Last month, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate added its fifth DLC character, Byleth, the protagonist of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, which hit Nintendo Switch last June, about seven months after Super Smash Bros. Ultimate hit the platform. And at the time, the addition was met with a bit of backlash. For one, players had built up expectations that they were going to see one of the many rumored characters added to the game, such as Doomguy or Master Chief. Of course, this led to some disappointment when it wasn’t any of this more wild options. However, adding to this was the fact that the new addition was a Fire Emblem character, a franchise already well represented in the series. Further, not only was it another Fire Emblem character, but another sword fighter, which, according to some fans, are also over represented.
That all said, during a new interview with Famitsu, franchise director Masahiro Sakurai spoke about this criticism, admitting that he knows that there is too many sword fighters and Fire Emblem characters in the game. The addition was apparently passed down through the ranks to Sakurai, who suggests that the character isn’t his favorite or the one he would have added.
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Of course, given that Fire Emblem: Three Houses is less than a year old, it’s not very surprising to hear that Nintendo wanted to promote the game by bringing its protagonist to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, one of the biggest games in the world. That said, it begs the question: how much say does Sakurai get in the choice of new characters? At this point, the dynamic between the Nintendo hierarchy and Sakurai is a bit unclear, but at least we now know that Nintendo does at least phone in characters it wants every once in awhile.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is available exclusively for the Nintendo Switch. For more news, media, rumors, and leaks on game, be sure to take a second and peruse all of our past and recent coverage of title by clicking right here. Meanwhile, as always, feel free to drop a comment or two with your thoughts or, alternatively, hit me up on Twitter @Tyler_Fischer_ and let me know over there
H/T, Ryokutya2088 and Nintendo Everything.
