Official DLC Speculation Discussion Volume II

[cashregister9]

Has this Xenother guy gotten anything right ever? or is this just some circumstantial/coincidental relation to that one 5chan rumor.

 

[RetrogamerMax]

Okay first of all what.

Like I said, I heard from xenother a couple of months ago that he heard a rumor from one of his sources that Chun-Li was being worked on during base game but scrapped due to time constraints. Basically what you guys have been talking about the past 2 dozen pages.

 

[Shroob]

The main focus isn't just amount of content so much as the lack of it, at least in Final Fantasy's case. It just feels like that would take priority when all the other series have some combination of Assist Trophies, 30+ songs, Echo Fighters, and boatloads of Spirits while Final Fantasy is just Cloud, a stage, two songs, and two Spirits.

But at the same time, it's as Jones said. Is it not weird that Chun wasn't given a bigger role at all? She's basically on Ryu's level as "Ms.Crossover" to his "Mr.Crossover". You'd expect something more than just "A spirit", doubly so if they may have actually started working on her but had to stop due to "Time constraints".

 

[GoodGrief741]

Just wondering, did the Capcom gigaleak contain any information about future crossovers or anything like that. I know about future games being leaked, but I don't think I heard anything about future crossovers through.

There's several games with placeholder names on their schedule. I've seen people theorize that one of them might be a crossover game because its sales expectatations match up with something like MvC. Aside from that, no.

 

[RetrogamerMax]

Has this Xenother guy gotten anything right ever? or is this just some circumstantial/coincidental relation to that one 5chan rumor.

I don't know. But I think he was the guy that heard that rumor awhile back that Cloud almost didn't return and Square-Enix wanted him to be DLC again.

 

[XorahnGaia]

As far as I know, the only notable thing xenother had going for his leak is that, much like Hitagi, they shared some of their info with Vergeben.

And even then the only information that he had (at least prior to his recent list of frequently talked characters from the rumor mill), was that Hero and Steve were in and that by proxy characters like Banjo Geno and Sora were out.

Their track record is nothing to write home about, but I guess you could kinda give him the credit for being technically correct since Steve was confirmed (it was the only reason why he came back for a bit after all).

 

[ALongWistfulSquiggle]

I do feel like we happened to stumble on a pattern that's true, but also incredibly fragile. There's no guarantee we will get any more leftover characters, even after getting three in a row. Remember when Sakurai said that he originally thought a couple extra fighters would be good enough? That could imply that this pass isn't just a pass of leftovers, but that some were completely new additions in terms of rights and workflow. I just feel like we're running straight into a second Byleth situation where we're going to be caught off guard and potentially disappointed because of expectations that were based on getting a complete set that was never promised.

 

[Shroob]

Like I said, I heard from xenother a couple of months ago that he heard a rumor from one of his sources that Chun-Li was being worked on during base game but scrapped due to time constraints. Basically what you guys have been talking about the past 2 dozen pages.

We need specifics.

How many months ago? Because this leak only was made aware to English speakers only a few days ago, this could be quite interesting.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

I do feel like we happened to stumble on a pattern that's true, but also incredibly fragile. There's no guarantee we will get any more leftover characters, even after getting three in a row. Remember when Sakurai said that he originally thought a couple extra fighters would be good enough? That could imply that this pass isn't just a pass of leftovers, but that some were completely new additions in terms of rights and workflow. I just feel like we're running straight into a second Byleth situation where we're going to be caught off guard and potentially disappointed because of expectations that were based on getting a complete set that was never promised.

Watch that next year we get a announcement of a new Fire Emblem and the pass ends with said 9th Fire Emblem character of that game.

 

[RetrogamerMax]

We need specifics.

How many months ago? Because this leak only was made aware to English speakers only a few days ago, this could be quite interesting.

October 6th was when I heard from xenother about the rumor about Chun-Li being scrapped from base game.

