Official Newcomer/DLC Speculation Discussion

[Captain Shades]

I can’t buy the evidence against Verge, he’s been the most credible so far and was the one person against the Grinch leak that everyone seemed to fall for.

The idea that he got the Game Awards wrong was likely due to plan changes. We know Sakurai has had the DLC picked out way before Ultimate’s release, so times in which some are shown can change.There is also evidence of a parrel development between Joker and Erdrik. Plus Joker made more sense as a Game Awards pick due to the fact that Persona 5 was a big contender for the best game of the previous year.

There are also claims for Minecraft, but honestly that is most likely still happening. Rumors, and general speculation has been caving into MC being in Smash heavily. Just because MC isn’t in the base game doesn’t mean he is wrong. Again, DLC was picked out for awhile, so Steve being out there makes sense.

Now the new argument is why Erdrik for E3. My answer is that him and Steve will be E3. Going off the previous game, Smash 4 unloaded a ton of characters for E3 with Ryu, Roy, and Lucas. I can totally see them pulling a big western character (Steve) and a big Japanese character (Erdrik) in one swoop to hype up all territories and give Smash players more over E3.

 

[Door Key Pig]

Eh, the whole Minecraft Developer Discord thing with the guy saying "Steve ain't gonna Smash" before changing his tune about it the next day has me kinda maybe doubting Steve a little perhaps.

 

[TheCJBrine]

I can’t buy the evidence against Verge, he’s been the most credible so far and was the one person against the Grinch leak that everyone seemed to fall for.

The idea that he got the Game Awards wrong was likely due to plan changes. We know Sakurai has had the DLC picked out way before Ultimate’s release, so times in which some are shown can change.There is also evidence of a parrel development between Joker and Erdrik. Plus Joker made more sense as a Game Awards pick due to the fact that Persona 5 was a big contender for the best game of the previous year.

There are also claims for Minecraft, but honestly that is most likely still happening. Rumors, and general speculation has been caving into MC being in Smash heavily. Just because MC isn’t in the base game doesn’t mean he is wrong. Again, DLC was picked out for awhile, so Steve being out there makes sense.

Now the new argument is why Erdrik for E3. My answer is that him and Steve will be E3. Going off the previous game, Smash 4 unloaded a ton of characters for E3 with Ryu, Roy, and Lucas. I can totally see them pulling a big western character (Steve) and a big Japanese character (Erdrik) in one swoop to hype up all territories and give Smash players more over E3.

There was development for 3 characters going on at the same time, and I feel there's no reason to believe Joker wasn't always planned to be revealed first anyway. In an interview with Sakurai or an article or whatever, he talked about Joker and the only thing he said about the reveal was that Nintendo wanted it sooner, but said nothing about development plans having to be changed.

As for rumors, I'm seeing more rumors for Banjo-Kazooie than Steve, though I would like both. I don't think what Aubrey and the new Mojang employee said disconfirmed him though, since they were really vague and said/acted like it was their own opinion (with the new guy saying something about Smash 4 Maxwell rumors), but I don't know.

 

[ProfPeanut]

Why do people assume that Joker was some last-minute switch, given his animated trailer? An animation of that caliber would have taken one-and-a-half months to comfortably make, complete with getting the English VAs on to record it. Perhaps they could have crammed it in the single month of time between the November Direct and The Game Awards, but given the non-negotiable deadline there, I doubt they'd have risked it. It's like saying K.Rool was revealed at the last minute in August just to beat the leakers, as if CGI-rendered trailers could be pulled out of nowhere.

If anything, the "sooner" bit makes more sense considering the four-month wait we had for Joker, compared to the rest of the Fighters who are going to have a lot less time between their reveals and their releases. Maybe Sakurai wanted to reveal him in February or sometime later, but Nintendo wanted to get the hype ball rolling immediately. Either way, Sakurai and Nintendo don't value surprise internet reactions that much, or they'd have done something about the Box Theory so much sooner.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

I'm trying to remember the time between Verge leaking a SE character would be shown off first and Joker's reveal. Multiple trailers could've existed, and they went with somebody a bit more known to the West for the VGA's instead?

