Official Newcomer/DLC Speculation Discussion

[venomthebest]

I thought the ludicrous character list spoke for the fact I was saying that rule in jest, but yes, I unde

Can't count out more characters from existing companies.

Cuphead isn't Microsoft though. MS owns the rights to the game, but Studio MDHR owns the actual IP.

so steve has a chance!

 

[Diddy Kong]

I don't know about Chun-Li. I don't think Min Min lowers her chances as much as I think other Capcom reps make her unlikely.

Now, the ninja stuff led me to a different conclusion. Given Sakurai went Greninja when looking at Gen 6 pokemon and now almost gave us Ninjara when looking at Arms characters, we should definitely be making a "Sakurai loves Ninjas" bias/rule.

Which gives a huge boost to Hayabusa and any other ninja character not already deconfirmed. So let's see... Mortal Kombat ninjas, Genji, Jago, Yuffie from FF7, the Ninjalas, a Ninji, Ninja Kirby and Jammin' Ninja. I'm probably forgetting a ton...

Impa.

 

[PSIGuy]

What if the rule they break for this batch of characters is "the final reveal is never the most exciting"?

That'd be a nice change.

 

[Will]

What if the rule they break for this batch of characters is "the final reveal is never the most exciting"?

That'd be a nice change.

I'll take the Banjo/K. Rool route and have them in the middle please, I can't wait a whole ****ing year-and-a-half just to get excited over something that may not even get me hyped. Get the pain of my hatred for the bandicoot out the way.

 

[osby]

What if the rule they break for this batch of characters is "the final reveal is never the most exciting"?

That'd be a nice change.

Or people can just be open-minded and stop expecting final reveals to be reserved for old fans' childhood faves.

That'd also be a nice change.

 

[Will]

Or people can just be open-minded and stop expecting final reveals to be reserved for old fans' childhood faves.

That'd also be a nice change.

Over ten years and they never learn.

 

[NonSpecificGuy]

I’ve psychologically convinced myself that if Master Chief is ever getting in then he is Challenger Pack 7. Dunno why I did that. Probably cause of E3 but that’s what I feel.

Let’s go, Chef-boy.

 

[osby]

Over ten years and they never learn.

No, you don't get it, FP5 was supposed to be the final reveal of Ultimate. There's no way Nintendo will not add a character I find super hype.

I’ve psychologically convinced myself that if Master Chief is ever getting in then he is Challenger Pack 7. Dunno why I did that. Probably cause of E3 but that’s what I feel.

Let’s go, Chef-boy.

The only thing I psychologically convinced myself is that I'll have no interest in the next fighter.

 

[Will]

No, you don't get it, FP5 was supposed to be the final reveal of Ultimate. There's no way Nintendo will not add a character I find super hype.

I've crunched the numbers and determined all possibilities. The only logical way that Smash Ultimate could possibly market a large audience this late into the speculation cycle is if they finally reveal Geno as the last character! There's no reason not to! The hype is too real! It's finally our time!

Who else could they possibly add? A plant?​

To this day I will always have fond memories of Piranha Plant's reveal.

 

[Ayumi Tachibana]

They just deleted this tweet.
It's a stationary set you can get via My Nintendo Store from August.
Smash related news is coming soon hopefully.

 

[N3ON]

I've crunched the numbers and determined all possibilities. The only logical way that Smash Ultimate could possibly market a large audience this late into the speculation cycle is if they finally reveal Geno as the last character! There's no reason not to! The hype is too real! It's finally our time!

View attachment 278264

Who else could they possibly add? A plant?​

To this day I will always have fond memories of Piranha Plant's reveal.

I'VE GOT BOXES FULLA GENO

They just deleted this tweet.
It's a stationary set you can get via My Nintendo Store from August.
Smash related news is coming soon hopefully.

Aw **** well I guess I'm gonna have to buy this, send letters to my friends telling them their characters are dumb, sign it as Sakurai.

It's foolproof.

