Going forward with speculation I think the one trend that stands is the old pillar theory:
It needs to be a ew character than can bring new music, new spirits, and a new stage. After all, pre-E3, a lot of people were predicting a Three Houses Rep or a Pokemon Gen 8 rep. Byleth did not come out of nowhere as much as people recently might be saying they did. Taking this into account, this points towards really only one thing going forward: while not impossible, I think this greatly hurts pre-existing first party characters who don’t have a new game coming out soon. This means Dixie Kong and Bandana Waddle Dee. Other first parties can still get in, so as long as they can pack some new spirits, music, and a new stage into the bundle. I’d say a new Pokemon rep or a Breath of the Wild 2 rep are the most likely on this front. Also Super Mario RPG, but that is only half first- party.
As for other choices?
As much as looking into trends is in fact a pitfall in Smash speculation, let’s look at the first fighters pass for some guidance.
First we have Joker. This to me is the Sakurai wild card character. I know Sakurai keeps stating that Nintendo picked the characters, but this is only half true me thinks. First off, Sakurai does have veto power like many have pointed out including Sakurai himself indirectly. Second, I think Sakurai has more of a voice than he leads on. I’ve noticed Sakurai does not emphasise that Nintendo made the DLC picks every time, just at the beginning and after Banjo and Byleth’s reveals. Not saying Nintendo did not pick Joker, Hero, and Terry, but that perhaps, again, Sakurai has more of a voice in choosing certain characters, and perhaps Sakurai’s influence in Japan’s gaming industry allows him to get certain characters in the game. This is how we got Snake and Sans in after all. Speaking of Snake, other “Sakurai” picks have not been exclusively third-party, but also gave us Kirby as the defacto main character of Smash, the addition of two more Kirby fighters whikevother franchises of the same level got only one (Donkey Kong and Metroid). In Smash 4, we got Palutena and Dark Pit, the latter of which most likely would have not made it in under a different director. So all in all, there are characters where Sakurai as a person, and the aspects of him as the director bring to the character selection. Rather it be subconsciously favoring games he made, or had a blast playing like Petsona 5, or be it the relationships he has in the Japanese gaming community.
In predicting a future character I could look to the middle aspect and choose Steve as Sakurai is a big Minecraft fan. After all Minecraft is a huge deal, and has a strong presence on Nintendo platforms, but I lean on the third aspect the most. This leads me to my first prediction, and that is:
Travis Touchdown
Sakurai has a relationship with the director of No More Heroes, a new game is coming out for the Switch, and it would be interesting to have a meta character in the game. Perhaps his taunts could be tailored to which ever character he is fighting for something new for Sakurai to play with.
If not Travis, I would predict Steve or another game we might not know of that Sakurai has poured hours into playing.
More on am my next pick in my next post.
