DLC Longevity Speculation - Possibly 100 Fighters?

[SAMation]

So a shower thought popped into my head earlier today and thought this would be fun to talk about.
A lot of announcements of stages and music, especially considering the direct in August, like to point out the crazy numbers in the game. 100+ stages, ~900 hours of music, etc. According to blog theory right now, it’s possible we’ll be looking at 80 characters on launch. That’s an extraordinary number for the series, and I think it’s safe to say there’s no doubt that number will only increase after launch. That’s where my speculation began.

I believe that after DLC is all said and done, we could be looking at a roster of 100 fighters, meaning just about 20 fighters as DLC after launch. I know that sounds like an insane number right now, but hear me out. Smash 4 ended up with 7 DLC fighters after around a year since Mewtwo first launched, and by the end of that Smash Ultimate was in the works. Now that the game’s almost upon us, we won’t have to worry or think about another smash game for a long time, since the Switch is still very early in its life cycle and we won’t see another console for years. This gives Ultimate a much longer span to work on DLC for, though personally I expect maybe around 2 years of content starting from the first fighter. But if smash 4 had 7 fighters in a year, how could ultimate make 20 in 2 years? That’s easily solved by making 5-6 of them echoes, which take up much less time developing.

As far as the span of time between these fighters releases, I think we could end up getting around 5 waves of 2-3 original fighters each, with perhaps a free echo character in between releases. This is all just crazy speculation, but it is fun to consider a roster of 100 fighters that’s defintely a possibility this time around. It truly would make this the Ultimate Smash Bros game.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

I could see it being close say like 95 but that's about it.

 

[SAMation]

I could see it being close say like 95 but that's about it.

That’s the thing though, if they do get to 95 I feel like they’d want to finish it off with 100. It’s the biggest milestone for a roster, and they may never get a chance like this again.

 

[Buzzwole]

100 is way too many, even including echoes. I can see us getting to Fighter number 75 with a total number of 80 fighters including echoes when DLC is all wrapped up.

 

[SAMation]

100 is way too many, even including echoes. I can see us getting to Fighter number 75 with a total number of 80 fighters including echoes when DLC is all wrapped up.

We already have 74 fighters including echoes though and the games not out yet. If 80 is the last number after dlc that’d seem pretty disappointing to be honest

 

[Michael the Spikester]

We already have 74 fighters including echoes though and the games not out yet. If 80 is the last number after dlc that’d seem pretty disappointing to be honest

I think he means as in unique fighters when he says fighter numbers. Echos not included.

 

[thirsty-pocket]

80 to 83 tops imo.

 

[Jyl]

Would they all even fit on the character selection screen?

 

[Fell God]

I've given this some thought as well. I think some people are sleeping on the possibility of 100 fighters (echoes should really have their own numbers by the way...) after all of the DLC is said and done is not out of the question. We'll likely have 80 at launch "b-b-b-b-but only t-t-two more fighters!" nah miss me with that, we still have all of October and November for fighter reveals.

 

[TheTrueBrawler]

I can see maybe 40 fighters. It takes a lot to develop a fighter, and Sakurai will need to devote a team of people to the next Smash Game after a few years of Smash Ultimate's life time unless they want to port Smash Ultimate until the end of Nintendo which I personally wouldn't mind.

Personally, I would rather see Sakurai instead of making more echo fighters take the time to declone the existing echo fighters making , , , , , and unique from their counterparts instead of making more clones.

 

[Mogisthelioma]

They'll probably use DLC to backdoor in all of the fighters that couldn't make it in because of returning vets.

 

[Curious Villager]

I actually gave this a bit of thought the other day. If we get two more unique characters and 4 more echoes for the base game, we will be at 70 characters and 80 if echoes are included. If Sakurai adds 10 more unique characters and 10 more echoes for DLC, we could hypothetically reach 100 with 80 unique characters and 20 echoes. Especially since Sakurai seems to really like to boast about his numbers ever since DLC ended for Smash 4.

