Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

[Guynamednelson]

Do you think the new moves for the base roster helped in that regard?

I wouldn't know. My interest in Strive was already fading by the time the DLC arrived, only the fact that DLC newcomers had bigger movelists helped me stay somewhat interested.

 

[TheLamerGamer]

I think I'd rather have a new game than a straight "enhanced" version of ultimate in the usual sense, e.g. a couple extra characters and stages.

However, if they were to use ultimate as a base and somehow solved all the licensing stuff, then got the same time and budget they'd normally get for a brand new game and used that to build on ultimate, surely that'd be the only way to maximise both new and old content? Nothing would get cut, but it would require minimal work to bring everything back, so all that time and effort could go towards brand new content.

I know this is realistically extremely unlikely, and would require them to work miracles on the legal side of things, but I can dream...

 

[ScrubReborn]

I'd prefer (and expect) a new game, but I'd be cool with Ultimate getting ported once on the sole condition that it gets to 100 characters.

You gotta admit "Smash with 100 fighters" would be the ultimate flex. (pun not intended)

 

[Gengar84]

I'd prefer (and expect) a new game, but I'd be cool with Ultimate getting ported once on the sole condition that it gets to 100 characters.

You gotta admit "Smash with 100 fighters" would be the ultimate flex. (pun not intended)

Yeah, if Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate can have nearly 150 unique characters, Smash should get 100. WO4 had closer to 180 but that game used a lot of clone movesets. I imagine it takes more time to develop a Smash character than a Warriors character though so they’re probably not actually comparable. Still, it’s fun to think about.

 

[Nabbitfan730]

Smash Game =/= Warriors game.

I assume getting a fighter is lot more effort for Smash than it's for Warriors Orochi where it's more copy and paste. Not to mention the framerate

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

I'd definitely prefer a new game with plenty of newcomers and new stages, and I'm fairly certain that's what'll happen especially since there's no reason for Switch 2 not to be backwards-compatible (their official tweet called it the successor to the Switch, and while that could mean a lot of things I can't imagine they'd suddenly drop the hybrid console angle).

If they get the resources and time and licensing to get everyone back as well, then that'd certainly be preferable obviously, but it's likely not what's gonna happen here, especially when Sakurai said he didn't think Everyone is Here would happen again. Granted this was 6 years ago he said that, but it'd be a gargantuan task. Besides, we know veterans can be DLC anyway, so anybody that gets cut has a chance to come back anyway.

It's not gonna be a reboot, it's just gonna be a typical new Smash game, and I imagine they'll fit as much as they can into it depending on how much time and resources they have available, as they usually do. No reason to believe otherwise imo.

 

[Gengar84]

Smash Game =/= Warriors game.

I assume getting a fighter is lot more effort for Smash than it's for Warriors Orochi where it's more copy and paste. Not to mention the framerate

Yeah that was my thinking as well. I was partly kidding though I really have no idea the difference in work for a Warriors vs Smash character. I definitely assumed Smash was more resource intensive due to its competitive nature and stronger need to balance the roster. I’m curious what the largest fighting game roster is (besides Mugen). Is Ultimate the current record holder or have any of the Dragon Ball games beaten it (or something else)?

 

[Guynamednelson]

Yeah, if Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate can have nearly 150 unique characters, Smash should get 100.

How many moves does your average Warriors game character have? Because that could be a major factor in why it's able to have 150.

or have any of the Dragon Ball games beaten it (or something else)?

Budokai Tenkaichi 3 has 161 characters. It's able to do that via clones and characters having a lot of shared moves otherwise regardless of how cloney they are.

 

[Noipoi]

I’m all about those new game vibes

 

[Gengar84]

How many moves does your average Warriors game character have? Because that could be a major factor in why it's able to have 150.

Budokai Tenkaichi 3 has 161 characters. It's able to do that via clones and characters having a lot of shared moves otherwise regardless of how cloney they are.

The Warriors games have wildly different roster sizes. I want to say around 20-30 characters is pretty normal for your standard spinoff titles. Persona 5 Strikers had the lowest to my knowledge at 9 and Warriors Orochi 4 had the most at 170 from what I’m seeing. So the range is pretty massive lol.