 

[Knight Dude]

Come on man, no Buck Bumble but you get Mr. Mosquito?

This Fighter's Pass sucks.

I'd be mad. Buck Bumble has better music.

Late 90's Drum N Bass gives me life.

 

[ProfPeanut]

I'm trying to remember the time between Verge leaking a SE character would be shown off first and Joker's reveal. Multiple trailers could've existed, and they went with somebody a bit more known to the West for the VGA's instead?

I really doubt that. Joker's trailer is pretty context-specific and rolls better with The Game Awards version - making a DQ trailer with the same mentality just to save it for seven months later sounds like a weird way to spend a lot of resources at once.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

I really doubt that. Joker's trailer is pretty context-specific and rolls better with The Game Awards version - making a DQ trailer with the same mentality just to save it for seven months later sounds like a weird way to spend a lot of resources at once.

Hmm. Good point.

Mind you, I really don't trust Verge DLC-wise. But he started off by getting things wrong from the start. He's not credible for DLC, but it doesn't mean he has fake information either. It's still quite possible he got misled with the SE information.

 

[Deleted member]

I'm trying to remember the time between Verge leaking a SE character would be shown off first and Joker's reveal. Multiple trailers could've existed, and they went with somebody a bit more known to the West for the VGA's instead?

I remember watching Alpharad's video on the DLC and mentioned Vergeben saying that there was going to be a SE character in Smash, and the date of the video made was on the 22nd of November. That being said, I doubt they had teasers of other characters ready by the time of the VGAs to show off. It'd seem like a waste for them to make a trailer for someone and scrap it altogether because they decided to push out the announcement for another character sooner rather than later. Plus, if this was the case, we probably would've seen a teaser for the next Fighter during the 3.0.0 update video.

 

[Will]

if square enix is apparently so protective of their IPs i'm surprised they would be convinced to do it twice

 

[Mushroomguy12]

Spent all day working on this, thought I'd jump on the train.
Three rules when working on this:
All characters in a series are in the same row.
Third parties are at the end.
No non video game characters, all characters are at least marginally realistic.

 

[Izanagi97]

Hmm. Good point.

Mind you, I really don't trust Verge DLC-wise. But he started off by getting things wrong from the start. He's not credible for DLC, but it doesn't mean he has fake information either. It's still quite possible he got misled with the SE information.

Which, IMO, fits with the idea that the SE character rumors were bait. It's not impossible to be correct with base game stuff only to drop the ball with DLC

 

[Garteam]

Hey if you could put in a first party DLC pick youd think make a great fit for the Fighter's Pass (and would fit in with development timeline of the fighters, so maybe not Pokémon/FE), who would you pick? What would bring new spirits and music and a new stage without feeling redundant?

Probably as good a time as any to share ideas for my most wanted, Lycanroc

Spirits:
-Lillie (battle against White Isabelle with Solgaleo and Lunala's Pokeballs frequently spawning)
-Guzma (Battle against Red Biker Wario with a giant white Ridley to represent Golisopod)
-Kukui (Similar to the Phantom Thieves battle, characters would be based on the Pokemon he uses in his boss battle)
-Poipole (Fight against Purple Squirtle with a poisoned floor)
-Meltan (Team battle against 8 small, metal Pichus, culminating in a battle versus a giant, metal Incineroar)
Likewise, I could also see a handful of Gen 8 Pokemon getting spirits as a means of cross-promoting Sword/Shield

Music:
Would largely focus on tracks exclusive to Ultra Sun/Moon, but would also draw from Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee.
-Rainbow Rocket's theme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVAWlEJ065g&list=PLcEun0ol29M2ngU74q7gq3It4dx5__qbU
-Hau's theme
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUaRU3xf_bs&list=PLcEun0ol29M2ngU74q7gq3It4dx5__qbU&index=12
-Giovanni's theme
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6Mt_uxnYRA&list=PLcEun0ol29M2ngU74q7gq3It4dx5__qbU&index=2
-Battle! Champion (Let's Go!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3rkeUI54OI&list=PLjop7xuxFfnk_pG24XsACzZE0NRKPoBA0
-Master Trainer Theme (Let's Go!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GvImlcIinY&list=PLjop7xuxFfnk_pG24XsACzZE0NRKPoBA0&index=4

