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Predictions So then, do you believe the next Smash roster will shrink or increase?

Mer.Saloon

Mer.Saloon

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I know there's a thread already talking about shrinking the roster, but thats more of a hypothetical roster itself. This is just about the idea, do you believe the roster will shrink or actually increase in the next Smash?

If it regresses, what do you think Nintendo could do to counteract the backlash that a shrinking roster would cause? Would the game need to be overhauled entirely or can improvements be done more subtle?

Personally, I believe if the next game isn't just a Deluxe version of Ult, it will shrink, if only to mitigate the crazy 3rd party licensing extravaganza Nintendo will have to trudge through, if any don't come back easily. I don't make any guesses who could be cut, because I think that's more the other thread.
 
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I think the next version will build on Ultimate with new stages and modes. I think that's the consensus.

But eventually they will have to reboot it (probably when Sakurai retires) and then the roster will be slashed dramatically. I'm not really interested in the next Smash until that happens. The roster is absurdly big already. Good fighting games have small rosters, end of story. Bloated rosters make for shitty games, which is unfortunately where Smash is at.

Garou is the best fighting game ever, and it has what, 12 characters? Let's bring Smash back to that level. Or back to the Melee level. Melee's roster was great. But how cool would a new Smash with just 12 characters be? It would be brave, shocking, and absolutely fantastic.
 
Definitely shrink. I think it will still be pretty big - some of the third party characters will probably be gone due to licensing but I'm sure they will be replaced by others or by first party characters.

Ultimate has 89 characters - I could see the new game having more like 80, which is still a ton.
 
I think the number of third parties in Ultimate means the next (proper) one will probably shrink, at least for the base roster.
 
sakurai himself basically said in the lead-up to ultimate that getting this roster was basically a once-in-a-lifetime achievement. it's probably inevitable that they'll have to at least cut back on the 3rd parties initially with how many one-time deals they must have penned for this roster.

and if we're going back to the drawing board on characters, there's no way around that it takes a lot more to design something from scratch than it does to update it, so we're looking at either a similarly sized roster with cuts or just outright pared back with a couple new characters to make up for everyone that couldn't make the jump.

i also don't think they'll need to do anything especially notable to market it in spite of that, it's smash bros. it can be ultimate with slightly different content and it'll sell at a high price.
 
Shrink. The next Smash is going to be a way smaller roster, Nintendo only at launch (and then DLC is guest characters). I also believe there will be a gimmick. I would say 2v2 where you can switch characters out or break an opponents attack (like kameo's in MK1).
 
It will stay the same, because the next Smash game will be a 4K port of Ultimate with the missing stages added.

Then after that? It’ll shrink because we’re getting SSBM HD.
 
They don't have a choice, it can't meaningfully shrink without destroying the games sales potential. The primary driver for sales is the ability to have mario punch sonic, Link fight cloud, and so on.

It's why "Everyone is here!" was such a powerful marketing line despite Smash 4 only missing like, 4 unique moveset characters and 3 clones (Pichu, Young Link, Wolf), despite it coming at the cost of the weakest amount of new characters in series history (6 new movesets and ~6 echo fighters, only 4 new stages).

At the same time, I have no idea how many of the third parties they're actually going to be able to bring back, because the budget and licensing will be an absolute nightmare.

Dcubed said:
Then after that? It’ll shrink because we’re getting SSBM HD.
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Bold time to even suggest this, coming after the Sakurai presents thing just recently where he explicitly joined the Brawl project because even back then, he and Iwata understood that Melee but polished up a bit would be a mediocre direction for the franchise that wouldn't really work.
 
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It's definitely going to shrink and I think the sooner people make their peace with that, then it'll significantly reduce toxicity when the next Smash is revealed.

Ultimate was a once in a lifetime opportunity that Sakurai just couldn't pass up at the time. It's not feasible just to keep adding more characters in perpituity, for logistical as well as financial reasons. We should celebrate what Ultimate did but not use it as a stick to beat future devs with when it proves impossible to replicate.

For what it's worth, if Sakurai returns to helm the next one, there's likely still be a huge number of characters. Moreover, I can absolutely see Nintendo taking notes from Capcom and Street Fighter and producing a significant post launch content plan, so that maybe after a while it could end up at Ultimate levels or thereabouts. Also, expect costumes.
 