 

[PSIGuy]

Or people can just be open-minded and stop expecting final reveals to be reserved for old fans' childhood faves.

That'd also be a nice change.

I'd also settle for "the last addition isn't the most divisive addition in the batch" because really, how many more Fire Emblem characters can they add?

I'll stop making this complaint when they stop making it so easy.

 

[Icedragonadam]

They just deleted this tweet.
It's a stationary set you can get via My Nintendo Store from August.
Smash related news is coming soon hopefully.

Man April fools in 2021 is going to be lit!

"Dear Mr. T

You are invited to the wonderful tourney of Smash.

~Masahiro Sakurai"

 

[Evil Trapezium]

Or people can just be open-minded and stop expecting final reveals to be reserved for old fans' childhood faves.

That'd also be a nice change.

Or they could just reveal a good final character. There, I solved everyone's problems.

 

[rychu_supadude]

So I decided to download Smash Roster Maker, and after some tinkering around, I made this little ditty, including both my Fighters Pass 2 predictions, as well my predictions for a potential Fighters Pass 3...

And now for details about my Fighters Pass 3 predictions...

Spoiler: Fighters Pass 3 predictions

• Before anyone says it... yes, I do think Fighters Pass 3 is possible... not guaranteed by any means, but I think that if the right pieces fall into place (Fighters Pass 2 selling well, Nintendo wanting to promote certain titles, and the developers being up for adding more characters), I think it's possible we'll get a Fighters Pass 3.
• If Fighters Pass 3 does happen... I also think it will be when development on Ultimate starts to really wind down, meaning we'll be getting less overall content from it than the previous Passes, and most of it being smaller stuff that wouldn't cost too much to license or include. To be specific, I think Fighters Pass 3 would give us the following...
  • Four characters total, filling in the four character slots leftover after Fighters Pass 2's characters. Not all of them coming with stages. All include music and spirits, though generally less than previous characters
  • Two first-party characters from series already well-represented in Smash (these two would not come with stages)
  • One first-party character from a series currently without playable representation in Smash (comes with a stage)
  • One third-party character from a series and company currently without playable representation in Smash (comes with a stage)
• As for the specific characters in that roster up there...
  • Dixie Kong and Bandana Dee - Two first-party fan-favorites and easy crowd-pleasers, who I could see getting in through a smaller Pass without having to bring a stage (and even if they do have to bring a stage, there's still plenty of options for more Kirby and DK stages).
  • Officer Howard - If ARMS can get a promotional character almost three years after it came out, I can see Astral Chain getting the same treatment. By the time a hypothetical Fighters Pass 3 starts coming out, it will have been long enough that the DLC Spirits won't be a hard deconfirmation anymore (it helps that Min Min's Spirit Board shows that pre-existing Spirits can be recycled).
  • Sol Badguy - If Fighters Pass 3 gets one third-party character (which I think it will), it'll most likely be a character from a lower profile series that is unexpected, likely won't cost as much as the "big hitters", and will probably end up being the obligatory "disappointing last character"... though I put that in quotes because I personally still think Guilty Gear and Sol would still be exciting additions to Smash Ultimate.

Kirby and especially DK have pretty poor stage representation with only a narrow aspect of their series being covered, I really doubt that people would be too pleased if they got characters but no stage.

But my stance is that if FP3 was going to be a thing because of the placeholder slots, why would they not plan three 5 character passes instead of a 6 and a 4? I'll remain skeptical on that front. Dropping some highly requested echos between the two passes would have been a good way to fill the slots, but such is life.

 

[TwiceEXE]

I don't get the stance that the last character revealed is always a snooze when we saw freaking Bayonetta end Smash 4 (alongside Corrin obv). The only thing keeping that from being the most surprising/exciting DLC for that game, was the fact that we got Cloud as well.

 

[ZelDan]

Frankly the whole "end Smash on a good note" stuff is largely subjective, and personally I'm someone that's actually been okay with the final character for base game/DLC a few times.