Stage: Ultra Space
This would be a traveling stage, moving between Megalo Tower (which serves as the "neutral hub" between transformations), The Ultra Ruin, The Ultra Jungle, The Ultra Desert, and The Ultra Plant. At each area change, there's a chance of that location's Ultra Beast appearing and wrecking havoc. For example, Xurkitree stand in the background would call down lighting at specific areas of the stage. Likewise, Guzzlord would charge across the stage, causing massive damage to all those who are hit by his attack.

 

[Nemuresu]

Well, discussion brought it and I feel like giving my two cents on it.
I find the whole "leak bait" to be just a rather petty way to have hope on a character not happening. Really, besides what happened with Star Fox Grand Prix, tell me a real situation where this happened, because I sure as hell don't recall another time where that was a thing. And even if you want to use this as an excuse, here's the problem: legitimate games were still leaked (Mario Maker 2 in particular), so it's not like such tactic is infallible.
And look, I get it, if people sense that there's a character they don't want coming, they're gonna hope for them to not happen, but I'm sure there's better arguments for it than "bait".

 

[Captain Shades]

Eh, the whole Minecraft Developer Discord thing with the guy saying "Steve ain't gonna Smash" before changing his tune about it the next day has me kinda maybe doubting Steve a little perhaps.

The two people against him most likely wouldn’t have any idea about Smash. One was a new employee who only worked at Mojang for a few months and the other is a community manager/ marketer, someone who takes in Minecraft player feedback. I doubt either would know anything about Smash. I’m pretty sure they also admitted to it being an opinion over anything else.

.

There was development for 3 characters going on at the same time, and I feel there's no reason to believe Joker wasn't always planned to be revealed first anyway. In an interview with Sakurai or an article or whatever, he talked about Joker and the only thing he said about the reveal was that Nintendo wanted it sooner, but said nothing about development plans having to be changed.

As for rumors, I'm seeing more rumors for Banjo-Kazooie than Steve, though I would like both. I don't think what Aubrey and the new Mojang employee said disconfirmed him though, since they were really vague and said/acted like it was their own opinion (with the new guy saying something about Smash 4 Maxwell rumors), but I don't know.

you never know, though I can also see Verge just taking a guess. Most likely what happened is that Verge got information on a few big DLC characters that were planned and missed out on some later ones. He obviously didn’t get any last minute echoes, so maybe some DLC was unknown to him. I think this explanation could still add up though...

The big Minecraft push on Nintendo was with cross play within 2018, meaning plans for it came beforehand. If Microsoft wanted to get involved with Smash, the period would have been in late 2017 or early 2018 during the first sparks of the Nintendo and Microsoft collaboration. Seeing as Verge leaked things a little before E3, negotiations could have been happening throughout that year to give him the information.

Erdrik was probably decided with the base roster. I mentioned this before, but Square is big on getting DLC money and seemed to want to ruin the “Everyone is Here” by making Cloud DLC. To combat this, Sakurai most likely made a compromise to promise them Erdrik on the DLC roster in exchange for Cloud in the base.

I think these two franchises were really early DLC plans which is why Verge knew about them. As for why they didn’t show up first, most likely it was just because of priority. DQ isn’t well known in the west, so why start with that, plus Joker would be a good call back to the previous Game Awards. Minecraft wasn’t chosen likely because it was too big for Game Awards. MC is an E3 announcement as it’s definitely the biggest DLC franchise we’ve heard of so far.

I’m still going to say Verge is correct. He may get a few things wrong, but his track record has been unparalleled, plus even if I don’t trust him, his choices are pretty safe bets anyways as the only things against them are pockets of the Smash community that want different picks.



As for the Banjo rumors, I haven’t heard any...

