According to Nintendo's website, in addition to the Fighters Pass for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, there will also be Mii Fighter Costumes sold separately for 75 Cent each. So, they probably weren't that unlucrative after all, weren't they?
Of course the wording isn't really clear here, because it only talks about a "Mii Fighter Costume". It could be in the same sense as the "Individual Challenger Pack", where there will be five of them, but it could also mean that there is really only one, where they sell the Rex costume for anyone, who wants the costume, but not the Fighters Pass... We'll see.
But there is a chance that there will be more DLC than what they have announced so far. And here stages come to mind. With Ultimate there certainly was a focus on bringing a majority of past stages back at the expense of new stages from newer games. So, getting some more stages would be nice in any way, especially new stages for existing franchises, which the Fighters Pass probably won't provide.
They could add another column to the stage select screen, so that there would be ten more spaces for additional stages. They could sell those separately, but they could also provide a "Stage Pass", where you can pre-order / buy all the stages in a pack for a refund.
So, let's get to the fun part: what stages could they offer as DLC? Let's say they are also trying to bring back more past stages to make list look more complete, they could aim at five returning stages and five new ones for a 50:50 ratio. And here are some ideas...
This spans various Super Smash Bros. games and franchises, as well as stage types. All of these stages are scrolling, shifting or moving around and therefore would require quite some effort to remake them. In some of these cases it's probably even the only reason, why these stages haven't returned in the base game already. Especially the making of "Orbital Gate Assault" took them about a year, originally. And with such development efforts, adding these stages as DLC would be justifiable - certainly more than selling cheap-looking N64 stages on Wii U.
On the other hand, if they really wanted to go that route again, they could bring back "Planet Zebes" instead of Orbital Gate Assault. This way there would be one returning stage from each past Super Smash Bros. title. But of course Planet Zebes looks quite similar to the existing Brinstar stage, just with a different layout, so it wouldn't stand out as much in the DLC. (Same goes for "Sector Z".) Alternatively, they could go for the infamous "Metal Cavern", which is an often fan request.
Another candidate would be "Mute City" from Melee, but it's quite similar to Port Town Aero Drive already and also to Rainbow Road from the Nintendo 3DS, where the latter would probably be more popular, interesting and impressive as one of the DLC stages.
"Pac-Maze" would also be nice to have, but the ghost gimmick probably has to stay exclusive to playing in online multiplayer or in local multiplayer with multiple Switch systems, which might be the main reason, why they didn't bring back the stage at all. It could be interesting, however.
The remade "Poké Floats" stage could be using something from the new Let's Go games, maybe even some of the assets. This would be a good throwback to the original, where they used the models from the Pokémon Stadium games... But it could be an update similar to Corneria being based on Star Fox Zero to cover one more recent game.
With that I would already be a lot happier with Ultimate's selection of new stages. Some good games from the past five years are simply not all that present in the new Smash, where Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is easily the worst offender. The game had godlike music from David Wise, where the DLC stage would be worth it for the new tracks alone.
The only problem with this selection is that there are many overlaps in franchises with the proposed returning stages above: Donkey Kong, Yoshi and Pokémon would receive all two stages each in the DLC. The rest goes to Mario Kart, Star Fox, Metroid and ARMS. And admittedly there could be more variety here. However, this wasn't really an issue for Nintendo with the stage DLC for Smash 4 either, where most of the separately sold stages were from either Mario or Zelda.
Of course the wording isn't really clear here, because it only talks about a "Mii Fighter Costume". It could be in the same sense as the "Individual Challenger Pack", where there will be five of them, but it could also mean that there is really only one, where they sell the Rex costume for anyone, who wants the costume, but not the Fighters Pass... We'll see.
But there is a chance that there will be more DLC than what they have announced so far. And here stages come to mind. With Ultimate there certainly was a focus on bringing a majority of past stages back at the expense of new stages from newer games. So, getting some more stages would be nice in any way, especially new stages for existing franchises, which the Fighters Pass probably won't provide.
They could add another column to the stage select screen, so that there would be ten more spaces for additional stages. They could sell those separately, but they could also provide a "Stage Pass", where you can pre-order / buy all the stages in a pack for a refund.
So, let's get to the fun part: what stages could they offer as DLC? Let's say they are also trying to bring back more past stages to make list look more complete, they could aim at five returning stages and five new ones for a 50:50 ratio. And here are some ideas...
Returning Stages:
- Poké Floats
- Rumble Falls
- Rainbow Road
- Woolly World
- Orbital Gate Assault
This spans various Super Smash Bros. games and franchises, as well as stage types. All of these stages are scrolling, shifting or moving around and therefore would require quite some effort to remake them. In some of these cases it's probably even the only reason, why these stages haven't returned in the base game already. Especially the making of "Orbital Gate Assault" took them about a year, originally. And with such development efforts, adding these stages as DLC would be justifiable - certainly more than selling cheap-looking N64 stages on Wii U.
On the other hand, if they really wanted to go that route again, they could bring back "Planet Zebes" instead of Orbital Gate Assault. This way there would be one returning stage from each past Super Smash Bros. title. But of course Planet Zebes looks quite similar to the existing Brinstar stage, just with a different layout, so it wouldn't stand out as much in the DLC. (Same goes for "Sector Z".) Alternatively, they could go for the infamous "Metal Cavern", which is an often fan request.
Another candidate would be "Mute City" from Melee, but it's quite similar to Port Town Aero Drive already and also to Rainbow Road from the Nintendo 3DS, where the latter would probably be more popular, interesting and impressive as one of the DLC stages.
"Pac-Maze" would also be nice to have, but the ghost gimmick probably has to stay exclusive to playing in online multiplayer or in local multiplayer with multiple Switch systems, which might be the main reason, why they didn't bring back the stage at all. It could be interesting, however.
The remade "Poké Floats" stage could be using something from the new Let's Go games, maybe even some of the assets. This would be a good throwback to the original, where they used the models from the Pokémon Stadium games... But it could be an update similar to Corneria being based on Star Fox Zero to cover one more recent game.
New Stages:
- Planet SR388 (Samus Returns): could have the Diggernaut and/or the Metroid Queen as stage bosses.
- Sky Arena (ARMS): could have Max Brass and/or the Hedlok as stage bosses.
- Anything from Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze.
- Anything from Pokémon Sun & Moon.
- Anything from Yoshi's Crafted World.
With that I would already be a lot happier with Ultimate's selection of new stages. Some good games from the past five years are simply not all that present in the new Smash, where Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is easily the worst offender. The game had godlike music from David Wise, where the DLC stage would be worth it for the new tracks alone.
The only problem with this selection is that there are many overlaps in franchises with the proposed returning stages above: Donkey Kong, Yoshi and Pokémon would receive all two stages each in the DLC. The rest goes to Mario Kart, Star Fox, Metroid and ARMS. And admittedly there could be more variety here. However, this wasn't really an issue for Nintendo with the stage DLC for Smash 4 either, where most of the separately sold stages were from either Mario or Zelda.
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