But again, that all depends on what the final number will be on the base roster, how far sakurai will be taking the whole echo fighter thing and for how long he will be willing to support the game with DLC content...

 

[Yosher]

Just giving some food for thought here: if we include alternate costume characters, in this case the Koopalings and Alph, we're already at 82 characters through that. If you also include gender variations: male Wii Fit Trainer and Inkling, and female Villager, Robin and Corrin, maybe even female Pikachu, you get that number bumped up to 87 (88 when including Pikachu). Of course it all depends on what you count as a character, because you could even argue that if you go by this logic then all the Inklings and Villagers would count as seperate too, but I personally don't. Assuming we have at least 2 more (non-DLC) newcomers left to get announced, that would mean we would have to get just over 10 characters to round things up to 100 characters. Not movesets, characters.

I understand that we're talking about literal character slots/movesets here though, which all these alternates don't provide. But I think it can be fun to look at just the raw number of actual characters that people have to choose from even if they're just alternate skins. I personally like treating these as their own characters anyway, because seeing how little the Echo Fighters change over their counterpart's moveset, I don't think these alternates are that far apart from echo status. But hey, like I said, just some food for thought, and I don't expect many people to really share my view here, but that's totally fine.

 

[ssbashworld]

100 just seems like too much of a stretch to me, the only way I see it happening is if the development team particularly sets out to make that milestone which I doubt.

 

[SAMation]

Just giving some food for thought here: if we include alternate costume characters, in this case the Koopalings and Alph, we're already at 82 characters through that. If you also include gender variations: male Wii Fit Trainer and Inkling, and female Villager, Robin and Corrin, maybe even female Pikachu, you get that number bumped up to 87 (88 when including Pikachu). Of course it all depends on what you count as a character, because you could even argue that if you go by this logic then all the Inklings and Villagers would count as seperate too, but I personally don't. Assuming we have at least 2 more (non-DLC) newcomers left to get announced, that would mean we would have to get just over 10 characters to round things up to 100 characters. Not movesets, characters.

I understand that we're talking about literal character slots/movesets here though, which all these alternates don't provide. But I think it can be fun to look at just the raw number of actual characters that people have to choose from even if they're just alternate skins. I personally like treating these as their own characters anyway, because seeing how little the Echo Fighters change over their counterpart's moveset, I don't think these alternates are that far apart from echo status. But hey, like I said, just some food for thought, and I don't expect many people to really share my view here, but that's totally fine.

And we have bowser jr to thank for the 7 extra characters in this game lol. But that’s a good way of putting it actually, while it’s drfinitely more probable we’d get like 90~ character slots in total after DLC, including costumes and such we’d have around 100 and that’s still huge. Nice perspective!

 

[Diddy Kong]

I can't honestly expect more than 4 to 6 new unique characters for DLC. It probably won't exceed what we got for DLC last time. And that's quite generous because 3 characters last time where formerly cut veterans and thus highly requested. I think it won't exceed 6 because there are frankly not THAT many big newcomers left, or they can add characters for promotional reasons maybe? I can see downloadable Echoes being a thing however, seeing on how many Mii Costume DLC items there where for Smash 4. But even with Echoes... I also don't think we will get more than 10 max. And that's being quite optimistic. Realistically, I think 6 max, including Echoes. Unless we get double deals yet again like with Simon and Richter Belmont. And even then, I don't see that many possibilities outside of Isaac + Felix as Echo.

 

[Room100]

It's hard to say because I suspect (and hope) that since this is probably the last Smash for a while and the Switch is going strong, they'll support this one slowly but surely for a decent stretch of time. I wouldn't be too surprised to have them roll out updates/DLC progressively over a few years, meaning we could get maybe between 80-90 characters total depending on how long they want to go. But since they're seeming to focus more on balancing and the competitive angle, I think even if we get those characters then they won't be horribly broken.

