A new character for Smash Bros. Ultimate was revealed today and leading up to this early morning announcement, many fans had all sorts of predictions going into it. Everyone from Travis Touchdown to Dante from Devil May Cry, to new Fire Emblem to Pokemon characters were only some of the guesses or wishes that many people had.
In the end, it was actually Byleth, from the recently released Fire Emblem: Three Houses, as indicated by the teased “three” hand gesture made in the announcement’s picture, which was thought to be in relation to Devil May Cry 3’s upcoming release on the Nintendo Switch.
Smash Bros. Ultimate game director, Masahiro Sakurai took to Nintendo’s Official Youtube channel this morning, January 16th, to go over with not just with the reveal, but an overall presentation about the moves, the new stage, and every fine detail that comes with a brand new fighter being added to the already packed roster.
Often, when it comes down to a reveal of something gaming related, leaks start to bleed out from numerous sources, but strangely, this one didn’t seem to leak out, making the announcement an actual surprise. Sakurai mentioned that even many within Nintendo didn’t know of who the character was going to be. The broadcast was actually filmed way back in November, making this announcement even more impressive that it didn’t leak.
Byleth will be represented by both their male and female forms and will wield several of the relic weapons, each used in a different direction. You’ll have the Sword of the Creator, a key weapon from the story that will be Byleth’s default weapon. It has a wild amount of flurry attacks and can operate like a whip to have significant reach and can also be used to latch onto the edge of the stage should you be knocked off. You’ll also have Areadbhar and Aymr, a Spear and Axe, which will have some drastically wide reach with the Spear or some close-range power with the Axe. Finally, is the Failnaught bow, which can not only be spun around as a melee attack, but fired off in different ways for more power, but be cautious, the attack cannot be released until you fire the arrow off, leaving you vulnerable. Byleth’s final smash is an attack where they will join forces with Sothis to decimate their foes with a move called the Progenitor God Ruptured Heaven attack.
The new stage will be a combination of four locations from Three Houses; The Marketplace, Reception Hall, Bridge, and the Cathedral, each with a collection of visiting characters such as Dimitri, Petra, Dorothea, and Rhea. The Marketplace and Reception Hall have breakable elements, with the vendor stalls in the Market increasing the size of the stage when broken. Each stage will cycle to the next environment every 2 and a half minutes.
Much like characters that have been added that have a wide assortment of variations or a series of popular characters, Byleth’s color variants will consist of each of the House leaders, Sothis herself, and color changes to your hair, given the events of what happens in Three Houses.
The addition of Byleth will add 11 songs to the fighter, with new spirit boards as well, featuring an offering of house leaders and some of the more popular students. There will also be new mii costumes added for $0.75 each such as Altair from Assassin’s Creed, the Rabbids, and Mega Man from X and Battle Network. They also revealed a Cuphead mii-outfit which may disappoint those looking for the character to be added to the main roster. This outfit also comes with a song from the title itself.
They finished off the stream by announcing that Dark Samus and Richter Amiibos will hit stores tomorrow and that the future Challenger Pack will contain a total of 6 new characters, instead of five, which are already chosen and in development. The purchase of the new pass will also offer up the Ancient Soldier costume from Breath of the Wild, which will remain exclusive to the pass.
The new Challenger Pass and Byleth will release in just 12 days, on January 28th.
For more information on the future of Smash, make sure to check back often, until then, check out the entire Smash Bros. Direct below!