Steve pretty much took over speculation due to how reasonable he seems. Most Banjo leakers seem to just be guessing or are non-leakers looking to find anyway for him to be in over Steve. I’ll admit, Banjo is coming back a tiny bit recently, but honestly I believe Nintendo and Microsoft will find Minecraft as the bigger money maker. Plus Nintendo harbors many envious MC fans including Miyamoto and Minecraft was the whole reason for the Microsoft and Nintendo cross play collaboration. MC is just big with Nintendo now, they make custom 3DSs for it, highlight it in their Switch online presentation, and is was one of the only 3rd parties to come in the Wii U’s death period.

 

[TheCJBrine]

Steve pretty much took over speculation due to how reasonable he seems. Most Banjo leakers seem to just be guessing or are non-leakers looking to find anyway for him to be in over Steve. I’ll admit, Banjo is coming back a tiny bit recently, but honestly I believe Nintendo and Microsoft will find Minecraft as the bigger money maker. Plus Nintendo harbors many envious MC fans including Miyamoto and Minecraft was the whole reason for the Microsoft and Nintendo cross play collaboration. MC is just big with Nintendo now, they make custom 3DSs for it, highlight it in their Switch online presentation, and is was one of the only 3rd parties to come in the Wii U’s death period.

There was one leaker, IndieGamerChick, who seems to have a shaky record but is trusted by Sabi/PolarPanda (IGC tells the truth about what she's heard at least, I guess); IGC hinted at stuff coming to Smash and an N64 Classic (which seems like it may not happen but idk), and pretty much said it was Banjo-Kazooie after a bit before deleting the tweets.

Not only her, though, but Sabi herself seems to be hearing rumors of Banjo-Kazooie in Smash(?) and Rare Replay on Switch (mostly Rare Replay if she's even hearing B-K at all, I'm not sure, but she seems to think he could be likely, may be speculation like what other insiders have said - she's not going all-in on B-K in Smash, though, and not Rare Replay either but seems convinced of it on Switch (but tbh I'm not sure about how she feels regarding things she's said as I tend to be forgetful at times)), plus some guy on youtube who doesn't like Banjo has said he heard B-K would be in Smash from a source at Microsoft, and he said it again more-recently and didn't seem to be trolling (granted I didn't check the second time but he acted legit the first-time, of course he could still be trolling I just thought I'd bring it up since it was brought up in the B-K thread).

-Sabi has also been very credible, and has verified her source(s?) with some users on this site - not me, though, as I never asked.

I've heard no legit-seeming Steve rumors at all aside from what Hitagi, Xenother, and Vergeben have said, and Vergeben has never actually heard Steve would be in Smash aside from maybe one person if I recall (not his main source(s)), just Minecraft content. Hitagi and Xenother, however, seem to have no credibility with Hitagi getting some Smash stuffs wrong from what they said when answering questions as to who the DLC characters could be (one thing they said was no Sega/ATLUS characters), and Xenother has pretty much went away after awhile, his only claim regarding Steve being that someone told him they were a play-tester who played him in a build back in August, but another play-tester called Xenother out and said Steve wasn't in their build. Seems very unrealistic, anyway.

I know Minecraft is big with Nintendo, but Banjo-Kazooie used to be, and I'm not sure it really matters much anyway. I'd love either to be in, I'm just sayin'.

 

[GoodGrief741]

I really doubt that. Joker's trailer is pretty context-specific and rolls better with The Game Awards version - making a DQ trailer with the same mentality just to save it for seven months later sounds like a weird way to spend a lot of resources at once.

Eh, beyond the voicelines (that were even altered for the YouTube version of the trailer, that contains no references to TGA), it could be shown on any live show. See Cyberpunk 2077 hacking the Microsoft presentation at E3 2018 and it's the same shtick.

 

[Captain Shades]

There was one leaker, IndieGamerChick, who seems to have a shaky record but is trusted by Sabi/PolarPanda (IGC tells the truth about what she's heard at least, I guess); IGC hinted at stuff coming to Smash and an N64 Classic (which seems like it may not happen but idk), and pretty much said it was Banjo-Kazooie after a bit before deleting the tweets.