I believe had the final reveal trailer before the release of Smash 3DS, and I thought he was a neat addition and was pretty happy with him being added to Smash.

was an amazing reveal and still one of my favorite reveals (too bad her being broken in Smash 4 gave her such a bad rep with Smash fans afterwards)

I wasn't exactly "hyped" by Byleth (Personally would have preferred Edelgard), but I still cared about Byleth more than the other FP1 characters in all honesty.

 

[Shroob]

I don't get the stance that the last character revealed is always a snooze when we saw freaking Bayonetta end Smash 4 (alongside Corrin obv). The only thing keeping that from being the most surprising/exciting DLC for that game, was the fact that we got Cloud as well.

Tbh, that's completely subject.

You may think Bayo was the best reveal

While someone else may think it was Ryu

Or Cloud

Me personally? Mewtwo/Lucas/Roy were my highlights, with Ryu a close 2nd.

 

[TwiceEXE]

Tbh, that's completely subject.

You may think Bayo was the best reveal

While someone else may think it was Ryu

Or Cloud

Me personally? Mewtwo/Lucas/Roy were my highlights, with Ryu a close 2nd.

OK, that's fair. But doesn't that just make it even clearer the absurdity of "Smash ends on bad reveals"? If it is subjective then you can't say whether Smash ends on a bad or good reveal.

 

[Shroob]

OK, that's fair. But doesn't that just make it even clearer the absurdity of "Smash ends on bad reveals"? If it is subjective then you can't say whether Smash ends on a bad or good reveal.

Depends on who you ask.


Considering people were looking at fan polls to predict the outcome for the ballot, I'd wager the last character the hardcore Smash community was thinking about was Bayonetta instead of characters like K.Rool, Banjo, Sora, etc.


It may be a hot take, but I still don't think Bayonetta really resonated with the Smash 'community' that well, and her complete and utter dominance of Smash 4 didn't help in the slightest in fixing her image.

 

[osby]

OK, that's fair. But doesn't that just make it even clearer the absurdity of "Smash ends on bad reveals"? If it is subjective then you can't say whether Smash ends on a bad or good reveal.

I mean, that's part of a bigger problem with Smash community: There's an outright obsession with clearly dividing characters as "good" and "bad" additions where the existence of different demographics is completely ignored.

I think it's fair to compare the reception of different reveals (say, Joker definitely had a warmer reception than Corrin overall) but I wish it didn't boil down to a black-and-white approach so the community could be more welcoming than it's currently is. It's really not fun for your favorite character to be branded as "the not good" addition even if they had their fair share of fans.

 

[N3ON]

It's not "end Smash on a good note", because good is indeed subjective. It's "end Smash on a climax", like with a potential headliner. Like it were a story. These characters, Olimar, Shulk, Corrin/Bayo, Incineroar/Ken, Byleth... whether they're "good" is up to you. But they're not headliners, they're not the "big guns".

And that's not just because Nintendo doesn't feel like ending on a bang. If it were, then, sure, a change could happen whenever. It's a marketing decision. Smash isn't a story, it's a business. With base, you want to start with a bang, make a good first impression, then keep the hype rolling. With DLC, your install base is gradually going to shrink, you want to use the bigger characters earlier on to move more of the passes. How many people do you think would buy the pass based on the sixth character almost two years later as opposed to those within the first half?

You want to attract as many eyes as possible. It's no coincidence every Smash-attended E3, the event with the largest audience, has reliably had a heavy hitter present. Most patterns are indeed fantasy or coincidence, but those that revolve around marketing often have some credence to them. To that end, it will be very interesting to see who FP7 turns out to be... given they were presumably planned as an E3 reveal.

I don't get the stance that the last character revealed is always a snooze when we saw freaking Bayonetta end Smash 4 (alongside Corrin obv). The only thing keeping that from being the most surprising/exciting DLC for that game, was the fact that we got Cloud as well.

I think Ryu would've been second most surprising had he not been leaked to the point of being playable prior to his reveal.