It will grow and Sakurai will find a word that surpasses "Ultimate" something along the lines of "Ultimate Omega" because Sakurai believes he can surpass himself yet again to be sure his legacy will be remembered forever and he will look 20 years old when he is done.
 
It will shrink and the next Smash will probably be a new concept for the series. Ultimate was basically the ultimate (heh) send-off to the old-school Smash Bros. Next series rooster will be something like 20 or 24 at launch I think.
 
Galgavias said:
It's definitely going to shrink and I think the sooner people make their peace with that, then it'll significantly reduce toxicity when the next Smash is revealed.

Ultimate was a once in a lifetime opportunity that Sakurai just couldn't pass up at the time. It's not feasible just to keep adding more characters in perpituity, for logistical as well as financial reasons. We should celebrate what Ultimate did but not use it as a stick to beat future devs with when it proves impossible to replicate.

For what it's worth, if Sakurai returns to helm the next one, there's likely still be a huge number of characters. Moreover, I can absolutely see Nintendo taking notes from Capcom and Street Fighter and producing a significant post launch content plan, so that maybe after a while it could end up at Ultimate levels or thereabouts. Also, expect costumes.
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I do expect the day the roster shrinks will be the most toxic day in Nintendo history.

Petty death threats and a lot of proclaiming the series is ruined by more than a few bad faith actors.
 
Mer.Saloon said:
I do expect the day the roster shrinks will be the most toxic day in Nintendo history.

Petty death threats and a lot of proclaiming the series is ruined by more than a few bad faith actors.
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What makes you think so? /s
 
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Linkstrikesback said:
They don't have a choice, it can't meaningfully shrink without destroying the games sales potential. The primary driver for sales is the ability to have mario punch sonic, Link fight cloud, and so on.

It's why "Everyone is here!" was such a powerful marketing line despite Smash 4 only missing like, 4 unique moveset characters and 3 clones (Pichu, Young Link, Wolf), despite it coming at the cost of the weakest amount of new characters in series history (6 new movesets and ~6 echo fighters, only 4 new stages).

At the same time, I have no idea how many of the third parties they're actually going to be able to bring back, because the budget and licensing will be an absolute nightmare.



Bold time to even suggest this, coming after the Sakurai presents thing just recently where he explicitly joined the Brawl project because even back then, he and Iwata understood that Melee but polished up a bit would be a mediocre direction for the franchise that wouldn't really work.
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That would suggest that something needs to be found to prop up the series outside of an ever increasing roster. Because if the series is destroyed by a shrinking roster, then that would be awfully poor foresight.

Because the mire of licensing alone will be monstrous, and in the (hypothetical) situation parties disagree to the point that a character can't go through, that is something outside of the devs control. Though the devs will be the ones most vulnerable to such a fallout.
 
Mer.Saloon said:
That would suggest that something needs to be found to prop up the series outside of an ever increasing roster. Because if the series is destroyed by a shrinking roster, then that would be awfully poor foresight.
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I'm not sure there can really be a "something else". The Marvel VS Capcom debacle with , paraphrased, "People won't mind us swapping popular characters out, since actually, they're mostly like functions" blowing up in their face is not an easy one to avoid. This is a problem that Nintendo/Sakurai/The smash bros team have created themselves. They've spent years propping up the additions to the roster as almost the only thing marketed, way back in E3 2013 with the first major character trailers, throughout so many E3s, Directs, etc, for most of the following decade. They've also never cut anyone major with the exception of licensing issues, with only 5 non-clones ever being removed, 3 of which were pokemon weirdly enough, but this is an easy thing to go wrong when there are now 17 non-Nintendo characters in the game, 11 of which came with ultimate, (18, I suppose, if we're counting Bayonetta)

It's worked astoundingly well, Smash bros. growth as a series speaks for itself, but there's also no easy way to avoid the ticking time bomb of all those third party licenses wanting their cut.
 
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There'll be cuts from Ultimate just due to "Everyone is Here!" not being the big driving thing anymore (and potential third party shenanigans I guess, though I'm optimistic most of them will come back,) but the overall roster count will be around the same as Ultimate or a bit higher.

Don't see a big change in the roster happening.
 
Linkstrikesback said:
This is a problem that Nintendo/Sakurai/The smash bros team have created themselves. They've spent years propping up the additions to the roster as almost the only thing marketed, way back in E3 2013 with the first major character trailers, throughout so many E3s, Directs, etc, for most of the following decade.