 

[Shroob]

I do feel like we happened to stumble on a pattern that's true, but also incredibly fragile. There's no guarantee we will get any more leftover characters, even after getting three in a row. Remember when Sakurai said that he originally thought a couple extra fighters would be good enough? That could imply that this pass isn't just a pass of leftovers, but that some were completely new additions in terms of rights and workflow. I just feel like we're running straight into a second Byleth situation where we're going to be caught off guard and potentially disappointed because of expectations that were based on getting a complete set that was never promised.

I don't doubt that there's probably at the very least 1 surprise character here.


But if characters like Steve and Sephiroth really were acquired pre-game coming out, it seems like DLC was always intended to be more than 1 wave, doubly strengthened by the first patch adding in 16 dlc spots in WoL.

 

[cashregister9]

Watch that next year we get a announcement of a new Fire Emblem and the pass ends with said 9th Fire Emblem character of that game.

Dang bro You got the whole squad laughing

But if characters like Steve and Sephiroth really were acquired pre-game coming out, it seems like DLC was always intended to be more than 1 wave, doubly strengthened by the first patch adding in 16 dlc spots in WoL.

I might have asked this already but was there ever any solid proof that Sephiroth was a leftover?

 

[Shroob]

Dang bro You got the whole squad laughing

I might have asked this already but was there ever any solid proof that Sephiroth was a leftover?

I mean, if they went to Square Enix for Hero's rights, I don't see why they wouldn't have gotten Sephiroth at the exact same time. Seems like a waste to have to go back twice, and if, and only if, this leak is legit, that seems to check out.

 

[Arcanir]

But, you're not removing content. At the end of the day, Cloud still has a Final Smash.

If you add MH, you're minus 2 songs on like 30 stages, while putting them all onto a single stage.


You're relocating content from a majority into a single space. Yes, the songs still exist in the game, but they're now consolidated onto a single stage instead of 30~ That's effectively removing content, which is what I do not expect.

The thing is, they've done that to an extent already. The ARMs Spirits are now classed under the ARMs series rather then Other, and as a result Min-Min is the only one who can get the passive 'same series' bonus. It's not as noticeable as music of course, but it does show a willingness to change previous content to reflect the upgraded status of a series.

And do we have any precedence at the moment for that? We could, no doubt, but until that happens, call me skeptical.



And again, this is just my opinion. If I'm wrong, hey, who cares? I just don't see it happening.

The problem with this argument is that it's exclusively working off the assumption that since something didn't happen, it probably won't happen, which as we've seen is not the strongest argument to make. Even in this very pass, we've made three different assumptions based on previous observations that ended up changing because the characters broke them. We didn't think Spirits would get upgraded, but here comes Min-Min, we didn't think we'd get a second non-Echo rep from a Third Party series, but here's Sephiroth, and even Steve had some arguing that Minecraft wouldn't be priority due to Third Party series not using Avatar characters, yet we still got him. In the end we've only had two games with DLC and both had very different approaches to how they handled it, so we're working with a very limited data set that can easily shift with what comes next.

Yes it may not happen for MH, but ultimately it comes down to whether they want to revisit the franchise or not. FP2 we already know was decided on after the base game was developed and thus may have a different mindset on the characters it wants to choose (ex. Min Min) vs. what they would've wanted five years ago or even when they were shopping around for FP1. So if the idea is to promote MH, then the music is probably not going to stop them, they'd either keep the two tracks where they are and just have them play on other stages plus MH, or just shift them.

Plus, MH is already uniquely shuffled in the game's code, so it's already special in that regard.

 

[Shroob]

The thing is, they've done that to an extent already. The ARMs Spirits are now classed under the ARMs series rather then Other, and as a result Min-Min is the only one who can get the passive 'same series' bonus. It's not as noticeable as music of course, but it does show a willingness to change previous content to reflect the upgraded status of a series.