And Mewtwo was arguably the most demanded character when he was revealed, so I have a hard time putting Bayo ahead of him in terms of excitement.

 

[Shroob]

It's not "end Smash on a good note", because good is indeed subjective. It's "end Smash on a climax", like with a potential headliner. Like it were a story. These characters, Olimar, Shulk, Corrin/Bayo, Incineroar/Ken, Byleth... whether they're "good" is up to you. But they're not headliners, they're not the "big guns".

And that's not just because Nintendo doesn't feel like ending on a bang. If it were, then, sure, a change could happen whenever. It's a marketing decision. Smash isn't a story, it's a business. With base, you want to start with a bang, make a good first impression, then keep the hype rolling. With DLC, your install base is gradually going to shrink, you want to use the bigger characters earlier on to move more of the passes. How many people do you think would buy the pass based on the sixth character almost two years later as opposed to those within the first half?

You want to attract as many eyes as possible. It's no coincidence every Smash-attended E3, the event with the largest audience, has reliably had a heavy hitter present. Most patterns are indeed fantasy or coincidence, but those that revolve around marketing often have some credence to them. To that end, it will be very interesting to see who FP7 turns out to be... given they were presumably planned as an E3 reveal.


I think Ryu would've been second most surprising had he not been leaked to the point of being playable prior to his reveal.

And Mewtwo was arguably the most demanded character when he was revealed, so I have a hard time putting Bayo ahead of him in terms of excitement.

Mewtwo being added in was arguably the most excited I had ever felt until "Everyone is Here" in regards to Smash.


Granted, a lot of that I have to owe thanks to Desmond and his reaction.


.....Still miss him after all this time.

 

[TwiceEXE]

It's not "end Smash on a good note", because good is indeed subjective. It's "end Smash on a climax", like with a potential headliner. Like it were a story. These characters, Olimar, Shulk, Corrin/Bayo, Incineroar/Ken, Byleth... whether they're "good" is up to you. But they're not headliners, they're not the "big guns".

But, like Shroob pointed out, that is subjective just how much of a "big gun" each character is. So there can't be a rule/precedent about "Smash not ending on a climax" because each person is going to have a different climax. And if people are going to tell others that they are objectively right concerning which character is the best headliner, then those people need to reevaluate their takes.

 

[Shroob]

But, like Shroob pointed out, that is subjective just how much of a "big gun" each character is. So there can't be a rule/precedent about "Smash not ending on a climax" because each person is going to have a different climax. And if people are going to tell others that they are objectively right concerning which character is the best headliner, then those people need to reevaluate their takes.

I feel like at the end of the day, it's measured in hype.

Was Shulk a great addition to Smash 4? Of course, but... was he 'exciting'? Well, for Xenoblade fans sure, for everyone else?


Same with Olimar in Brawl. As amazing as it was to have a new IP at the time in Pikmin.... Olimar was on literally everyone's radar, so while he got excitement, it was moreso a 'saw it coming'.



I'm not saying Bayo is 'bad'. but I am saying there were lots of jokes of "NOT YOU!" or "NO!" when I saw "Everyone is here!" reactions, lol. Her Legacy in Smash 4 soils a lot of how people remember her.

 

[MarioDDR755]

A lot of this is subjective, which is why we each have opinions of what made the biggest impact and what people seemed to like the most. From a business standpoint it's important to add characters that generate the most hype, which is trying to get as many people excited as possible.

Listen, when Smash 4 ended its DLC run, there was still a pretty good chance it'd get ported over to Switch and continue adding characters. Now, what we got was a bit more than a port, but it still continued with adding characters to what we already got in SSB4. But Ultimate, with FP11? It's probably the last one, the big 81, the one that will cap off this absolutely legendary roster. As the name "Ultimate" implies, and due to Sakurai's own statements iirc, future Smash games will more than likely start cutting fighters again, and it's probably a ways off regardless.

