Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Fighters Pass Vol. 2 – Hopes & Predictions

The "Rules"

Six more Challenger Packs were announced for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and according to the official site they also all will be composed of a fighter, a stage and some new music tracks. It's likely that the six additional Challenger Packs will also be accompanied by a DLC Spirit Board and also aim at a crossover with a specific game or franchise, just like the first five packs.

And you have to keep all of this in mind when coming up with predictions. The more there already exists for a certain game in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the less likely it is for this game to be featured as a Challenger Pack. It's even possible that these six Challenger Packs stem from the same list that Sakurai has been working with from the start, maybe with additions from newer games. If a game already got featured with various Spirits, music tracks and maybe even a stage or an Assist Trophy, it makes a potential Challenger Pack less likely. Not completely impossible, but not realistic either.

It's easy to say that there are no rules and Sakurai does whatever he wants, where anything is possible at the moment. But so far there are certain patterns for the Challenger Packs and there is no reason to believe that any of the Assist Trophies will be promoted for example, when there's plenty of other possibilities left. And even Spirits, especially the ones that come via free updates, just feel like a "not this time" consolation and if Sakurai's team were to have any plans for adding a certain character, they wouldn't be adding the Spirit just now.

It's most obvious with Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Over the course of the last year various Nintendo games got promoted via Spirit Board events in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. There have been events for Nintendo Labo, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, Daemon X Machina, Pokémon Sword & Shield, Tetris and Astral Chain. But not for Fire Emblem: Three Houses, as well as Yoshi's Crafted World and Luigi's Mansion 3, where the last two would be amazing candidates for new DLC stages. And we all know what happened with Three Houses – it has gotten its own Challenger Pack.

Of course having a Spirit Board doesn't necessarily disconfirm the game for DLC, but if Sakurai's team really had planned to make an Astral Chain Challenger Pack, they wouldn't have released a Spirit Board for the game just now. They would have kept this for the DLC and certainly not go for the playable main characters as Spirits.

Pokémon Sword & Shield might be the big exception here, because it's the big new Pokémon game and one of the most important Nintendo Switch games, which has more than enough Pokémon to work with for a potential new fighter and even more Spirits. And this leads us to...

1st Party Inclusions

Ideally, the Fighters Pass Vol. 2 finds a better balance between 1st and 3rd party inclusions, where it would be nice to get Challenger Packs for more Nintendo Switch games published by Nintendo. This could be some recent games, but it also games that are currently in development. The three biggest candidates in this field are arguably the following:

• Pokémon Sword & Shield
• Breath of the Wild 2
• Metroid Prime 4

Like Fire Emblem, Pokémon produces potential new fighters with each new game and as already said, the existing Spirits don't necessarily exclude Pokémon Sword & Shield from getting a Challenger Pack, because there are so many Pokémon to choose from. And it's this generation's big new Pokémon game, where an inclusion in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is to be expected. It might even be the first of the new Challenger Packs, setting a new tone for the 2nd Fighters Pass right from the start.

With the other games it really depends on how far they are into development at the moment. But the Fighters Pass Vol. 2 is said to last until the end of 2021, where this is more than enough time for Sakurai to get into early versions of these games and prepare something.

For the sequel to Breath of the Wild it's even realistic to be released before the end of 2021. Maybe it's even planned to be released this year, we'll see soon enough, but in any case it could be something that Nintendo wants in Smash. The bigger question here would be the potential fighter. We already have the Breath of the Wild version of Link, while a new version of Zelda or Ganondorf might not feel as exciting right now. But this really depends on what the game has to offer. Maybe the new Ganondorf is exactly what Zelda fans might want from a new fighter.

In case of Metroid Prime 4 the fighter already was decided many, many years ago: Sylux, the upcoming antagonist. It's even suspicious how there is no Spirit for Sylux in the game, while Kanden and Trace got one, despite the fact that Sylux is story-wise the most important of the six hunters from Metroid Prime: Hunters. This could still mean something, but the likelihood of a Challenger Pack really depends on how fast Retro Studios has been working for the past year.

But of course we could also be looking at Challenger Packs for games, which haven't even been announced yet, but are already in Sakurai's hands. And there could be challengers from older games, but naturally there already have been many of such additions in the base game with King K. Rool, Ridley, Isabelle, Dark Samus or Chrom, while most other candidates got turned into Spirits or were thrown into the Assist Trophy hell.