 

[Guynamednelson]

The Warriors games have wildly different roster sizes. I want to say around 20-30 characters is pretty normal for your standard spinoff titles. Persona 5 Strikers had the lowest to my knowledge at 9 and Warriors Orochi 4 had the most at 170 from what I’m seeing. So the range is pretty massive lol.

I was trying to ask how many moves there usually are on a single character, not how large your average Warriors roster is.

 

[Gengar84]

I was trying to ask how many moves there usually are on a single character, not how large your average Warriors roster is.

Oh, sorry for the misunderstanding. It’s been a while so my memory may be a bit fuzzy on the specifics but I’ll see what I can remember.

I think your typical character has around a 7-8 string combo of normal attacks that you can interrupt at any time with a special. Depending when in the combo you end it, the character performs a different special. Some characters have longer normal combos with a single special breaker between each attack while others have shorter normal combos with multiple linking specials in between each. On top of that, the characters all have a strong and weak aerial attack, a Musou (final smash equivalent), a special Musou under certain conditions, a running attack and mounted attacks while on horseback. Several games like the Orochi games also have unique super moves that use up a portion of your Musou gage by pressing the L or R buttons and a power up state when another gage is filled. Some games have a separate bow and arrow attack and all allow you to block. Thats all I can currently think of at the moment.

 

[Borskaboska]

Yeah, that’s basically exactly what I was trying to say but you said it better. I think it’s possible that we could get something closer to a best of both worlds with the next game. I’m expecting some number of cuts but as long as we get around that same number of newcomers to make up for them I think I’d be happy. Though that does partially depend on who is cut and who we get specifically.

Well now I wonder, who WOULD you cut? In my experience, there's only a few characters that people expect to see cut, and thats the clone/semi-clone characters like falco, lucas, and doc. Past that, people will complain no matter who you pick.
I mean, I did once post a roster that cut Pit and kept palutena (which is a decision I fully stand behind) so maybe I'm not the best person to make this point. I'm just talking about OTHER rosters i've seen.
Just goes to show Sakurai must've really dreaded deciding to cut Ice Climbers in Smash for. I didn't follow the discussion as closely back then, but I wonder how many people were mad about that when it happened.

 

[Scrimblo Bimblo]

Eh If they can do 82, they can do 100.
Past the 40-something mark it just becomes A LOT

 

[Guynamednelson]

Eh If they can do 82, they can do 100.

That's a really, really gross underestimate of how much work Ultimate took. You do realize it was NOT 82 on day 1 right? And Sakurai literally said it couldn't have been with how he said bringing everyone back meant they couldn't add too many fighters?

 

[Louie G.]

Well now I wonder, who WOULD you cut? In my experience, there's only a few characters that people expect to see cut, and thats the clone/semi-clone characters like falco, lucas, and doc. Past that, people will complain no matter who you pick.

I think I've emphasized this before, but people will always complain because yeah, every character has fans. We all disagree on what the priorities ought to be, who is expendable, etc and that's what constitutes a lot of the discussion in this thread. It's impossible to make cuts, let alone double digit cuts, without someone out there being upset. I feel like people need to better prepare themselves for the worst, but there's hardly a reality where we lose characters that won't result in mass disappointment. That isn't a reason not to move forward mind you, but it's just what we gotta deal with.

Naturally yeah, making extremely bold decisions like cutting the main protagonist of a series and keeping its deuteragonist is a hard sell for sure. I'd straight up just be baffled if they cut Pit and kept Palutena more than I would be angry about it.

Funnily enough, even out of those three you mentioned, I think MOST people would disagree on Falco. Kind of boils down to how much you believe Melee cred is going to matter continuing further into the series, but many hold these longtime veterans as unshakable series staples. Personally I think people overstate this a tad, but I do think Falco is relatively safe because I struggle to imagine losing both him and Wolf unless the cuts are genuinely "reboot" level.