The problem with this argument is that it's exclusively working off the assumption that since something didn't happen, it probably won't happen, which as we've seen is not the strongest argument to make. Even in this very pass, we've made three different assumptions based on previous observations that ended up changing because the characters broke them. We didn't think Spirits would get upgraded, but here comes Min-Min, we didn't think we'd get a second non-Echo rep from a Third Party series, but here's Sephiroth, and even Steve had some arguing that Minecraft wouldn't be priority due to Third Party series not using Avatar characters, yet we still got him. In the end we've only had two games with DLC and both had very different approaches to how they handled it, so we're working with a very limited data set that can easily shift with what comes next.

Yes it may not happen for MH, but ultimately it comes down to whether they want to revisit the franchise or not. FP2 we already know was decided on after the base game was developed and thus may have a different mindset on the characters it wants to choose (ex. Min Min) vs. what they would've wanted five years ago or even when they were shopping around for FP1. That means any developments like big releases, changes in business relationships, or even requests are now going to be in play that weren't before, and that does mean that franchises that were skipped over before may have a second wind due to what has happened to them since. So if the idea is to promote MH, then the music is probably not going to stop them, they'd either keep the two tracks where they are and just have them play on other stages plus MH, or just shift them.

Plus, MH is already uniquely shuffled in the game's code, so it's already special in that regard.

Again, it's my opinion. Feel free to disagree if you want, but that's my stance on it.

 

[SharkLord]

But at the same time, it's as Jones said. Is it not weird that Chun wasn't given a bigger role at all? She's basically on Ryu's level as "Ms.Crossover" to his "Mr.Crossover". You'd expect something more than just "A spirit", doubly so if they may have actually started working on her but had to stop due to "Time constraints".

I feel like that would be a reasonable explanation, actually. We got crossover guy and crossover girls as fighters, funny meme man with the infamous turtling trick as an Assist Trophy-Oops, not enough time for two! Looks like we've gotta squeeze in the lower-effort moveset clone instead.

Though, not sure if she actually started development or if she was just planned and then scrapped. I'll have to double-check that.

 

[Faso115]

How many people had to be asked for Hero? Is it like Pokemon which has like 3 companies that have to be dealt with?

 

[cashregister9]

I mean, if they went to Square Enix for Hero's rights, I don't see why they wouldn't have gotten Sephiroth at the exact same time. Seems like a waste to have to go back twice, and if, and only if, this leak is legit, that seems to check out.

I wouldn't really call that a leftover.

I would call a leftover a character that was actively scrapped or considered in development but ultimately was cut but then came back. If the situation you described is the truth then I wouldn't call Sephiroth a leftover.

 

[Shroob]

I feel like that would be a reasonable explanation, actually. We got crossover guy and crossover girls as fighters, funny meme man with the infamous turtling trick as an Assist Trophy-Oops, not enough time for two! Looks like we've gotta squeeze in the lower-effort moveset clone instead.

Though, not sure if she actually started development or if she was just planned and then scrapped. I'll have to double-check that.

The leak never specifies it, so we're completely in the dark in that regard. She could have started development, she could not have, it's something we don't know.

 

[Banado_Boy]

We need specifics.

How many months ago? Because this leak only was made aware to English speakers only a few days ago, this could be quite interesting.

Looking at xenother’s posting history on here, I did find this from two years ago:

I'm assuming you're talking about Sakurai's quote where he says that nobody was cut once development had started?

Chun-Li never made it to the development phase. She was just a scrapped idea/concept.

 

[RetrogamerMax]

How many people had to be asked for Hero? Is it like Pokemon which has like 3 companies that have to be dealt with?

No it's even worse. 6 different companies own the Dragon Quest IP with each owning the music, characters, art, ect separately.

 

[7NATOR]

Actually, Scoliosis Jones brought up Something interesting I just thought of

He Mentioned that it could be seen as Suspicious that Guilte was made an Assist instead of Chun-Li, and that it could be sign she was still in Consideration

Now there could be more to it, like maybe Guile was seen as more interesting as an Assist, or something like that

The thought I had is what about the Veteran Assist Trophies, like Waluigi, Lyn, and Shadow?