Not only her, though, but Sabi herself seems to be hearing rumors of Banjo-Kazooie in Smash(?) and Rare Replay on Switch (mostly Rare Replay if she's even hearing B-K at all, I'm not sure, but she seems to think he could be likely, may be speculation like what other insiders have said - she's not going all-in on B-K in Smash, though, and probably not Rare Replay but seems convinced of it on Switch), plus some guy on youtube who doesn't like Banjo has said he heard B-K would be in Smash from a source at Microsoft, and he said it again more-recently and didn't seem to be trolling (granted I didn't check the second time but he acted legit the first-time, of course he could still be trolling I just thought I'd bring it up since it was brought up in the B-K thread).

-Sabi has also been very credible, and has verified her source(s?) with some users on this site - not me, though, as I never asked.

I've heard no legit-seeming Steve rumors at all aside from what Hitagi, Xenother, and Vergeben have said, and Vergeben has never actually heard Steve would be in Smash aside from maybe one person if I recall (not his main source(s)), just Minecraft content. Hitagi and Xenother, however, seem to have no credibility with Hitagi getting some Smash stuffs wrong from what they said when answering questions as to who the DLC characters could be (one thing they said was no Sega/ATLUS characters), and Xenother has pretty much went away after awhile, his only claim regarding Steve being that someone told him they were a play-tester who played him in a build back in August, but another play-tester called Xenother out and said Steve wasn't in their build. Seems very unrealistic, anyway.

I know Minecraft is big with Nintendo, but Banjo-Kazooie used to be, and I'm not sure it really matters much anyway. I'd love either to be in, I'm just sayin'.

Didn’t know, I typically kinda stray from leaks due to most being fake and just advancing the Smash community’s preferences. My opinion mainly derives from the stuff that’s more concrete, that being Sakurai’s column and Miyamoto’s remarks showing they both have a huge interest in the series. The next bit would be the fact that this whole company relationship started with Minecraft and the ability to play with other consoles. I also believe Sakurai’s want to make completely original characters lends itself well to Steve. While the Smash community may boil him down to shoot arrow, swing sword, I believe that Sakurai will view him as the opportunity to introduce world builders into Smash as MC’s main gimmick is crafting. Having a character that can build equipment or alter terrain is yet to be seen in Smash, giving Steve a huge originality boost over Banjo.

Other factors for MC include the marketing pushes from Nintendo such as highlighting it in the Switch Online reveal and the special 3DS. Also MC is the 2nd highest selling game of all time, a mascot for an entire genre that it revolutionized, and is very relevant and marketable today. It also has a unique art style which would fit in with the DLC as Persona and DQ are pretty stylized themselves.

Minecraft just seems more believable to me when looked at with the context of everything. Sure Banjo is liked by the Smash community, but that’s about it other than a potential spot in an entry from almost two decades ago. Steve is a major gaming icon in the same vein as Sonic or Pac-Man, so I believe he’ll get the spot.

Other than Steve, my only bets are Erdrik and Doom Slayer at this point.

 

[Ayumi Tachibana]

Spent all day working on this, thought I'd jump on the train.
Three rules when working on this:
All characters in a series are in the same row.
Third parties are at the end.
No non video game characters, all characters are at least marginally realistic.
View attachment 225264

Thank you for having me in!

 

[Wunderwaft]

Unless Banjo is making a comeback with a new game then I doubt Nintendo of Japan would choose him over Minecraft, these are just my two cents on the topic.

 

[Dalek_Kolt]

Put together this scale of some classic characters and potential newcomers.
Planning on comparing the current Ultimate incarnations later.

 

[ProfPeanut]

Eh, beyond the voicelines (that were even altered for the YouTube version of the trailer, that contains no references to TGA), it could be shown on any live show. See Cyberpunk 2077 hacking the Microsoft presentation at E3 2018 and it's the same shtick.

Barring the fact that the TGA version made more sense, Nintendo's E3 Direct isn't a live show.

 

[GoodGrief741]

Barring the fact that the TGA version made more sense, Nintendo's E3 Direct isn't a live show.

Valid point, but they could still have, say, Bowser or Bill Trinen or Sakurai speaking at an office in the Direct, the lights cut out, and the transition is the same. Kind of like the screen shaking before K. Rool's trailer.