 

[Gengar84]

Well now I wonder, who WOULD you cut? In my experience, there's only a few characters that people expect to see cut, and thats the clone/semi-clone characters like falco, lucas, and doc. Past that, people will complain no matter who you pick.
I mean, I did once post a roster that cut Pit and kept palutena (which is a decision I fully stand behind) so maybe I'm not the best person to make this point. I'm just talking about OTHER rosters i've seen.
Just goes to show Sakurai must've really dreaded deciding to cut Ice Climbers in Smash for. I didn't follow the discussion as closely back then, but I wonder how many people were mad about that when it happened.

Here’s a theoretical roster I made for the next game that’s mostly a wishlist but I tried to keep the choices at least semi realistic. I didn’t mean to cut Olimar here, I just missed him when adding characters. Ideally, I wouldn’t cut anyone but these were the most reasonable to me if we had to.

Cuts:

Rosalina
Dr. Mario
Piranha Plant
Toon Link
Jigglypuff
Pichu
Incineroar
Corrin
Byleth
Zero Suit Samus
Dark Pit
Duck Hunt
Richter
Steve
Terry

 

[Undella2]

Personally, I feel that most, if not all, of the echo fighters have a good chance of staying around as long as their "main" character is still there due to the relative ease of including them compared to a totally new character (even if more could be done of better distinguishing some of them gameplay-wise).

For example, with Kid Icarus, if a new head dev took over in Sakurai's place (because I feel that the Kirby and Kid Icarus rosters would be pretty safe as long as Sakurai is around due to his bias), I feel they'd have a good chance of wanting to cut Palutena, but keep Pit, and then keep Dark Pit just because he wouldn't be super difficult (probably), relatively speaking, to keep in the game, even if added relatively late in development as a "we have some extra time, let's put in some clones/semiclones" thing.

 

[Borskaboska]

Here’s a theoretical roster I made for the next game that’s mostly a wishlist but I tried to keep the choices at least semi realistic. I didn’t mean to cut Olimar here, I just missed him when adding characters. Ideally, I wouldn’t cut anyone but these were the most reasonable to me if we had to.

View attachment 393246

Cuts:

Rosalina
Dr. Mario
Toon Link
Jigglypuff
Pichu
Incineroar
Corrin
Byleth
Zero Suit Samus
Dark Pit
Richter
Steve
Terry

Oh, i think i remember when you posted this before, i just forgot that was from you. I remember thinking at the time magus was an odd pick over chrono.
When I see other people's cut I mostly just come to the conclusion that Brawl was the best roster they ever made in terms of pleasing everyone.

 

[Gengar84]

Personally, I feel that most, if not all, of the echo fighters have a good chance of staying around as long as their "main" character is still there due to the relative ease of including them compared to a totally new character (even if more could be done of better distinguishing some of them gameplay-wise).

For example, with Kid Icarus, if a new head dev took over in Sakurai's place (because I feel that the Kirby and Kid Icarus rosters would be pretty safe as long as Sakurai is around due to his bias), I feel they'd have a good chance of wanting to cut Palutena, but keep Pit, and then keep Dark Pit just because he wouldn't be super difficult (probably), relatively speaking, to keep in the game, even if added relatively late in development as a "we have some extra time, let's put in some clones/semiclones" thing.

Yeah that makes sense. I kept all of the echoes that were actually their own character like Daisy. I felt the variant characters like Dr. Mario were more expendable despite having more differences in gameplay. If we need to cut characters, I feel like we only really need one version of the same character. The main reason I cut as many as I did is because I was trying to keep the roster size the same as Ultimate’s. Most of the original characters felt too bad to cut.

 

[smashkirby]

I think Nibbles could potentially have a shot if we were to ever by some random aligning of the planets get a Fossil Fighters character? It was the only other Fossil Fighters character to get a Spirit aside from T-Rex, I just feel like T-Rex is more immediately recognizable since it's in all three games and features on the box art of all of them. Nibbles also has the issue of being from the weakest game of the three, but that's more of a personal thing lol

Realistically, an Assist Trophy or hell even just more music/collectables from the series would probably satisfy me lmao

Not pull a 'Ridley' on the T-Rex, but I get the feeling that Sakurai might mention size as an issue for it... don't get me wrong, I'm in no way opposed to the T-Rex whatsoever, and I'd LOVE to see it join Smash. I just feel like Sakurai would use that reasoning, combined with the idea that Fossil Fighters as a whole isn't as big as Metroid, so they won't put in the effort to work that potential issue out.

