Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Wii U Battlefield?

Pit in Smash Ultimate with Inkling's ink and the Smash 4 Wii U Battlefield visible in the background

Masahiro Sakurai likes to post screenshots from his time developing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on Twitter, like the one above (source). However, this one is quite special, because it clearly shows Pit in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and the Inkling shooting up, but with the background of (Big) Battlefield from Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.

Battlefield in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U

This doesn't have to mean anything, because it could simply be from an early build, where they've re-used the Wii U Battlefield at first. But it would certainly be nice to get some more new old stages, even if it's just past variants of Battlefield and Final Destination.

They will need to re-arrange the stage select screen for the next Challenger Pack anyway... Well, technically there is still an open slot in the bottom right corner, but that one is used for all custom stages when selecting the pool of random stages. And for the whole second Fighters Pass the select screen needs to be expanded in some form sooner than later.

They could just add another row or column, but it's also possible that they might split the stage select screen up to make it easier to find stages. There could be multiple tabs at the top, one for Ultimate, Smash 64, Melee, Brawl, 3DS/Wii U and custom stages. And if they divide it like this, they might also choose to add some more stages here and there to fill some gaps or simply to offer some fan service.

Another possibility would be "stage variants", where pressing one of the shoulder buttons could allow you to switch between different versions of the stage, where each version additionally comes with their own Battlefield and Omega forms. This could be used for the classic Battlefield and Final Destination stages, but it would also be interesting for various morphing stages like Paper Mario, where the stage variants could give you the individual sections without the morph. This could also be used to add the World 1-2 version of Mushroomy Kingdom from Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

In any case I hope they do something more to surprise us... if we're just getting Challenger Packs, Spirits and Mii costumes for two years, it would be a waste of opportunities. The early days of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, where they've added new features via updates, were much more exciting.

Update: Sakurai confirmed that this was a screenshot from a development stage on Twitter – he even did so in English, probably after realizing how viral the whole thing went. But this incident could give him the right idea that there indeed is a lot of interest in getting past stages back. Why not add this dev stage to the game for the fun of it?

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