It's worked astoundingly well, Smash bros. growth as a series speaks for itself, but there's also no easy way to avoid the ticking time bomb of all those third party licenses wanting their cut.
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That doesn't mean I won't be embarrassed at the fallout or be unsympathetic to their situation because they will not deserve what happens if the roster shrinks and if their attempts to stabilize don't work out.

Maybe they make a Smash with a whole bunch of new features and better modes, but the roster shrinks and all of the sudden the internet loses its shit because the Square reps cost too much to keep. And then lazy dev rhetoric is tossed around.

Its a vicious cycle.
 
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There probably will be initial cuts because of third parties, and that's okay, in my opinion. Some might return later on down the road, perhaps, or whenever the lines of communication open again.

And honestly, for me at least, the allure of new additions is far outweighed by my desire to see more of the 64/Melee crew get moveset updates that reflect more modern appearances. In other words, the only "reboot/revamp" I need to see is in character movesets that are going on 20 years old with minimal or no changes, and just come off as bland compared to newbies that better represent the source material. And that'd be exciting in itself, if done right!

For example: Mario needed to ditch FLUDD ages ago. Between Dread and Prime 4, Samus will have plenty of material to pull from. Ganondorf's recent, samurai-like appearance in ToTK will hopefully be all the more reason to leave the Warlock Punch behind.
 
Shrinks can mean so many things. 30 base roster? 50? Less than base game Ultimate? More than base game Ultimate but less if you count DLC?

I personally see no need for a reboot. The characters AND movesets are iconic: we know something like Ganondorf could use a rehaul, but why rework Mario? He and most of the cast is fine and can use minor tweaks.

Personally I could see base game having a similair roster size to Ultimate. Everything Nintendo stays as well as some key 3rd parties (which has always been the case) and the loss of some other 3rd parties will be made up for with newcomers. Then we have DLC and we could definitely see Smash 4-esque DLC where they can easily add cut 3rd parties from Ultimate for a cheaper price, on top of the now expected season pass.
 
If it's Ultimate Deluxe, the roster will obviously be larger

It's not Ultimate Deluxe, it'll be smaller for the base game, like 45-ish characters, but will surpass Ultimate's roster through DLC
 
Chauzu said:
Shrinks can mean so many things. 30 base roster? 50? Less than base game Ultimate? More than base game Ultimate but less if you count DLC?

I personally see no need for a reboot. The characters AND movesets are iconic: we know something like Ganondorf could use a rehaul, but why rework Mario? He and most of the cast is fine and can use minor tweaks.

Personally I could see base game having a similair roster size to Ultimate. Everything Nintendo stays as well as some key 3rd parties (which has always been the case) and the loss of some other 3rd parties will be made up for with newcomers. Then we have DLC and we could definitely see Smash 4-esque DLC where they can easily add cut 3rd parties from Ultimate for a cheaper price, on top of the now expected season pass.
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What would the release date of such a potential base roster be do you think? Considering the time frame of base Ult's roster being the second year of the Switch?

How does even such a potential date leave room for actual gameplay updates?
 
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Secretly Sakurai and Nintendo already foresaw this day and bought all the character licenses for a period of 25 years and the 4 next Smash games.
 
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RochHoch said:
If it's Ultimate Deluxe, the roster will obviously be larger

It's not Ultimate Deluxe, it'll be smaller for the base game, like 45-ish characters, but will surpass Ultimate's roster through DLC
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By the time it was done, Smash 4 already had 58 characters, only ~5 of which were third party. Even if they somehow lose all the third party licenses, I'm moderately confident it's not going to go below 60 characters at launch for whatevers next for smash bros. And even getting that low would require slashing echoes or something, as ultimate already had about 70 Nintendo characters that'll be no problem at all when it comes to licensing, which is the only actual reason they'd cut many characters.
 
Chaos Theory said:
Different industry. Nintendo IP go on holiday all of the time. Look at 2D Mario and Metroid.
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Not the same thing. If Nintendo made "Super mario bros. 5", but it's actually a mario party game or whatever, it'd get the exact same kind of reaction. You can have other nintendo crossovers, and they already do so regularly, as in Animal crossing or Splatoon or all those amiibo costumes in Mario Maker 1 or the other player characters in Mario kart, but if they titled any of those things as Super Smash brothers, everyone would ask them what on earth they've been smoking. Because Smash bros is a platform fighter.