All of that being said, Nibbles could work. Maybe they could use both Yoshi and Gon (from his guest appearance in Tekken 3) as a base on what to do with Nibbles.

Yeah it's honestly, again, an underrated game for anyone looking for a "Pokémon but not Pokémon" fix.

Nibbles would honestly not be my pick for FF, because I'd prefer a character from the best-remembered first game. Rosie I would like better, but wouldn't she technically be able to work as an alt for the main protag?

On that note, if they went with the FF1 hero, would you be imagining that as a prop/summoner type character? Or a Pokemon Trainer type concept?

If they could make the size work then the T-Rex would be my choice; it's the most iconic imagery in the series IMO and I think fans would love the concept (sorry but you can't hold a candle to this).

Ngl, I mostly suggested solo Rosie as a sort-of 'joke' suggestion, but if I was being serious? Yeah, Rosie would be surprisingly fitting as the 'Leaf' to Hunter's 'Red'.

It's funny though... when it comes to a human Fossil Fighters character being playable, I've been thinking about how the character would work in such a sense. Like, there's definitely benefits to them being a Pokémon Trainer-type character (like allowing the T-Rex/Nibbles to be playable WITH the human F.F. character) OR just using items from the Fossil Fighters games.

 

[ninjahmos]

I've already said that if Snake makes it into the next game, they should add more music from the Metal Gear series. But I'd especially love to hear more music from MGS1-3, including the Tank Hangar theme.

 

[Borskaboska]

I think I've emphasized this before, but people will always complain because yeah, every character has fans. We all disagree on what the priorities ought to be, who is expendable, etc and that's what constitutes a lot of the discussion in this thread. It's impossible to make cuts, let alone double digit cuts, without someone out there being upset. I feel like people need to better prepare themselves for the worst, but there's hardly a reality where we lose characters that won't result in mass disappointment. That isn't a reason not to move forward mind you, but it's just what we gotta deal with.

Naturally yeah, making extremely bold decisions like cutting the main protagonist of a series and keeping its deuteragonist is a hard sell for sure. I'd straight up just be baffled if they cut Pit and kept Palutena more than I would be angry about it.

Funnily enough, even out of those three you mentioned, I think MOST people would disagree on Falco. Kind of boils down to how much you believe Melee cred is going to matter continuing further into the series, but many hold these longtime veterans as unshakable series staples. Personally I think people overstate this a tad, but I do think Falco is relatively safe because I struggle to imagine losing both him and Wolf unless the cuts are genuinely "reboot" level.

I wouldnt mind the complaining so much, I mean the point is discussion I like seeing other people's opinions. I just think that they should also give what their roster would be. The only cuts I see people suggest is the clone characters and the fe lords nobody even wanted added in the first place. Like, sakurai cut the Ice Climbers, Mewtwo, and Snake before. People should expect at least one or two actually beloved characters to have to sit out.
Its not just smash, occasionally i look up what people's ideas would be for other cross over rosters on places like reddit. And i remember seeing this one post about a sega smash bros where someone went through a lot of effort making a roster graphic for their post, and every single comment was just "where's ristar" or "where's ecco". It just felt a little rude reading it, tbh.

As for why i think palutena would get in over pit: I just get the sense from Uprising, the palutenas guidances, and Palu's reveal trailer, that Sakurai just likes her more.

 

[Gengar84]

Oh, i think i remember when you posted this before, i just forgot that was from you. I remember thinking at the time magus was an odd pick over chrono.
When I see other people's cut I mostly just come to the conclusion that Brawl was the best roster they ever made in terms of pleasing everyone.

Yeah, Magus is admittedly a personal bias pick as he’s one of my favorite characters in gaming. I can at least make some arguments to his merits over Crono despite being less likely. Namely that Magus was intended to have a major role in all three games (despite being cut from Chrono Cross due to time constraints). Crono only really represents the first game. Magus also has a more unique design and weapon compared to Hero. What I’d do is take elements from both Magus and Guile for the moveset and make them alts of each other to represent the series as a whole. Guile took over Magus’ intended role in CC after he was cut but later ports hinted that they might still actually be the same character.

 

[Borskaboska]

Yeah, Magus is admittedly a personal bias pick as he’s one of my favorite characters in gaming. I can at least make some arguments to his merits over Crono despite being less likely. Namely that Magus was intended to have a major role in all three games (despite being cut from Chrono Cross due to time constraints). Crono only really represents the first game. Magus also has a more unique design and weapon compared to Hero. What I’d do is take elements from both Magus and Guile for the moveset and make them alts of each other to represent the series as a whole. Guile took over Magus’ intended role in CC after he was cut but later ports hinted that they might still actually be the same character.

Hey I am 100% cool with people having personal bias picks. But if we gotta have one, im going with chrono just because once I read a sprite comic about Mario, Link, Samus, and Chrono, and the website banner had a joke about them all getting brawl renders except chrono.

 

[RouffWestie]

Eh If they can do 82, they can do 100.
Past the 40-something mark it just becomes A LOT

Heck yeah 8 Mario clones and every single incarnation of Link confirmed let's goooo

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

The only cuts I see people suggest is the clone characters and the fe lords nobody even wanted added in the first place. Like, sakurai cut the Ice Climbers, Mewtwo, and Snake before. People should expect at least one or two actually beloved characters to have to sit out.

I mean to be fair to the Ice Climbers, they were working on Wii U and if Smash 4 was only on Wii U I don't think they would've been cut at all, but that's besides the point

I do agree with this sentiment though, we need to be prepared to lose more than we're used to here for the base game since we're at a sort of unprecedented point with Smash where we obviously can't sustainably keep having the number go up forever, but it can also be mitigated after the fact through DLC like Mewtwo, Lucas, and Roy in Smash 4.

It's why I think if we go back to Dojo format for reveals instead of every veteran at once like Ultimate did, it's gonna be an excruciating wait to see who's staying and who's not for the time being lol

 

[Louie G.]

I wouldnt mind the complaining so much, I mean the point is discussion I like seeing other people's opinions. I just think that they should also give what their roster would be. The only cuts I see people suggest is the clone characters and the fe lords nobody even wanted added in the first place. Like, sakurai cut the Ice Climbers, Mewtwo, and Snake before. People should expect at least one or two actually beloved characters to have to sit out.

Well my most controversial stance is that I wouldn't really shed much of a tear if we cut a bunch of the third parties. I've been content envisioning a scenario where we get somewhere around only 6-8 of them back for base roster, a scenario that I actually think is fairly plausible.

I think the reason people are hesitant about more notable cuts though is because we just don't know what the goal is next time. Perhaps they cut their losses and decide to bring back as many guests as possible at the expense of Nintendo characters. Maybe the roster is as big as Ultimate, maybe it's bigger, maybe it's 40 characters. This disagreement is why it's hard to pin down the most agreeable or "safe" cuts, we're all judging on pretty different fronts.

I would say there are a fair bit of unique characters that most people can agree are at risk, though. Incineroar and Piranha Plant come to mind, let alone Corrin. And certainly we're not going to get EVERY third party back right away unless EIH2 is a go... so some of those will be difficult. Factoring that into the equation of losing a fair amount of semiclones from big series / inactive series brings us to kind of the status quo of roster pruning that we saw in Brawl or Smash 4. Characters like Wolf or Roy aren't exactly easy cuts either, they are very popular among both casual and competitive players.

 

[Guynamednelson]

Characters like Wolf or Roy aren't exactly easy cuts either, they are very popular among both casual and competitive players.

I wouldn't exactly say that when both have already been cut despite their popularity.

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

Well my most controversial stance is that I wouldn't really shed much of a tear if we cut a bunch of the third parties. I've been content envisioning a scenario where we get somewhere around only 6-8 of them back for base roster, a scenario that I actually think is fairly plausible.

I've been sort of thinking this too, but more generously I guess? Like I'm fairly certain Sonic, Mega Man, and Pac-Man will return, Namco will likely still be helping the development so I could see Kazuya sticking around just because of that, Nintendo funds Bayonetta at this point so I could see her. I could see Steve sticking around because he's from the most popular game on the planet and keeping him in Smash benefits both sides in any case, I hope Banjo will follow suit through Steve because it's not like Microsoft is doing anything else with him and they wouldn't turn down more licensing money. And I fully expect Sora to return just because the team know that Sora is the most popular request of all time and cutting him even to make him DLC later would be a REALLY rough call.

It is really hard to pick characters to cut from Ultimate because outside of a few edge cases, every character in Ultimate has something going for them between the Ballot making them a popular character that would sting to cut, their prominence to their home series, and a multitude of other things going for them.

 

[Louie G.]

I wouldn't exactly say that when both have already been cut despite their popularity.

That was specifically the point I was trying to make, they are popular characters in danger of being cut again. Borskaboska alluded that most people are just making easy, uncontroversial cuts and I was highlighting two characters out of a few who are fairly well loved but most people believe are at risk anyway.

Whenever Wolf comes up here, we all kind of begrudgingly agree he may be cut again but end up talking about how great he is. Same with Incineroar. So I'm just saying that the more agreeable cuts are not always easy cuts. I'd like to keep them both around personally, so it's not an easy thing for me to admit.

 

[smashkirby]

This isn't everyone that I'd like for Smash 6 (Oh-ho, not by a LONG SHOT. Believe me, it's FAR more extensive than this), BUT I got lazy and didn't feel like searching for more characters right now, so...

For the record, I'll almost certainly create a revised version of this with more of my wanted characters (like Tom Nook, Anna, Tiki, Tails, Saki Amemiya, Prince Sable, Harry from Teleroboxer, Ray from Custom Robo, Chibi-Robo, Sakura Shinguji/Sakura Amemiya, etc.).

 

[BritishGuy54]

Well now I wonder, who WOULD you cut? In my experience, there's only a few characters that people expect to see cut, and thats the clone/semi-clone characters like falco, lucas, and doc. Past that, people will complain no matter who you pick.
I mean, I did once post a roster that cut Pit and kept palutena (which is a decision I fully stand behind) so maybe I'm not the best person to make this point. I'm just talking about OTHER rosters i've seen.
Just goes to show Sakurai must've really dreaded deciding to cut Ice Climbers in Smash for. I didn't follow the discussion as closely back then, but I wonder how many people were mad about that when it happened.

That is a complicated question. That answer will differ with who you ask, and what their priorities are when cutting characters. Though for me…

Spoiler: My opinion on who not to cut.

• I do not care about the ‘Original 12’, however…
• Under no circumstance must the ‘Active 10’ be cut. That means are safe.
  • Although it may be important to represent the series itself (through recency or popularity), so alternate substitutions such as are acceptable choices.
• The main faces of Mario’s sub-series are safe, which means.
• Key supporting characters of the ‘Active 10’ are safe, meaning .
• Key popular characters (due to game sales or general popularity) from other entires in rotating casts should also be prioritised, meaning .
• Other first party characters who haven’t fared as well in the Switch era but may have a future should be safeguarded, such as .
• The Miis make too much damn money .

Spoiler: Who to consider cutting…

• If I ever create a roster below 45 veterans, the halfway mark from Ultimate’s 89, then feels like a good benchmark there.
• Clones are likely the first ones out, but also the first ones back if dev time gets extended.
• Third parties can be hard to work with. I think most people have their eyes on Square Enix, Konami, and possibly Microsoft too.
• I won’t elaborate anymore because I don’t want to fuel any fire.

 

[Royaru]

I think the key to the next Smash will be how much content they can reuse and whether the third party character deals will continue or not.
If as you've said, they recycle Ultimate content but have the budget for a new installment, I don't think there will be many cuts and there could be quite a bit of new content. The problem is the third parties, I don't think the vast majority will return although they will probably sell them as DLC. Characters like Bayonetta (which at this point is almost first party), Sonic or Bandai Namco I don't think will have many problems, but others I'm not so sure about, especially those from SE and Disney.

Another reason why I think Nintendo will at least keep all the first party characters, is because they know how important it is to not only have active franchises as BritishGuy54 says, but also to have representation from smaller franchises to promote sales. There are a lot of IPs being revived lately (Pikmin, FDC, Another Code, Advance Wars, 2D Metroid, MvsDK, M&L and even F-Zero), and we'll probably see a DK or Star Fox revival soon. Even a remake of the Mother/Earthbound trilogy is a possibility these days. Having these characters in Smash not only helps promote the game itself, but having sold over 35M, it's a great promotional window for any franchise and FE is the best example of that.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

I wouldn't exactly say that when both have already been cut despite their popularity.

I don't think being cut already is that big an indicator as to whether or not a character will be cut again, at least, not with our knowledge. A lot of these cuts have external reasons rather than just straight up being cut. For example, Mewtwo has been on the project plan for every game since Melee, they just have a tendency to finish him last which makes him vulnerable to time crunch cuts. There's also the Ice Climbers who were only cut because of the 3Ds.

 

[RileyXY1]

I think this is gonna be the biggest roster shakeup in the game's history, and I'm fine with that. I'm fully expecting a lot of cuts, more than any other game, to make way for more unique newcomers. Ultimate had to sacrifice so much to be as big as it ended up being.

 

[Borskaboska]

That is a complicated question. That answer will differ with who you ask, and what their priorities are when cutting characters. Though for me…

Spoiler: My opinion on who not to cut.

• I do not care about the ‘Original 12’, however…
• Under no circumstance must the ‘Active 10’ be cut. That means are safe.
  • Although it may be important to represent the series itself (through recency or popularity), so alternate substitutions such as are acceptable choices.
• The main faces of Mario’s sub-series are safe, which means.
• Key supporting characters of the ‘Active 10’ are safe, meaning .
• Key popular characters (due to game sales or general popularity) from other entires in rotating casts should also be prioritised, meaning .
• Other first party characters who haven’t fared as well in the Switch era but may have a future should be safeguarded, such as .
• The Miis make too much damn money .

Spoiler: Who to consider cutting…

• If I ever create a roster below 45 veterans, the halfway mark from Ultimate’s 89, then feels like a good benchmark there.
• Clones are likely the first ones out, but also the first ones back if dev time gets extended.
• Third parties can be hard to work with. I think most people have their eyes on Square Enix, Konami, and possibly Microsoft too.
• I won’t elaborate anymore because I don’t want to fuel any fire.

Cutting Ness? That's the kind of cut i've been wanting to see more people make. I mean, I disagree vehemently, but I appreciate the boldness of saying it.
Personally, I believe that since Ult focused on bringing back as many old characters as possible at the expense of having the fewest new characters at launch, that the next game is going to go the complete opposite direction. The next smash is going to focus on having as many newcomers as possible, even if it means cutting a few mainstays. Like, maybe 15-20 completely new non-clone characters at least. And if we have to cut Megaman to make room for Zero then so be it.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

I think my view on cuts is proportional to just how contrasting the next Smash is. If there's a genuinely new direction for the following entry (maybe even down the gameplay elements) than a shift in fighter selection makes complete sense and I'd look forward to seeing how the roster would manifest.

If it just feels like Ultimate again, only with say 20 fighters swapped out for different, similar number of fighters? I can't lie it would feel a bit underwhelming.

 

[DarthEnderX]

You do realize it was NOT 82 on day 1 right?

Just 58 of them.

And Sakurai literally said it couldn't have been with how he said bringing everyone back meant they couldn't add too many fighters?

And then Ultimate added more Fighters than any other Smash game.

 

[Master_Scorpion]

When do you think Nintendo plans on unveiling the next system?