So I do definitely think that FP11 is likely to be one of the most noteworthy characters added to Smash. I hope so at least, and it would make sense to try and end Ultimate with as memorable a note as possible, even if it means extending way beyond Smash's normal comfort zone. I'm talking at least Master Chief, and maybe even more out there.

 

[N3ON]

But, like Shroob pointed out, that is subjective just how much of a "big gun" each character is. So there can't be a rule/precedent about "Smash not ending on a climax" because each person is going to have a different climax. And if people are going to tell others that they are objectively right concerning which character is the best headliner, then those people need to reevaluate their takes.

How everyone feels specifically about the character is personal, but what is or isn't a heavy hitter is measured by the aggregate of all the opinions together. They're generally the characters the largest amounts of people will be hyped by.

I mean, yeah, not everyone is going to be hyped by Mega Man, but more people were hyped by him than any of the other reveals for base game. That's basically the kind of thing that defines a "big gun", and while it's built on subjectivity, it itself... isn't that subjective.

In fact, it's pretty predictable. Because you can usually anticipate the characters that will most resonate. Which is why Nintendo has successfully planned so many of the generally most hype reveals to line up with E3 and why the characters revealed last usually generate among the lower ends of hype.

 

[TwiceEXE]

How everyone feels specifically about the character is personal, but what is or isn't a heavy hitter is measured by the aggregate of all the opinions together. They're generally the characters the largest amounts of people will be hyped by.

How are we to measure that? It's not like we have a census of all Smash players. If you take a poll on this site, gamefaqs, and reddit combined, you'd be lucky to get representation from 0.1% of all Smash players.

To me, the whole situation smells of Smash bubble bias. We (myself included) often hold discussion like the opinions in the bubble are representative of the 99.9% of players who are outside it. But we really have no way of knowing if that is true. That's why I don't feel comfortable proclaiming which reveals are the most and least hype for everyone. Just on this page we have seen Bayo, Mewtwo, and probably others listed as that person's most hype. So unless we can get an accurate count of everyone's takes, it just seems like people are going to try and pass off their subjective opinions as everyone's subjective opinions.

 

[Shroob]

How are we to measure that? It's not like we have a census of all Smash players. If you take a poll on this site, gamefaqs, and reddit combined, you'd be lucky to get representation from 0.1% of all Smash players.

To me, the whole situation smells of Smash bubble bias. We (myself included) often hold discussion like the opinions in the bubble are representative of the 99.9% of players who are outside it. But we really have no way of knowing if that is true. That's why I don't feel comfortable proclaiming which reveals are the most and least hype for everyone. Just on this page we have seen Bayo, Mewtwo, and probably others listed as that person's most hype. So unless we can get an accurate count of everyone's takes, it just seems like people are going to try and pass off their subjective opinions as everyone's subjective opinions.

I feel like some go without saying.

E3 reveals in particular are built for 'hype'. Ridley? Banjo? Hero for Japan? All three of those hit very hard. It also helped that, aside from Inklings and Daisy, Ridley was the first newcomer of "Ultimate" to be shown off, coming after an already extremely packed E3 Smash presentation.

 

[TwiceEXE]

I feel like some go without saying.

E3 reveals in particular are built for 'hype'. Ridley? Banjo? Hero for Japan? All three of those hit very hard. It also helped that, aside from Inklings and Daisy, Ridley was the first newcomer of "Ultimate" to be shown off, coming after an already extremely packed E3 Smash presentation.

I guess I just don't think "I know it when I see it" is a great metric for measuring response to character additions. I would agree I saw general positivity towards those reveals, IN the Smash bubble. I just have no idea what the actual consensus was, since we are such an incredibly niche subset.

Anyway, I don't think we are going to be changing each others minds on this subject. We've had a nice, respectful discussion and I can definitely see everyone's point of view. I'll leave it here so that the board doesn't get even more flooded with my ramblings.

 

[N3ON]

How are we to measure that? It's not like we have a census of all Smash players. If you take a poll on this site, gamefaqs, and reddit combined, you'd be lucky to get representation from 0.1% of all Smash players.