Again, that's me thinking that this is THE Smash Bros. they want to leave us with for a long while.

 

[Q-Long]

I expect atleast a minimum of 80 with/or without dlc

 

[Funktastic]

I'd love to get 100 characters-- and it's not like they're too far away. However I don't think this is going to be the case, I'd be happy with ~80 fighters.

 

[Al-kīmiyā']

I don't care about arbitrary milestones. They should just continue DLC until work on the next Smash game begins.

 

[FalconFire93]

I don't care about arbitrary milestones. They should just continue DLC until work on the next Smash game begins.

I could see that actually because it’s hard to tell when a new Smash game will be coming out, my guess would be around ~5-6 years at best.

 

[The Animator]

Just giving some food for thought here: if we include alternate costume characters, in this case the Koopalings and Alph, we're already at 82 characters through that. If you also include gender variations: male Wii Fit Trainer and Inkling, and female Villager, Robin and Corrin, maybe even female Pikachu, you get that number bumped up to 87 (88 when including Pikachu). Of course it all depends on what you count as a character, because you could even argue that if you go by this logic then all the Inklings and Villagers would count as seperate too, but I personally don't. Assuming we have at least 2 more (non-DLC) newcomers left to get announced, that would mean we would have to get just over 10 characters to round things up to 100 characters. Not movesets, characters.

I understand that we're talking about literal character slots/movesets here though, which all these alternates don't provide. But I think it can be fun to look at just the raw number of actual characters that people have to choose from even if they're just alternate skins. I personally like treating these as their own characters anyway, because seeing how little the Echo Fighters change over their counterpart's moveset, I don't think these alternates are that far apart from echo status. But hey, like I said, just some food for thought, and I don't expect many people to really share my view here, but that's totally fine.

This is the best way of looking at it.

I don't see it going past 80 characters. Maybe 85 if we get a lot more echo fighters.

The only way we would get 100 characters is if they release something like a Smash Bros. Ultimate 2 that basically just adds more content.

 

[Grevmak]

Didn't Nintendo state in some Interview they wanna support the Switch for like 10 years? I'd be down with SmUsh getting DLC for 4-5 years onward. Then, at the end, release Super Smash bros Ultimate: Ultimate™ edition with all the DLC and new Funky ™ Mode.

 

[TheTrueBrawler]

Then, at the end, release Super Smash bros Ultimate: Ultimate™ edition with all the DLC and new Funky ™ Mode.

Ooh, Smash Ultimate². Sounds like an epic title to be honest.

 

[Kevandre]

While I find it truly unlikely... I'm very much for it.

Think about games like Smite/League of Legends/Overwatch- Sure, they're popular enough games on their own, but they are far more so because of consistent new character additions and the meta changes those bring that keep the whole thing fresh. I think Smash can be such a platform for Nintendo. They dabble in this a bit, but never exactly the same. Adding new characters to Mario Tennis almost doesn't matter because they're almost all the same. Adding new characters to Smash... I don't know. I'd be concerned about consistent paid-DLC though. They'd have to have it as part of a season pass scenario.

 

[MacDaddyNook]

I'm all for games like this getting continued support. It doesn't even have to be characters, I'd take additional stages, new or the missing old ones, as well. Heck, even DLC ATs and items would be nice.

It really makes me wish this and Mario Kart would get continued support, there is a market for it.

 

[SAMation]

Exactly, Smash Ultimate could show a lot of potential to have a long life of DLC, even outside of characters. Switch is still new and there’s plenty they could add to only make the title Ultimate feel more and more true. Smash 4 had about a year and a half of DLC content, Ultimate could go further beyond that and do atleast like 2-3 years! I’m very excited for this games release sure, but I also want to see it have a long life in updates and content too, it’s a special game and it deserves it.

 

[Kevandre]

If they could find a way to make the Miiverse stage work I'd be very happy. Splatoon 2 made it work, I think Smash can as well