Speaking of, if they really were willing to turn Waluigi into a fighter at this point, it probably would turn into a "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate x Mario Tennis Aces" Challenger Pack with a tennis court for a stage...

But overall it would be nice to get some more representation for games from the last five years, which are barely present in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, like ARMS, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker or Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. Challenger Packs for these games might not feel as likely at this point and they simply might be victim to bad timing, but it's not entirely out of the question either, where they just would need alter some of the existing Spirits, if their characters get promoted to playable fighters, e.g. Dixie Kong.

In case of ARMS they probably wouldn't go with Spring Man because of his Assist Trophy status, but there are other potential characters here. Ribbon Girl for example is as much of a poster child for the game as he is (she even sings the title song), while her multi-jump ability fits Smash perfectly. And of course there are 13 other fighters in ARMS, where most of them aren't even Spirits yet. But this is just hopeful thinking at this point...

3rd Party Inclusions

With games outside of the scope of Nintendo on the other hand the possibilities are near endless. It's no secret that the first Fighters Pass was primarily made out of 3rd party guests and the second Fighters Pass might continue this trend, where there are lots and lots of male (and rarely female) protagonists to lead the way...

• Hunter (Monster Hunter)
• Lloyd Irving (Tales of Symphonia)
• Heihachi Mishima or Jin Kazama (Tekken)
• Sophetia or Nightmare (SoulCalibur)
• Travis Touchdown (No More Heroes)
• Ryu Hayabusa (Ninja Gaiden)
• Kasumi (Dead or Alive)
• Doom Slayer (Doom)
• Steve (Minecraft)
• Master Chief (Halo)
• Dante (Devil May Cry)
• Agnès Oblige (Bravely Default)
  
• 2B (NieR: Automata)
• Crash Bandicoot
• ...

This list keeps going and unlike most first party franchises there are rarely any Spirits in the way. Rayman got one and Resident Evil got a Spirit Board event via an update a few weeks ago. So, these might be out of the question, but there are many other franchises to choose from, some offering a rich history with Nintendo, others less so.

Instead of studying Spirits, here it pays to take a look at Mii costumes instead. Of course there are many fighters that also have gotten a Mii costume as well, like Link or Samus. But all the 3rd party Mii costumes so far were exclusively available via DLC... And why would you buy an Altaïr Mii outfit for example, if you could have the real deal? So, whatever characters made a cameo via a Mii costume are most likely off the table.

At the same time there are characters that got a Mii costume in Super Smash Bros. 4, which suspiciously did not return yet, most noticeably Lloyd, the Hunter and Geno. Of course those could just be licensing issues or they could be sold at a later time, where especially Geno felt pretty perfect as a Mii Gunner. He could even become another one of these bundles, where a Mii costume comes with a new song. But all of these could also be planned as fighters, where Monster Hunter feels like one of the strongest contenders right now.

Monster Hunter is one of the most popular video game franchises, especially in Japan, where a lot of it has taken place on Nintendo consoles. And it already has been featured in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but only with Rathalos, which seems rather odd given the popularity. There is so much more that they could do here, enough to easily provide a full Challenger Pack.

Ninja Gaiden also still feels like one of the best candidates, because so far Koei Tecmo has not been featured in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in any way despite their good relationship with Nintendo and Ninja Gaiden goes all the way back to the NES days. It would also open the door to add a Dead or Alive character later on, like Kasumi. But it's also possible that they might go with Dead or Alive right away.

Other franchises like NieR or Halo don't have any history with Nintendo whatsoever, but still could feel like great additions, if Microsoft and Sony were to allow it. And that the game(s) in question not necessarily have to be playable on a Nintendo console was already proven by Persona 5.

Some of the games in the above list could also just become Mii costumes and Spirit Boards. While it would be the most awesome thing ever to get the Doom Slayer in Smash, a Mii Gunner costume and some Spirits from Doom probably feel like the more family-friendly solution.

Speaking of family-friendly, Minecraft is also still in the running and considering that both Nintendo and Sakurai love the game, it's still a good possibility for one of the Challenger Packs. You can find a full concept for this here.

Conclusion

Whether the Fighters Pass Vol. 2 is going with 1st or 3rd party additions, there are enough potential fighters out there to fill three more Fighters Passes and beyond. So, it will be exciting to see, which games will cross their way with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in the next two years. And maybe there is even something in it for the Zelda and Metroid fans...