These are characters that have been assists since their debut over a decade ago, and these 3 are popular characters. could it be that if their assists were absent because they might have been in consideration that it might have Raised red flags?

If you notice, More of the Popular characters kept their assists, while the less popular ones lost theirs, perhaps because of Priority (Poor Saki). Waluigi, Lyn, and Shadow losing their Assist Trophies would make people suspect they are being considered for Playable spot. Plus in the advent that FP2 was not a thing and FP1 was All we got, Waluigi, Lyn, and Shadow among others would just not have an Assist in the game and just spirits, and that would be a Downgrade in role, despite how popular these characters are

That's why I think there's more to the Assist Discussion than just "assist in the game, won't be Playable". Granted I get if you don't think we get promotions because there are many characters to consider and such like that, but yes

 

[SharkLord]

Xenother's the same guy as Hitagi, right? that's what I've heard, but it's best to double-check.

 

[Faso115]

No it's even worse. 6 different companies own the Dragon Quest IP with each owning the music, characters, art, ect separately.

So even if Square Enix is one of the companies that had to be asked,i dont think also requesting Sephiroth happened around the same timeframe.

Maybe Sephy could have been negotiated before Hero, possibly as the replacement for Cloud not being DLC

 

[Flyboy]

I do feel like we happened to stumble on a pattern that's true, but also incredibly fragile. There's no guarantee we will get any more leftover characters, even after getting three in a row. Remember when Sakurai said that he originally thought a couple extra fighters would be good enough? That could imply that this pass isn't just a pass of leftovers, but that some were completely new additions in terms of rights and workflow. I just feel like we're running straight into a second Byleth situation where we're going to be caught off guard and potentially disappointed because of expectations that were based on getting a complete set that was never promised.

Y'know, this is a fair point that I hadn't thought of. Sakurai did say when announcing pass 2 that he thought a few extra characters would have been fine - so it's possible that they're going for the leftovers now and are done revisiting old ideas (or will be if the Tales Of characters do come to fruition), leaving room for brand new ideas. Good catch.

 

[Louie G.]

I just feel like we're hopping on the Chun-Li train a bit too soon, especially after Sephiroth became the first DLC from an already represented third-party and we started doing the whole "The next characters will be just like the last one!" thing.

I understand your logic even though I don't fully agree with it, although this particular bit is kind of frustrating to hear so often. I do agree that, if you're anticipating or hyping up Chun-Li based on this alone - which I definitely have seen people do - then it's misguided. But this is a bit different.

With Min Min and Steve, for the most part, people weren't predicting anything that was very far out of what we could have already reasonably been talking about. A new Pokemon and Rex, for example, were already characters on people's radar. Fortnite had usually come up jokingly before Steve, but was hardly out of the question. These assumptions were founded in the confines of what we already deemed possible - outside of Min Min confirming that spirits can be promoted, which is something that I believe many of us were speculating as is. It moreso just skewed speculation in those directions within the bubble rather than expanding the bubble.

Sephiroth, contrary to these two, breaks down a significant barrier that restricted speculation before. If you had thrown in someone like Eggman or Chun-Li before, you probably would have been told it's silly to expect extra content for third parties when there are new series that can be tackled - that Sakurai emphasized how excited he was to add "new worlds" to Smash. Now we know that it simply isn't an obstacle anymore - and moreso than expecting it, I think most people are just excited that this has been opened up for us. It's a reminder not to limit yourself to these barriers that we've put up as a community and consider that maybe certain standards or quotas matter more to us than they do the guys in charge. It's also a reminder to start thinking about characters rather than just thinking about reps.

I had been supporting Chun-Li beforehand, but I've become much more vocal now after learning that my wishes were not unfounded and actually had a chance of coming true. And with Sephiroth here, there's at least the basis to say that Chun-Li's chances are not that bad. She's one of the most iconic video game characters currently absent from the roster - that alone could justify her quite easily. So I'm personally glad that we're having conversations about her, and validity of that 5ch leak aside I think she's a character people should have been talking about a lot sooner.