And if you're not suggesting they call the other thing Smash bros, then it doesn't even make any sense what you're asking for, because they're already doing other various Nintendo crossovers.
 
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Mer.Saloon said:
I do expect the day the roster shrinks will be the most toxic day in Nintendo history.

Petty death threats and a lot of proclaiming the series is ruined by more than a few bad faith actors.
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You just made me sad because I know you are right.
 
I've said elsewhere, the floor to me is Smash 4's initial 51 or so characters. I think Smash lives on its roster more than any other fighting game, and no amount of "we remade Mario and Samus' moveset" is going to like really provide fans the same joy as most of their favorites coming back or being a reasonable exchange for cuts. I think a full "reboot" is really difficult to do and risks alienating a lot of the audience who seem still to this day extremely happy with how Smash plays. Things like better online and better engagement with the game's systems are more than enough for the next Smash.

I think the floor of Smash 4 makes sense because the prior Smash games have had these as these conflating factors:
  • Melee was made in ONE year and absolutely rushed for GameCube launch
  • Brawl had Subspace Emissary absolutely destroying development resources and a super sudden planning period after Iwata sort of strong armed Sakurai to make it.
  • Smash 4 forced Sakurai to make TWO WHOLE GAMES on two completely different systems with far more difficult architecture.
  • Ultimate had the "Everyone is Here!" motif paired with a ton of legacy content being prioritized and a pretty quick turnaround from Smash 4 still).
Presumably the next Smash is going to be made with a kinder development timeline (a full 3 years, possibly 4 if they really need it), will not have the same developmental resources issues the prior games have had, and probably won't need the pressure of ALL the legacy content coming back immediately (veterans could make for good DLC options and third parties are probably likely to end up there anyways).

I can see a 50-60 character roster as the base game very easily within all that context and not the apocalyptic reductions to below 30. And by the time you cut some of the clones (Your Dr. Mario, Pichu, Young Link, etc.) and cut at least half of the third parties (Sora isn't base game if he's coming back sort of thing), you're well on your way to that number. Cut a Corrin here, move an Ice Climbers to a DLC slot there, and so on until you get to say around 45 veterans, some with overhauls and others without, and then prioritize 10 newcomers.

Sounds like a good formula for a new Smash game to spend all generation building on to me, especially if they can get a decent single player component as part of that along with finally getting online to a decent state.
 
They should go back to the original roster for Smash 64. Maybe even just remake the original stages too. Scale it wayyyy back. But also make an epic single player Nintendo multiverse masterpiece that would be the main draw for the game.
 
TheSpaceBetween said:
They should go back to the original roster for Smash 64. Maybe even just remake the original stages too. Scale it wayyyy back. But also make an epic single player Nintendo multiverse masterpiece that would be the main draw for the game.
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I don't think you can have a modern Smash without Pikmin, Splatoon, Xenoblade, and Fire Emblem and Smash 64's baseline roster is one WITHOUT even Peach or Bowser lol.
 
TheSpaceBetween said:
They should go back to the original roster for Smash 64. Maybe even just remake the original stages too. Scale it wayyyy back. But also make an epic single player Nintendo multiverse masterpiece that would be the main draw for the game.
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Congratulations, you've just taken smash bros from a 30m+ selling franchise to a sub 5m one.
 
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Even in a world where they scale the roster all the way down to 12, people really need to let go of the original 12. F-Zero and Earthbound over Splatoon, Animal Crossing, and Pikmin is laughable
 
I would be certainly disappointed if a large roster continues to cost us character specific challenges ala Break the Targets or Board the Platforms. The new classic mode almost scratched that itch, but only barely, and even then, a lot of repetition set in.

I don't know how they don't just end up retreading Ult's ground if they spend so many resources on getting 90+ characters all functioning.

At that point why not just remaster the old game with some new bells and whistles so as to avoid that scenario. But we've already seen an example of Sakurai rejecting that option.
 
Obviously I'm not going to be getting what I want with a severely limited roster but what I do hope is that the next game has specific versus modes that allow for limited rosters with unique character selection screens.

