In the weeks leading up to E3 2021, everyone knew Nintendo would reveal at least one of the last DLC fighters for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Although Nintendo kept the contents of its Nintendo Direct at E3 secret, it was only natural that Smash would have a presence at the conference. As fans expected, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was the first thing to come up. Nintendo revealed Kazuya Mishima, the famed Tekken star, as the penultimate character joining Smash Ultimate. Considering how important Tekken is to fighting game history, it only seems natural that Nintendo's industry-uniting fighting game would invite Kazuya to join in on the action.
The response may not have been exactly what Nintendo expected, though. Tekken definitely has a lot of fans, and Kazuya is more than worthy of a position on the Smash roster. However, Kazuya's fans didn't demand an invitation for him as vocally as fans of Crash Bandicoot, Master Chief, and many others have been. Tekken fans may have rejoiced at the invitation, but overall, the Smash community wasn't as elated by the DLC reveal as they could've been. Nintendo fans and Smash fans specifically need to learn something from this situation. Since there's only one Smash Ultimate invitation left, fans need to temper their expectations and remember that Nintendo's Smash priorities are different from theirs.
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In spite of how prolific Smash is, fans don't historically have a ton of input on where the franchise goes. When it comes to adding new characters, Nintendo almost always does what it wants, rather than asking fans for their opinions and seeing what it can do. Famously Nintendo put out a poll for the Wii U and 3DS versions of Super Smash Bros., which let to Bayonetta's inclusion in Smash. Overall, though, fans have only been able to watch, wait, and speculate.
What watching Nintendo pick and choose new characters has shown is that Nintendo doesn't operate on the same wavelength as Smash fans. Quite a characters added by Nintendo were long requested by fans ahead of then, from Banjo and Kazooie to Mega Man to King K. Rool. For the most part, though, Nintendo's choices don't align with to the high profile characters that different parts of the Smash fandom ask for. Rather than focusing solely on fan demand, Nintendo habitually chooses characters that it seems to want to recognize internally, like the fighting game legends Terry Bogard from King of Fighters and Kazuya Mishima from Tekken.
Fans need to keep Nintendo's unpredictable Smash invitations in mind ahead of the last Smash Ultimate DLC. There's no doubt that debate around the very last slot will heat up as it draws nearer. After all, there's so many worthy characters in the game industry that should be in Smash, but there's only room for one more. Although fans will have ideas of who is worth saving last for Smash Ultimate, the community needs to remember that Nintendo probably has different ideas about what kind of character is worth saving for last in the second and seemingly final Fighters Pass. Therefore, fans need to temper their expectations of who the last Smash fighter will be, or else they might magnify their own disappointment.
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Although tempered expectations are healthy, one can also never underestimate Nintendo's capacity for delivering surprises. Kazuya joining Smash was a big surprise, but the reveal of Metroid Dread, the first 2D Metroid game in nearly 20 years, was definitely a much bigger surprise. Nobody suspected that Nintendo was working on a fifth Metroid game. Nintendo is equally capable of shocking fans with Smash fighter reveals, as it did when Persona 5's Joker got added to the game at the start of the very first Fighters Pass. There's still a chance that Nintendo has figured out who fans want in Smash the absolute most and plans on adding them to the game in the last slot. Still, fans can't count on that possibility either.
Nintendo is enigmatic, and generally very good at keeping its projects secret. Although lots of leaks claimed to reveal demanded characters over the years, they're frequently shot down when a real Smash Ultimate fighter gets revealed and defies fan expectations. At this point, it's too late for every beloved character to make it to Smash, so Smash fans should probably start making peace with the fact that their favorite character's chances of getting a Smash invitation are slim. Unless Nintendo announces a third Fighters Pass, the end of the road is ahead. Maybe Nintendo will invite more characters that missed out when another Smash game rolls around.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is available now for Nintendo Switch.
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