 

[Shroob]

Looking at xenother’s posting history on here, I did find this from two years ago:

Now the question is how credible is Xenother actually.

 

[7NATOR]

Xenother's the same guy as Hitagi, right? that's what I've heard, but it's best to double-check.

No, they are different people to my Knowledge

Hitagi was on Reddit, Xenother was on Gamefaqs and Here. Both talked to Vergeben.

 

[Momotsuki]

Whether this pass was planned before or after the completion of the base game is asked around a lot, and it's really looking to be a little bit of both, in all honesty... Given the timeline of the [REDACTED], it seems that some talks were certainly continuing well after the game had launched, with the talks I am thinking of in this instance seeming as though they may have concluded early this year.

 

[XorahnGaia]

Xenother's the same guy as Hitagi, right? that's what I've heard, but it's best to double-check.

No, they are different people.
Hitagi was active on Reddit and leaked other stuff besides Smash.
Xenother was mostly active on Gamefaqs and they only leaked the 1-2 things I mentioned in my previous post.
The only thing that they had in common was that both vouched for Steve and Erdrick as DLC fighters and both kinda piggybacked off Vergeben to get some credibility among Smash fans.

As for Xenother's credibility, well it's hard to say: most of the stuff he said boils down to "here's what in the rumor mill, make of that what you will" and all that you could really give him credit for is, again, getting Erdrick (though let's be honest, he was pretty much an open secret thanks to being planned for the base game) and Steve right.

 

[ZelDan]

Wasn't it confirmed that FP1 was to be it for Ultimate and was initially meant to be the last of Ultimate at some point? if so, than FP2 was clearly thought up some time after base game/FP1 planning. I guess the question is how far out was FP2 planned from base game/FP1.

Personally I feel like any base game content doesn't disconfirm, whether spirits, costumes, music, or even ATs. The only kind of content that is damning is stuff we got past base game, whether it be any DLC costume waves or spirit events.

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

It should also be noted that leaking is complicated.

The leaker you see on the internet is typically NOT the primary leaker. The rarer instances of the primary leaker going about it is the type of thing like the ESRB leak or TLOU2 getting leaked.

What we get is somebody who hears it from a source that they are comfortable with. I believe Xenother has had a leak that ended up being proven wrong, but that doesn’t mean the Chun-Li information is from the same source. That is the difference.

If you’re a leaker with several different sources, and one source is wrong but the other 4 are correct, does that mean your entire legitimacy as a leaker is gone? No, it just means the source you got information from is not trustworthy. That’s basically it.

What I think is interesting is that this would mean Chun-Li being in the plan was passed around and known by people, plural.

Please, do not describe it as leak bait. That is SUCH a misused term and isn’t nearly as relevant as folks make it out to be.

Also Flyboy and ALongWistfulSquiggle I think the idea that they started with a few leftover ideas and that it grew into a larger pass is also a possibility. Perhaps they DID only intend to add a few characters after Pass 1 and it turned into another pass.

Now, what if for the sake of argument, Nintendo had plans for Sephiroth, Steve, Chun-Li, and a Tales character...only 4...and then looked at the profits of Fighter Pass 1 and decided to revisit ARMS? That only accounts for one character, but that also leaves one unfilled spot outside of the four that may have been saved combined with Min Min.

This is clearly just theorycrafting but I think it’s interesting.

 

[SNEKeater]

He Mentioned that it could be seen as Suspicious that Guilte was made an Assist instead of Chun-Li, and that it could be sign she was still in Consideration

Now there could be more to it, like maybe Guile was seen as more interesting as an Assist, or something like that

I have also asked myself a few times about this. Not that Guile's not cool or iconic, but I have guessed Chun-Li would be the first SF assist trophy if for whatever reason she didn't make it as a playable character.

Though I also believe that Guile might just fit the AT role better than her. Most of times assist trophies have some kind of gimmick, and Guile, well... the Flash Kick is enough to justify him as a good AT lol.