For example: 64 mode has only those 12 characters in its own unique character selection screen. Melee mode, Brawl mode etc. That would be a good way of celebrating the history of the series and I was surprised there was nothing like it in ultimate. Maybe it could even let you build your own character select so you can get rid of shite like Byleth, Corrin, Olimar, Palutena, Snake and Lucario etc.
EtherPenguin said:
Even in a world where they scale the roster all the way down to 12, people really need to let go of the original 12. F-Zero and Earthbound over Splatoon, Animal Crossing, and Pikmin is laughable
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Yeah, if Smash was being invented today the concept of Ness, Capt Falcon and Jigglypuff being essential characters would be absurd. Of course, those movesets have, in my opinion, really withstood the test of time. It's Yoshi and Luigi I'd drop.
 
If the next one is Ultimate Deluxe, I could see it staying similar or increasing, even if they have to cut some third party reps. But the next actual new one, definitely decrease
 
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I think it shrinks but not by too much, and the roster gets retooled. They will probably opt to reduce the 3rd party representation to 1 per series wherever they can and then onboard some other new characters too. Part of the appeal for ultimate was marketing for other franchises that you could play on Switch. I think they continue to roll with that.
 
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Heron said:
Yeah, if Smash was being invented today the concept of Ness, Capt Falcon and Jigglypuff being essential characters would be absurd. Of course, those movesets have, in my opinion, really withstood the test of time. It's Yoshi and Luigi I'd drop.
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That's a good point about the movesets. I do like how unorthodox Ness's recovery is. After a while everyone's up special was just to spring them upward.
 
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Linkstrikesback said:
It's worked astoundingly well, Smash bros. growth as a series speaks for itself, but there's also no easy way to avoid the ticking time bomb of all those third party licenses wanting their cut.
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Smash has 89 characters (including echoes), of which 18 are third-parties. So circa 80% of the characters are safe. Of these 18 characters we have:

  • 2 from Bandai Namco (Pac-Man, Kazuya), who is the game developer;
  • 3 from Konami (Snake, Simon, Richter), who doesn't seem to care as along as you give them money;
  • 1 from SNK (Terry). As Konami, they seem happy to give away the license;
  • 3 from Capcom (Mega Man, Ryu, Ken), who has strong ties with Nintendo
  • 3 from SEGA (Sonic, Bayonetta, Joker). Bayonetta is a honorary Nintendo character, Sonic sells the best on Nintendo platform. Joker's future might be uncertain, though Atlus ported their Persona back-catalogue to Switch so...
  • 3 from Square-Enix (Cloud, Hero, Sephiroth). Cloud and Sephiroth might or might not be excluded, while Hero is safe I think
  • 2 from Microsoft (Banjo, Steve). This is where things get complicated; as soon as Spencer is promoted or leave the company, who knows what can happen. At the moment Microsoft is happy to cooperate with Nintendo, that's for sure;
  • 1 from Disney (Sora). We all know Sora is very likely to get cut, a miracle only happens once.

Let's assume a worst case scenario. Characters from Disney, Microsoft, SE are cut, and so is Joker. This is a scenario I don't believe in, but let's assume. That's 7 characters. Everyone else is (still) here.

What about other characters? Well, Smash Next won't be developed from scratch, they'll use Ultimate as a base, just like Ultimate used Smash 4 as a base. They'll keep everyone.
 
Ultimate has 82 fighters, if cuts HAD to happen (and I really don't want them), we could break it down like:

Start with the clones, Dr Mario, the Links, Pichu, Lucas, and the Square Enix characters (all of which are easy DLC, even Sora). This brings us down to 73.

Now let's look at the more resource intensive characters: Pokemon Trainer is three very different characters in one, the Miis also take up three slots and have additional custom special moves of their own, Ice Climbers aren't the easiest to deal with, and Steve was a huge pain in the ass to implement because they had to modify every single stage in the game to make his blocks work. Now we're at 65.

And then there's the Fire Emblem bloat: I say that Roy, Corrin, and Robin are the most disposable ones here. That's 62.

Paring it down any further is purely a matter of taste, but cutting a couple more characters and adding the next game's newcomers and you'd have a reasonably sized starting roster.

DLC could bring back most, if not all of the cut veterans. Ultimate's DLC was made by a skeleton crew, for a series capable of selling 30 million copies with one release, I don't think larger-scale post-launch support would be terribly unreasonable.
 
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