Last week was a huge one for Nintendo and the Super Smash Bros. community as the latest entry in the fighting series, Ultimate, cleaned house at E3 leading up to its release later this year. And while the game will feature a full cast of characters including returning favorites like Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid and the Ice Climbers, it also has some fresh blood entering the fray.
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Ridley from Metroid was a surprise reveal at the end of the presentation and there could be more where that came from.
While Ultimate director Masahiro Sakurai did note that fans shouldn’t expect “too many new challengers,” that’s a hint that we are getting some fresh faces at the very least. They aren’t confirmed just yet, but the next in line appears to be an old-school favorite.
Simon Belmont from the Castlevania series could be debuting very soon, according to online rumors. You’ll recall that a previous report from Reddit user Vergeben suggested that character before, but with Konami on board with Solid Snake that seems to be taking even more shape than ever before.
Belmont has been out of video game action for years (though his sibling Richter is in the Netflix Castlevania series), and seeing him back in action would be a welcome sight, especially to those that grew up with Castlevania games on the NES and SNES.
Now, it is Reddit so take the rumor with a grain of salt. However, Vergeben did correctly predict that Ridley would be joining the roster previously, as well as Solid Snake and Ice Climbers’ returns.
There’s still room for other surprises as well like the heavily rumored Goku from Dragon Ball Z as well as Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon from their respective games.
So the real question here is when we’ll see what’s next for Ultimate. It’ll probably be a little bit. Nintendo is calming down from the E3 madness and will take its time producing the next Nintendo Direct special. But we’ll likely see something around the end of summer, probably around PAX East time (end of August) when the company will reiterate its fall/winter lineup for the Switch while confirming Belmont (or perhaps someone entirely new) joining the party.
And keep in mind this lines up with Nintendo’s previous strategy for Smash games. When the Wii U and 3DS versions were announced years ago, not many new fighters were revealed. But soon after, Ryu from Street Fighter, Cloud from Final Fantasy VII and Bayonetta from her self-titled games joined the party. So there’s always room for more, even with a roster as loaded as this one.
Whoever shows up to fight, it’ll be a brawl to win it all. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate arrives on December 7 for Nintendo Switch.