 

[Momotsuki]

It's clear that FPV2 has base game residue to some degree. I'm not even sure you can call it a theory or rumor. Steve - Minecraft representation, rather, was one of our schrodinger's cats in the days of base game speculation, before his disappearance that went uninterrupted until it turns out, he had made it in after all, almost two years after going MIA in the speculation sphere.

It seems pretty likely Sephiroth's situation was very similar, but unlike Steve, he never did surface briefly before things fizzled out.

Min Min, however, was almost certainly not in this situation. Her addition seems to have been... sporadic to the point of being a sort of outlier that can hardly be used to indicate anything.

 

[7NATOR]

It's clear that FPV2 has base game residue to some degree. I'm not even sure you can call it a theory or rumor. Steve - Minecraft representation, rather, was one of our schrodinger's cats in the days of base game speculation, before his disappearance that went uninterrupted until it turns out, he had made it in after all, almost two years after going MIA in the speculation sphere. It seems pretty likely Sephiroth's situation was very similar, but unlike Steve, he never did surface briefly before things fizzled out. Min Min, however, was almost certainly not in this situation.

Sephiroth did surface with the Seven Squares leak, and I believe his name was heard the most along with Dragon Quest

and I know people don't trust him, but Fatmanonice also said Sephiroth's name was still being heard even after Hero got in. Of course he was focused on Geno (and on that note, Master Chief instead of Steve since Steve's name was also one he was hearing)

 

[Faso115]

Now i wonder how many of this leakers actually heard Crash name.

 

[Louie G.]

Min Min, however, was almost certainly not in this situation. Her addition seems to have been... sporadic to the point of being a sort of outlier that can hardly be used to indicate anything.

Not to put my tinfoil hat on too hard, but I think it's telling that the character we can say was a "sporadic" decision was also an in-house Nintendo character. Meanwhile it's the third party negotiations that feel like residue and are founded in discussions that went out since at least sometime in 2018.

I also assume that certain characters were always intended to be DLC, potentially outside the pass if we can gather anything from Sakurai's (potentially joking) statement about how he thought "one or two more" would be okay. I have a hard time believing there's any DLC timeline where we wouldn't have gotten Steve for example, even if FP1 was the only full "pass".

 

[Arcanir]

I have also asked myself a few times about this. Not that Guile's not cool or iconic, but I have guessed Chun-Li would be the first SF assist trophy if for whatever reason she didn't make it as a playable character.

Though I also believe that Guile might just fit the AT role better than her. Most of times assist trophies have some kind of gimmick, and Guile, well... the Flash Kick is enough to justify him as a good AT lol.

To add to this, it wouldn't be the first time they've gone with another AT option over the obvious one. Back in Smash 4, the AT Mega Man got was Elec Man, which while he may be a developmental nod to Inafune, would be far from anyone's first choice for the series when those like Dr. Wily or Bass/Treble are options.

Personally, while I like Chun-Li more then Guile, I'm glad they went with the latter instead. The way he's used as an AT is such a cute reference that I can't help but love it.

 

[Momotsuki]

Not to put my tinfoil hat on too hard, but I think it's telling that the character we can say was a "sporadic" decision was also an in-house Nintendo character. Meanwhile it's the third party negotiations that feel like residue and are founded in discussions that went out since at least sometime in 2018.

I don't think that's tinfoily at all. Third party negotations can get very muddy. (Which is kinda surprising, what kind of nutters push back against being included in the video game hall of fame?)

A big reason I have such confidence in Reimu is that the "talks" (ZUN offering his life as sacrifice) would be so hilariously smooth, and her being amongst characters who were trapped in negotiation hell - along with characters that could actually be gotten ahold of with ease, such as our Min Min - that makes sense as a means of having a well-rounded pass.

 

[Banado_Boy]

You know, since we’re bringing up old speculation stuff, I’ve got to ask...

Did “Jane” ever amount to anything? I can’t seem to recall if the speculation community concluded it to be a scrapped Kasumi alt/echo for Joker or something else.