To me, the whole situation smells of Smash bubble bias. We (myself included) often hold discussion like the opinions in the bubble are representative of the 99.9% of players who are outside it. But we really have no way of knowing if that is true. That's why I don't feel comfortable proclaiming which reveals are the most and least hype for everyone. Just on this page we have seen Bayo, Mewtwo, and probably others listed as that person's most hype. So unless we can get an accurate count of everyone's takes, it just seems like people are going to try and pass off their subjective opinions as everyone's subjective opinions.

Well, listen, the characters I'm suggesting are headliners are those typically revealed first, or at E3. And while occasionally those characters are the peak of the fanbase's desires, like Ridley or Banjo, usually they're highly visible parts of hugely successful, hugely prominent series that extend far past the bubble, like Mega Man, Villager, Pac-Man, Snake, Ryu, Mewtwo, Inkling and Hero.

To say that someone who suggests those are the headliners is working under bubble bias, and that characters like Olimar, Shulk, Bayo, Corrin, Byleth, etc. could equally be headliners... that's infinitely more bubble-y than what I'm saying.

 

[SKX31]

It's not "end Smash on a good note", because good is indeed subjective. It's "end Smash on a climax", like with a potential headliner. Like it were a story. These characters, Olimar, Shulk, Corrin/Bayo, Incineroar/Ken, Byleth... whether they're "good" is up to you. But they're not headliners, they're not the "big guns".

And that's not just because Nintendo doesn't feel like ending on a bang. If it were, then, sure, a change could happen whenever. It's a marketing decision. Smash isn't a story, it's a business. With base, you want to start with a bang, make a good first impression, then keep the hype rolling. With DLC, your install base is gradually going to shrink, you want to use the bigger characters earlier on to move more of the passes. How many people do you think would buy the pass based on the sixth character almost two years later as opposed to those within the first half?

You want to attract as many eyes as possible. It's no coincidence every Smash-attended E3, the event with the largest audience, has reliably had a heavy hitter present. Most patterns are indeed fantasy or coincidence, but those that revolve around marketing often have some credence to them. To that end, it will be very interesting to see who FP7 turns out to be... given they were presumably planned as an E3 reveal.


I think Ryu would've been second most surprising had he not been leaked to the point of being playable prior to his reveal.

And Mewtwo was arguably the most demanded character when he was revealed, so I have a hard time putting Bayo ahead of him in terms of excitement.

Well, one could point this out:

Bayonetta's reveal and release blew up Smash 4's competitive scene.
Plant saw an explosion in Plant Gang membership.
And Byleth's reveal saw a detonated comment sect- *Gets hit by Kaboom*

(I regret nothing!)

There are a couple potential wrinkles though:

* How character development is scheduled. While the DLC have tended towards bigger reveals early, it's also possible that FP2 might turn out somewhat differently due to Min Min being so difficult to develop. This was something Sakurai confirmed in Min Min's presentation - and it would make hypotheoretical sense that they'd want to be done with the most complex character first so they could focus on the more straightforward. If true it would shift the "hype" reveals one step further - FP7, FP8 perhaps FP9.

Key phrase being "If true".

* China. That country lacks an official Smash release at the moment (with copies of Ultimate being imported via Hong Kong / grey market sellers on that country's Amazon). And when the Switch was introduced they used the Ultimate base game renders, leading me personally to believe they have an express interest of releasing Ultimate there - and perhaps tieing an FP2 character to that.

I can't say this for certain since the approval process is onerous, doesn't approve often and can stall (just ask BOTW 1 about that, it's been in the pipeline for a year). But Nintendo have shown off non-approved games in game shows there - they had booths for BOTW and Lets Go at ChinaJoy 2019 (China's E3, held during the July-August border). I don't believe in a reveal there this year, but next year is a wildcard.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

How character development is scheduled. While the DLC have tended towards bigger reveals early, it's also possible that FP2 might turn out somewhat differently due to Min Min being so difficult to develop. This was something Sakurai confirmed in Min Min's presentation - and it would make hypotheoretical sense that they'd want to be done with the most complex character first so they could focus on the more straightforward. If true it would shift the "hype" reveals one step further - FP7, FP8 perhaps FP9.

