"Say no more bro!"
It really depends how far Sakurai looks ahead for DLC. During Smash for, Sakurai only looked ahead a few months to a Summer 2015 release when picking Corrin. For the base roster, Sakurai looked ahead a year to make spots for what would later become Greninja/Incineroar. We don't know if he's willing to play that game for a development period that is as crunched as DLC. There's a big difference between waiting a year to get finalized details on a character so they can be in a product that will release in three years and waiting 2-3 months to get finalized design on a character for a product that launches in a year.
 
It really depends how far Sakurai looks ahead for DLC. During Smash for, Sakurai only looked ahead a few months to a Summer 2015 release when picking Corrin. For the base roster, Sakurai looked ahead a year to make spots for what would later become Greninja/Incineroar. We don't know if he's willing to play that game for a development period that is as crunched as DLC. There's a big difference between waiting a year to get finalized details on a character so they can be in a product that will release in three years and waiting 2-3 months to get finalized design on a character for a product that launches in a year.
First of all, stop the stupid 'Smash for' meme, it should have died out like measles and ****
Second, let me tell you in on a little secret. Game Freak is going to want promotion and Pokemon always gets to be a special case in Smash with all the Pokeball summons and Sakurai literally keeping a spot open for any new pokemon before the Pokemon itself is even bloody finalized. I'm pretty sure they are well beyond the final designs and **** at this point and the DLC seems to be planned after Ultimate's main game development was wrapping up.
TLDR: The pokemon have already been finalized
 
I still don't get Del's fixation on Lycanroc, especially now that we know that Decidueye was the one Pokémon that was "competing" with Incineroar, with Lycanroc presumably never being so much as considered.
Based on what we know now, I think bad timing kneecapped Lycanroc's chances, like I touched on in the video. Notice how there is nothing from Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon in the game aside from a couple Pokémon Trainer palettes? The new music is all from the SuMo versions in partcular and not the USUM arrangements, there are no spirits of USUM Ultra Beasts or the like, even the option of Ultra Necrozma as an enhancement for regular Necrozma isn't there! Whatever kept USUM content out of the base game likely also kept out a character who reached its high point with USUM, meaning Lycanroc was probably screwed by being too late for Ultimate's roster cutoff point the same way Rex was!

So I figure, if they took another look at Gen 7 for DLC--a big if--then they'd have the option to take a look at a character with a lot of unique stuff who wasn't available prior due to extenuating circumstances.

I realize the Pokémon talk is all on Gen 8 now, but I don't think we should assume Sakurai must want to pull from Gen 8 just yet, with the games still a year away when the Fighter Pass characters were locked in back in November. He seems to focus more on when a game will be out to the public rather than what's in development behind closed doors, which is why even the newest DLC character last time around still had a 7 1/2 month head start by the time of his/her inclusion! Remember back in spring 2015 when a whole lot of people were convinced we had to be getting Inkling ASAP in order to promote Splatoon, only for it to not happen? There're more going on here than just marketing ploys.

I know full well this is all reliant on certain things breaking the right way. That was the point of the Conditional section, for characters who would be interesting adds but need some certain thing to happen--like deciding to double back to XCX to grab Elma despite XC2 being more relevant--in order to have a legit shot. I want to consider multiple outcomes and not just run with whichever are talked about the most! We got characters last time like Cloud who had the right things line up at the right time, so who's to say we can't get more conditional characters for Ultimate's DLC?

Does that help clear anything up?
 
Last edited:
First of all, stop the stupid 'Smash for' meme, it should have died out like measles and ****
Second, let me tell you in on a little secret. Game Freak is going to want promotion and Pokemon always gets to be a special case in Smash with all the Pokeball summons and Sakurai literally keeping a spot open for any new pokemon before the Pokemon itself is even bloody finalized. I'm pretty sure they are well beyond the final designs and **** at this point and the DLC seems to be planned after Ultimate's main game development was wrapping up.
TLDR: The pokemon have already been finalized
I use "Smash for" as a catch-all for both Smash for Wii U and Smash for 3DS. Sakurai treats them as two separate games, so I figure just grouping them under Smash 4 doesn't really make much sense. I'm sorry if that bothers you on such a deep, personal level.

There is a massive difference between leaving a spot open for a Pokemon in a game that will be releasing in 3 years and leaving a spot open for a Pokemon in a DLC that will be releasing in a year. A full new game requires planning, there's a period where semantics are being worked out and ideas are fleshed out before being thrown onto paper. This makes leaving an open spot for a new Pokemon a viable choice, because time is a lot less of an important resource. DLC though? They have to hit the ground running with development ASAP. They don't have the fortune to wait for Game Freak to get every single detail in row before they can start development. Games change all the time throughout development. It's important to have a fully finalized character to work with, otherwise that leads to weird disparities. Sakurai really, really cares being accurate with who a character is and what they do. The only time he's ever worked on a character in Smash while they were still cooking was Roy, which led to a major difference between Sakurai's depiction of the character and his personality in Fire Emblem. Hell, he later apologized about this happening and changed Roy in Smash for to reflect this.

Also, Smash's primary purpose is not to serve as an advertisement. If it was a glorified advertisement, then we would've seen Rex and Springman. Likewise, we definitely wouldn't see Cloud, Snake, or Joker, seeing how they're primarily associated with an opposing product. It's actually been stated that Smash can be bad as an advertising tool, as the violence in the game often conflicts with the brand image of various franchises (and we know how much Game "No extra Amiibo usage for Pokemon" Freak likes brand control). Either way, I'm sure no one at Game Freak's marketing is really losing sleep over whether or not Gen 8 will get a Pokemon. Sakurai chooses who he wants, regardless of whether or not the marketing department will be thrilled who that choice is.

TL;DR: Leaving a spot for a still-developing character is much more justifiable in the base game, as there's more time to account for characters soldifiying and changing. Smash and marketing are pretty distinct.
 
We're never getting a Zelda newcomer ever again. I mean it's nice to dream and everything but please keep your expectations realistic.
 
D
Realtalk, if Sakurai didn't see Lycanroc as an option before Ultra Sun/Moon, there's very little the Dusk form is going to do to change that.

Look, I don't dislike Lycanroc. Far from it. Both of my runs in Alola use one; a Midday in Sun and a Dusk in Ultra Sun.
But as a Smash character, it simply isn't meant to be. The best chance it had was with Midnight, especially with its wild and punishing fighting style. And as we know, it was between Decidueye and Incineroar due to their concepts and no one else.
If there is any other DLC Pokémon from the Ultra "era" of Alola at this point, which is a very hard sell to begin with, it's going to be Zeraora as a lightning fast feral berserker. You can quote me on that.
 
Said it before, and I'll say it again. The support for Bandana Dee is a humongous circlejerk. He doesn't even have a proper name within the kirby games-- he's just any old waddle dee. If folks wanted an inconsequential kirby enemy, they could've at least chosen one out of the dozens of cooler ones lmao

I could be down with Bonkers or Knuckle Joe tbh
I totally agree, If we're just adding random mooks into the game, we might as well just add something like a random Piranha Plant to the game too.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom