Challenger #5 – the final DLC fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate‘s (first) Fighters Pass – has been revealed. Yes, feeling that the Fire Emblem series was under represented in its flagship crossover fighting game, Nintendo will be adding Byleth – the protagonist of Fire Emblem: Three Houses – to the roster.
There was other news during the nearly-40-minute presentation, of course. There was a collection of rather nifty Mii Fighter costumes that bring both Cuphead and Altair from Assassin’s Creed into the game (kind of). It was also announced that a second Fighters Pass (Vol. 2) would feature an additional six DLC fighters to be announced between now and the end of next year. All great news for Smash fans.
However, the rest of the presentation was filled with Garreg Mach goodness, so there wasn’t much to keep you interested if Fire Emblem isn’t your bag. The nature of these reveals always means that if you’re not a fan of series X, you’ll likely switch off immediately, but even series fans might have found this presentation a little saggy in places. It played up the quirkiness glimpsed in previous presentations with Smash boss Masahiro Sakurai spending time counting the FE games using binary (solving the mystery which sent the internet into a craze earlier in the week) and then explaining what he was doing. Then followed the expected deep-dive into the character, giving players a forensic preview of the fighter.
Obviously, there was nothing that would have pleased everyone, although we were surprised that Nintendo didn’t go for more of a crowd-pleaser to wrap up its first ‘season’ of DLC. Sakurai anticipated as much, asking fans before the trailer ran to calm their beans if Byleth wasn’t who they were hoping for. The reveal even played on the fact that Smash is lousy with sword fighters already, with Byleth getting his behind kicked by them and Sothis commenting on it. That’s not to say Byleth isn’t a strong addition or we don’t love Three Houses, but with Smash welcoming historic challengers from across the platform divide, yet another FE fighter perhaps wasn’t as exciting an announcement as we expected.
Still, Nintendo is keeping the Smash hype train rolling for a good while yet and there are at least six more places to be filled. All the upcoming challengers have already been decided upon according to Sakurai himself, so the future’s brimming with possibilities, even if today’s announcement didn’t fill you with cheer.
So, what do you think? Are you satisfied with today’s Challenger #5 reveal? Were you expecting someone else? Was there, perhaps, another part of the presentation you found more exciting than Byleth? Let us know in the poll below and feel free to discuss the reveal in the comments:
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