Wasn't Min Min's difficulty stated to be balance due to the nature of a character with such range?

 

[SKX31]

Wasn't Min Min's difficulty stated to be balance due to the nature of a character with such range?

Yeah, that was it. It is a mechanic, especially since it's taking Mega Man's way of working, extending it to the B button and giving the ARMS some other properties (like the general resistance to counters - in contrast to Plant's Down B.).

They did probably beta-test and bugfix in between May 2nd (when that presentation was recorded) and release, and the presentation did have a "There may be some differences in the final version", suggesting that a lot of work went into her.

I feel like at the end of the day, it's measured in hype.

Was Shulk a great addition to Smash 4? Of course, but... was he 'exciting'? Well, for Xenoblade fans sure, for everyone else?


Same with Olimar in Brawl. As amazing as it was to have a new IP at the time in Pikmin.... Olimar was on literally everyone's radar, so while he got excitement, it was moreso a 'saw it coming'.

TBF, Shulk memes did go through the roof ("I'M REALLY FEELING IT!") and Olimar, while he was expected, was recieved positively. It could've been different had Olimar been as broken as / (And it was quite close - Olimar ranks 3rd with his 6 Pikmin*, with Diddy in 4th)

*(Incidentally, I personally prefer him being limited to 3 Pikmin so he can't reliably farm / spam the Pikmin he wants. But I'm getting side-tracked.)

 

[N3ON]

Well, one could point this out:

Bayonetta's reveal and release blew up Smash 4's competitive scene.
Plant saw an explosion in Plant Gang membership.
And Byleth's reveal saw a detonated comment sect- *Gets hit by Kaboom*

(I regret nothing!)

Yes, well, tragedies do happen as well.

There are a couple potential wrinkles though:

* How character development is scheduled. While the DLC have tended towards bigger reveals early, it's also possible that FP2 might turn out somewhat differently due to Min Min being so difficult to develop. This was something Sakurai confirmed in Min Min's presentation - and it would make hypotheoretical sense that they'd want to be done with the most complex character first so they could focus on the more straightforward. If true it would shift the "hype" reveals one step further - FP7, FP8 perhaps FP9.

Key phrase being "If true".

Well, they've had their release order presumably planned for a while. Min Min being first doesn't preclude a headliner being next. I mean, you could theorize that they may want all the complicated characters out of the way at the beginning, but you could also theorize that they may want to alternate between complicated and simpler to keep a somewhat steady release schedule.

It really depends on who the characters are, I think. Because I do think marketing is something that dictates order with the DLC. Perhaps complexity is another factor. But so far, between the DLC this time and last, the more complex characters appeared in no fixed order. I mean, last time I would consider Bayo the most complex character, and she was last. Following that, probably Ryu, and he was in the middle. Last pass I would think Hero was the most complex, and he was towards the beginning. Now Min Min was first.

* China. That country lacks an official Smash release at the moment (with copies of Ultimate being imported via Hong Kong / grey market sellers on that country's Amazon). And when the Switch was introduced they used the Ultimate base game renders, leading me personally to believe they have an express interest of releasing Ultimate there - and perhaps tieing an FP2 character to that.

I can't say this for certain since the approval process is onerous, doesn't approve often and can stall (just ask BOTW 1 about that, it's been in the pipeline for a year). But Nintendo have shown off non-approved games in game shows there - they had booths for BOTW and Lets Go at ChinaJoy 2019 (China's E3, held during the July-August border). I don't believe in a reveal there this year, but next year is a wildcard.

Putting in a character to appeal to China isn't implausible, but entering a new market partway through a pass is an extraordinary, atypical circumstance, not something that should be used as standard precedent (unless they later enter another new market).