 

[Ben Holt]

Hey guys. I have an official leak with proof:

My evil twin works for Nintendo and he stole this image of Doom Slayer fighting Erdrick from Sakurai's PC and leaked it to LaxChris.

I am willing to risk all my credibility on this leak. It is 100% legit.

 

[Alicorn]

I think its going to be a new gen Pokemon it is tradition after all

 

[Ben Holt]

I think its going to be a new gen Pokemon it is tradition after all

Doubtful. The characters have already been chosen.
I wouldn't be surprised if we get a second Fighter's Pass with a new Pokemon, but for this one, I'd say it's a less than 1% chance.

 

[Opossum]

Doubtful. The characters have already been chosen.
I wouldn't be surprised if we get a second Fighter's Pass with a new Pokemon, but for this one, I'd say it's a less than 1% chance.

Sakurai was on record stating that the Ultimate roster was chosen in 2015, but Incineroar specifically was decided later on, and before that was just "New Pokémon." Considering the DLC is planned to go until February 2020, Sakurai almost definitely knew about the 2019 Nintendo release schedule ahead of time.

Just because we don't know a specific Pokémon yet doesn't necessarily mean Sakurai doesn't.

 

[Door Key Pig]

Sakurai was on record stating that the Ultimate roster was chosen in 2015, but Incineroar specifically was decided later on, and before that was just "New Pokémon." Considering the DLC is planned to go until February 2020, Sakurai almost definitely knew about the 2019 Nintendo release schedule ahead of time.

Just because we don't know a specific Pokémon yet doesn't necessarily mean Sakurai doesn't.

We have enough Pokémon, though. We got a new one AND every single old one back. Is it so wrong to prefer that the slot go to someone else? Pokémon already got one of Ultimate's limited newcomer slots after all. Why should it get another?

 

[Opossum]

We have enough Pokémon, though. We got a new one AND every single old one back. Is it so wrong to prefer that the slot go to someone else? Pokémon already got one of Ultimate's limited newcomer slots after all. Why should it get another?

No one said anything about preference. If I did, I'd say that I'd easily take a Pokémon newcomer over most other characters, honestly.

As for "why should it get another," I mean... Pokémon is literally the biggest media franchise in the world. I'd say the question should be why shouldn't it.

 

[Door Key Pig]

No one said anything about preference. If I did, I'd say that I'd easily take a Pokémon newcomer over most other characters, honestly.

As for "why should it get another," I mean... Pokémon is literally the biggest media franchise in the world. I'd say the question should be why shouldn't it.

Because it already got one of the limited newcomer slots in the base game, it's just plain unfair for it to get one of the limited DLC slots.

 

[RileyXY1]

And, Sword & Shield doesn't come out until this Holiday season. They have no idea what Pokemon will be popular so it could backfire.

 

[Opossum]

Because it already got one of the limited newcomer slots in the base game, it's just plain unfair for it to get one of the limited DLC slots.

That's just putting too much emotion into things we have literally no control over. Objectively, there's no reason why it "shouldn't get a DLC character."

 

[Door Key Pig]

Not to mention it wouldn't be very surprising in terms of what Reggie said with the DLC.

 

[Guynamednelson]

We have enough Pokémon, though. We got a new one AND every single old one back. Is it so wrong to prefer that the slot go to someone else? Pokémon already got one of Ultimate's limited newcomer slots after all. Why should it get another?

Who it is should matter more than how many. A non-Pokemon character should be added because they're popular or unique enough, not because they're not a Pokemon.

which is why i hope they go for a fan favorite rather than whatever new starter catches sakurai's eye

 

[Curious Villager]

If they have to throw yet another Pokemon at us.
Can it at least be something other than yet another starter?

Go for Meltan/Melmetal if they have to. We never had a playable Mythical Pokemon before so there's that I guess....

 

[Ethan Michael Crane]

That's just putting too much emotion into things we have literally no control over. Objectively, there's no reason why it "shouldn't get a DLC character."

That's absolutely true. While I don't want a new Pokemon, I can't really do anything about it--and I have to admit that I've had fun with Incineroar.

