Now that I've laid out my general outlook for FP10, I think it's time to get a bit more specific regarding series and characters. While you may think it unusual for a character predictions list, I'd like to begin with the series and character who I feel will NOT be joining as FP10. A lot of this has less to do with the characters themselves being "wrong" or "unfit" for Smash (too sexy, too violent, etc.), and more to do with the circumstances they currently find themselves in.
- Part 1: Already Included Companies/Franchises -
I think it's safe to say that, with the exception of Nintendo for obvious reasons, there likely won't be any double-dipping with regards to companies for the Fighters Pass. As such, we can count out SquareEnix entirely, and since SNK realistically only has Terry in terms of notable characters we can scratch them off the list as well. While Microsoft
should count as already represented since we have Steve in Vol. 2, I'll give them a pass since they technically don't own Steve directly, Mojang does. That said, I believe the chances of a Microsoft character are kind of low. With regards to specific franchises, it's pretty cut and dry on this front: No new ARMS fighter, no new Minecraft fighter, no new Final Fantasy fighter, and no new Xenoblade fighter.
- Part 2: Spirit Events -
Now I know that some of you may find it unfair that I'm making this call, but don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that having Spirits in and of themselves disconfirms a character, that's already been well disproven at this point. Rather, I'm basing this off of the logic behind their inclusion: We all know that each fighter comes with several Spirits, right? Well, if they were planning to include Leon S. Kennedy from Resident Evil to Smash sometime down the line, why would they have had a Spirit Event for his franchise in the first place? I mean, wouldn't you rather wait until you release Leon to include those Spirits alongside him? As such, I'm firmly in the camp that any series that has gotten a post-launch Spirit Event is out of the running for DLC, period.
The notable franchises affected are as follows: Daemon X Machina, Pokemon, Resident Evil, Astral Chain, River City, Cuphead, Warframe, Ring Fit Adventure, Animal Crossing, the Mana series, Octopath Traveler, Paper Mario, The Legend of Zelda (specifically the Breath of the Wild games), Bravely Default, Ghosts N' Goblins, and Monster Hunter.
- Part 3: Mii Costumes -
Just like with Spirit Events, I think DLC Mii Costumes are a good indicator of which characters and series we likely won't be seeing as DLC at this juncture. The notable characters/characters/companies affected are as follows (the ones already affected by Part 2 are in
bold): Rex, the Sonic series, Goemon, the Mega Man series, the Mega Man X series, Sans/Undertale, Assassin's Creed, Rabbids, the Mega Man Battle Network series,
Cuphead, Heihachi, the Splatoon series, the Fallout Series, Gil, Bomberman, Travis Touchdown, Geno, the
Monster Hunter franchise, and
Arthur.
- Part 4: Pokemon and Fire Emblem -
Both of these franchises are ones that I feel relatively safe in saying we likely won't be getting another character from them. While they both have their own unique reason as to why that is (listed in the next paragraph), the one thing they both share is that we've already gotten new fighters from these franchises in Ultimate: Incineroar for Pokemon and Byleth for Fire Emblem. Neither franchise is particularly starving for a new fighter, so I see little reason for them to want to add another as DLC.
On the Fire Emblem side specifically, Byleth wasn't too long ago relatively speaking. I think it'd be very weird to get another Fire Emblem character at this point, especially since there's no new game to pull a fighter from. On the Pokemon side, while Gen VIII is still recent, it appears that The Pokemon Company has already shifted their focus away from the Galar games. There's also the Gen VIII Spirit Event they had a while ago, which says to me that there's no plans for a Galar Pokemon to join as DLC.
- Part 5: The Legend of Zelda -
I've seen a lot of buzz surrounding the idea that the Legend of Zelda series could potentially be getting a fighter as DLC. The reasons behind this buzz is rather straightforward: Zelda is having it's 35th anniversary, BotW2 is coming out in about 1-2 years time, and Sakurai/Nintendo loves to add in characters to help prevent the roster from being "outdated". All of these reasons ring very hollow for me for several reasons.
- Firstly, anniversaries/new games do not a new fighter make.
- Second, if their goal was to "futureproof" the roster, why would they go with the Zelda series? The most recent new character they could add at this point would be BotW!Zelda, and she's not particularly new herself, dating back to at least 2017.
- Third, while the character selection process sometimes happens before a character's game is out, we've only had two characters, in the entirety of Smash history, debut in Smash before their own game, and only one of those fully counts. The likelihood of that happening again, especially as a DLC fighter who likely would've been chosen around E3 2019, is astronomically low.
- Fourth, Breath of the Wild 2, and Zelda as a whole really, don't need help being advertised.
- And fifth, I can't help but find a Zelda character as an E3 reveal to be very underwhelming, no matter who it is.
and lacks the 0-to-death potential. Dante launches his aerial opponents straight down after doing an air combo in his own games, Bayonetta doesn't play like that.