Also, if a character is added for a new market when they debut in that market, it's still starting with a bang in that market.

 

[SpectreJordan]

Not really, I think they are more tied to company relationships and Nintendo does have a strong relationship with all of the companies who have a rep in Smash, a big reason why I aint expecting Crash is due to Nintendo and Activision not having much of a relationship due to how often Activision skips the Switch.

I don’t get this statement, the only major Activision Series not on Switch are Call of Duty, Warcraft & Starcraft; the only one that’s actually missing is COD, the latter two aren’t even on Xbox & PlayStation.

Crash, Overwatch, Spyro, Diablo & Skylanders are all on Switch. That’s pretty good support from Activision. It’s better than most companies.

 

[Professor Pumpkaboo]

They just deleted this tweet.
It's a stationary set you can get via My Nintendo Store from August.
Smash related news is coming soon hopefully.

this does NOT mean smash news

 

[MasterWarlord]

People who remember the end of Smash 4 DLC negatively are obviously primarily thinking of Corrin and not Bayonetta. Bayonetta was technically revealed a whole 15 minutes after Corrin was, but I don't see how that's relevant. It's 2 characters in a single presentation, and Corrin was one of them. Corrin was the one people were hating on after the reveal. The hatred of Bayonetta is more of a retroactive thing due to hating the character's balance/moveset.

Corrin, an echo/Incineroar/Piranha Plant, and Byleth are pretty easy to argue as "divisive." Obviously the quality of characters is subjective, but the quality of characters being "divisive" is not a per person thing, and is more about opinions of the fandom at large.

 

[ROBnWatch]

People who remember the end of Smash 4 DLC negatively are obviously primarily thinking of Corrin and not Bayonetta. Bayonetta was technically revealed a whole 15 minutes after Corrin was, but I don't see how that's relevant. It's 2 characters in a single presentation, and Corrin was one of them. Corrin was the one people were hating on after the reveal. The hatred of Bayonetta is more of a retroactive thing due to hating the character's balance/moveset.

Corrin, an echo/Incineroar/Piranha Plant, and Byleth are pretty easy to argue as "divisive." Obviously the quality of characters is subjective, but the quality of characters being "divisive" is not a per person thing, and is more about opinions of the fandom at large.

Actually, I was the exact opposite. At first, Corrin didn’t appeal to me. But then after Sakurai went into the moveset, I thought that it looked pretty neat. Bayonetta, on the other hand, didn’t really do much. And I remember quite a few others who didn’t show any interest. Part of the reason was because they tried to show her as the winner of the ballot by being “Top 5 in Europe” or something like that, and being the “most realizable” of the ballot choices. When people spent months or so voting, anticipating, hoping, and waiting for their character to make an appearance, only to get shown someone who (correct me if I’m wrong) wasn’t really talked about much in Smash speculation and/or they weren’t really keen on/interested in, they’re gonna be upset.

And that’s not exactly anyone’s fault. You can’t please everybody. My point is that for some, it wasn’t Corrin who made the end of Smash 4 DLC disappointing. Rather, it was Bayo. Or perhaps in some cases, both.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

People who remember the end of Smash 4 DLC negatively are obviously primarily thinking of Corrin and not Bayonetta. Bayonetta was technically revealed a whole 15 minutes after Corrin was, but I don't see how that's relevant. It's 2 characters in a single presentation, and Corrin was one of them. Corrin was the one people were hating on after the reveal. The hatred of Bayonetta is more of a retroactive thing due to hating the character's balance/moveset.

Corrin, an echo/Incineroar/Piranha Plant, and Byleth are pretty easy to argue as "divisive." Obviously the quality of characters is subjective, but the quality of characters being "divisive" is not a per person thing, and is more about opinions of the fandom at large.

I dunno. I saw a LOT of Bayonetta hate for her as a character and not a moveset.

She's somewhat controversial in general due to the "mature" nature of her games.