 

[Robdelia]

I'm neutral with the concept of leakbait (Although didn't the director of Tekken 7 say they intentionally spread fake names through the office to throw people off?) and I don't think Square would do that. However, I think Erdrick very well could be a similar situation to Chrom in the Gematsu leak (the character is in the game but not in the way we expected it), or more fittingly, the Blufever leak for Final Fantasy XIV. Dancer and Blue Mage were confirmed, yes, but some crucial details were changed that left a lot of people disappointed because they expected Dancer to be a healer and not a DPS.
I think it'd be really funny if Slime got confirmed or something and Erdrick was in his victory poses and final smash, like an inverse of Joker and Morgana. So yes, Erdrick is in the game, but not in the way we expected him to be.

 

[Door Key Pig]

So, straight up E3 predictions them? One character or two? Erdrick followed by a Microsoft character or something else entirely unexpected?

 

[Captain Shades]

I think it'd be really funny if Slime got confirmed or something and Erdrick was in his victory poses and final smash, like an inverse of Joker and Morgana. So yes, Erdrick is in the game, but not in the way we expected him to be.

I doubt Slime would be the character. He’s the mascot sure, but in the games he’s not much different than that of a Goomba. Slimes are just reoccurring enemies that had their designs catch on over time, so Sakurai would probably go with a protagonist as the main mechanics of DQ can be more easily spliced into their DNA.

And, Sword & Shield doesn't come out until this Holiday season. They have no idea what Pokemon will be popular so it could backfire.

It doesn’t matter, they can easily guess popularity as certain designs will stick out more. Both Incineroar and Greninja were chosen early in Pokémon’s development, so they had no way of seeing popularity for them and just took a gamble.

I think its going to be a new gen Pokemon it is tradition after all

Nah, Reggie made it seem like it’ll be new franchises, most likely all 3rd party. Plus we didn’t get a “new” Pokemon in Smash 4’s DLC, so I think we’ll be fine.

Unless Banjo is making a comeback with a new game then I doubt Nintendo of Japan would choose him over Minecraft, these are just my two cents on the topic.

Pretty much.

Microsoft also has to agree, so what benefit would they get in promoting Banjo?

I'm neutral with the concept of leakbait (Although didn't the director of Tekken 7 say they intentionally spread fake names through the office to throw people off?) and I don't think Square would do that. However, I think Erdrick very well could be a similar situation to Chrom in the Gematsu leak (the character is in the game but not in the way we expected it), or more fittingly, the Blufever leak for Final Fantasy XIV. Dancer and Blue Mage were confirmed, yes, but some crucial details were changed that left a lot of people disappointed because they expected Dancer to be a healer and not a DPS.

Going back to this, I highly doubt Erdrik is leak bait. He’s the Cloud of DQ, the main character of its most popular titles and one that can introduce the new mechanics of the franchise. There is no reason why they wouldn’t pick him as the DQ rep as there’s no clone territory or unpopular character appeal. Chrom was just a clone, so Sakurai choose the two other main characters of Awakening over him. Erdrik most likely wouldn’t have this issue.

So, straight up E3 predictions them? One character or two? Erdrick followed by a Microsoft character or something else entirely unexpected?

It’ll be Erdrik and Steve for E3


As for others..
Doom Slayer is December

The final is in February. It’ll probably be Ryu from Ninja Gaiden or maybe a Ubisoft character like the Rabbids.

 

[Nquoid]

I keep seeing variations of "Microsoft won't put Banjo in because it's a dead franchise and they'll want to promote something like Minecraft."

What promotion does Minecraft need at this point? It's the best selling game of all time, and I doubt Steve being in Smash will sell many copies of Minecraft.

Obviously Banjo hasn't had a new game released since 2008, but Microsoft also seems to be moving more into a games as service model. So announcing XBL and Game Pass for Switch, with all these Rare games from people's childhoods available for the first time on a Nintendo system is 20 years is a selling point. Particularly when you look at the wave of 90s nostalgia that is going on at the moment, and the people who played Banjo-Kazooie will be heading into their 30s now and actually have disposable income.

I'm unsure which of Steve or Banjo I'd say was more likely to make it into Smash if either of them do. But I don't think it's as bad as a business decision as many people do if that pick is Banjo.