So I have a theory I want to posit to the thread.
Enter September(?) 2018. Ultimate has just had its final pre-release Direct revealing FP1 and Piranha Plant. PPlant was being worked on before the game launched, but FP1, consisting of 5 characters, was slated to take a year to fully release, which it did.
FP2 is then announced, but despite having only one extra character in comparison to FP1, it is slated to take about double the time, being almost 2 years to completion. We all assume that they’re just taking their time for FP2 and/or they have a smaller dev team meaning it’ll take longer to develop fighters. It’s also possible that it was a security blanket to give them wiggle room if there were any unexpected delays - which we immediately got with COVID.
However, I want to posit the theory that this is intentional, and the reason being is that they are also going to work on 4 bonus characters in-between.
there are currently 16 extra slots that were added post-launch that sat unused, of which 7 have been used so far for PPlant, FP1 and Min-Min. This leaves 9, of which presumably 5 would go to the remaining FP2 fighters. But as demonstrated with SM4SH - and to which others have takes more extensively - any extra fighter slots added post-launch really never go unused. They added 7 for SM4SH and used all 7by the end of the DLC cycle, so if they added 16, why would they go through 12/16 and leave 4 open slots when that’s not historically what Sakurai and the Namco team that’s assisted him for two games now has done in the past?
Take 6 fighters in FP2 and 4 bonus fighters not included in FP2, and you have 10, which coincidentally fills all those slots. The thing about this that’s really interesting, though, is that if it took about 1 year to develop and release 5 characters, then by deduction, it would take about 2 years to develop and release 10. Double the time, for double the fighters.
The concept of 4 bonus characters isn’t new, but I don’t think I’ve seen anyone connect the dots, so to speak, with the timetable we were given for releasing FP2. We absolutely can still end the DLC got Ultimate with an FP2 character to keep true to Sakurai’s statements that the DLC will be finished after FP2 is done - and actually, I think this is super likely from the standpoint that we had comment from Sakurai earlier in the year that implied that COVID delayed negotiation talks for the last 1-2 fighters in the pass. If the bonus fighters, as Fatman has theorycrafted prior to this, are going to be basically 1st-party characters with semi-clone potential that would be easier to develop without the need for a full pack, the emphasis here is on “1st-party”. It’s likely that, in this case, while the 3rd-party talks for FP11 and/or FP10broke down because of communication issues for a time due to the virus, then it stands that, because these bonus characters are 1st-party, they wouldn’t be subject to the same delay necessarily, meaning that they would have been negotiated quicker and first, meaning they could start development first. All of which to say that, if theystart development first, they would release first, putting the last release(s) as (an) FP2 fighter(s), which doesn’t contradict Sakurai’s statement of finishing with FP2 at all.
So, take 2 years to develop 6 FP2 fighters and 4 bonuses, and you likely have them release interlaced with the FP2 fighters - something like 6>7>B1>8>B2>9>B3>10>B4>11. And considering how long they’ve been sitting on a complete 7 (and possibly 8 now too) with the length since Min Min’s release (which we know was also likely delayed initially too), we could potentially get 7 and B1 released together at the same time and do the same for 8 and B2, etc. etc.
Sakurai has mentioned that despite the virus, they’re still on schedule and on track with developing the DLC. They could possibly even be ahead of schedule again. But if they’re on track and they budgeted double the time, then whenever we do get the Smash information this month, whether this week or next, I doubt we’re just gonna see 7, or 7 and 8. If there’s bonus fighters in play, I bet we’re seeing at least 1 - and with the Mario anniversary and the tournament being so far out instead of an immediate thing, that means 7 and B1 stand a good chance of being Geno and Waluigi and being revealed together.
If I have misremembered or misquoted any information, please let me know, a theory only works if in the information used to posit it is accurate
EDIT: Some additional thinking is that we know that they were working on Joker, Hero and Banjo all at the same time, started work on Terry around Joker’s release, and started Byleth around Hero’s release. If thinking like this, if we only had 6 more fighters to look forward to, they’d have started Min Min around the time of Banjo’s release 7 when Byleth released, 8 in March when Min Min should have released but didn’t because of the COVID delay, 9 in July when we would have had 7 revealed at E3 but didn’t, and 10 starting this month when presumably 7 is going to be revealed and possibly released shortly thereafter. This means that, if they follow the sameschedule, 11 starts in November and 12 in January, putting a 12 release around the time of E3 2021 and leaving an entire 6 months without any DLC release. And even if you account for the Min Min delay because of her mechanics that Sakurai mentioned, that still at most would leave 3-4 empty months, but at the time FP2 was green lit, which was likely around E3 2019, they couldn’t have known there would be delays with Min Min’s moveset, or that there would be a global pandemic, so why budget 6 months that would sit empty if there weren’t going to be extra fighters to fill those gaps?
I also wanna add, as an EDIT2, that the reason why I assume Geno/Waluigi for 7/B1 and them being revealed together is because of the timeframe of the Mario tournament.
Now granted, we’ve had an abnormal amount of time between Byleth and Min Min, and between Min Min and 7. However, with the statement that they’re on-track with development, the fact that Min Min was delayed and pushed farther out than initially intended, and 7/Geno originally being slated for E3
2 months ago, they’ve likely been sitting on a near-to completely-finished 7 for awhile, and at this point the next fighter, whether 8 or B1, is likely also near- or completely-finished as well. Now, if the Mario tournament were immediate, it would cast doubt on Geno coming because he couldn’t be included, but the fact that it’s coming later is actually a boost to his chances, or the chances of another Mario series fighter coming in general. However, if it were just Geno, then assuming he’s basically just been waiting to be revealed for the past 2 months, it’s reasonably likely they pull a Min Min and reveal him and release him within the same month, or possibly the first week in October. So, put the tournament in October, it gives a few weeks to a month after Geno’s out, everything’s fine.
But it’s not in October, it’s vaguely November/December, roughly 2-3 months after Geno/7 would release. If 7 were to release this month, if Sakurai is on-track with developmen, the next fighter should release 2 months later, which would put them in November/the first week of December at latest. So why plan to have a Mario tournament 2/3 months after Geno, right in the timeframe where it would also be likely right after the next fighter is released?
There’s also a good chance that, since we have website evidence that the Mario direct was delayed from April, that this tournament probably
was slated for September originally to coincide with the anniversary, but that’s predicated on the pre-COVID schedule, where Min Min would be released in April-May, 7 + 8/B1 is revealed at E3, 7 is likely released in late July/East August, and then 8/B1 is released in late September/early October - which
still puts two characters out and released by the time the tournament is supposed to start.
So, if the Smash DLC fighter releases got pushed forward 2 months, the only reason to still push the Mario tournament 2 months forward is if there’s 2 Mario characters coming and you want to make sure the tournament come after both so it can include both. It wouldn’t make sense - and would be a definite cause for backlash - if both 7 and 8 were Mario characters, but if we have bonus characters, and it’s instead 7 and B1, then the backlash is lessened. And since in both cases, if we’re getting any Mario characters it’s going to be Geno and Waluigi and both fit the idea of being an FP fighter and a bonus fighter to a T, respectively, then it would stand to reason that 7 and B1
are Geno and Waluigi, and both were originally slated to be revealed together at E3 (with or without the actual FP8 fighter as well), and both would have been out by now if not for COVID and the delay. So if we get info on Smash DLC this month, it’ll be what was originally supposed to be at E3, and it’ll likely be Geno and Waluigi, with Geno coming before the end of the first week of October and Waluigi sometime in November/December, before the Mario tournament (which, keep in mind, wasn't even given a specific date, just the rough month timeframe).
It could be argued that it’s just Geno and they’re waiting for the “new car smell” to die down a bit instead of doing it right after his release, but to that I counter that for most of the prior DLC, they had a themed tournament within 1-2 weeks of the release, so why change the rules now, especially to delay an anniversary tournament that could otherwise run on the same month as said anniversary even with a franchise character release, if it wasn’t accounting for a second character from said franchise coming directly after?
