Tonight, an era ends as Masahiro Sakurai announces what will ostensibly be the final fighter DLC for Super Smash Bros Ultimate, capping off the mega title in the series.
Fans love speculating on the next Smash Fighter, with entry in Nintendo’s mega platform fighter being practically a badge of honor. With tonight marking the end of DLC for Ultimate, it looks like everyone’s hopes are on some big character that would bring the community together to celebrate the Smash series as a whole.
…Which is why the community have decided Masahiro Sakurai, creator of Smash Bros., should be the final Smash character. Twitter is abuzz with people making their own art of the game developer announcing himself as the newest character to beat your favorites and throw them off ledges at terminal velocity.
It’s definitely a joke made out of affection for the developer, who’s been the face of the Smash Bros team all these years. Unlike other fighting game developers he has some of the highest visibility, coming on camera to present each new fighter as part of the “Sakurai Presents” series ahead of their launch.
It also helps that he’s got a genuinely pleasant personality, cracking charming jokes about each character and the process of making them.
YOOOO!!! Sakurai himself is the final Smash fighter LETS GOOOOO!!! pic.twitter.com/BiFG3Or75G
— Chris (@thegreyzen) October 4, 2021
People have even made their own splash screens, similar to the ones new fighters get when they’re downloaded into your game.
Bruh imma die if Sakurai just says "fuck y'all, the final DLC is gonna be me bitch" pic.twitter.com/c8fDkZSXdP
— SLO (@SLOplays) October 5, 2021
Image macros of Sakurai saying uncharacteristically hostile things are a common trend in the Smash community, often to call out the community. Sakurai recently expressed his distaste for the trend during an interview with Tekken’s Katsuhiro Harada on his Bar Harada program, but that hasn’t done much to stop the community
Sakurai finally snapped… #SmashBrosUltimate pic.twitter.com/DzujdXQmZ8
— DreMeMoTo (@drememoto.bsky.social) (@DreMeMoTo) October 4, 2021
The Genuine Guesses
Of course, aside from that some denizens of the Internet are placing their bets on who the final Smash character would be. Like we said earlier, it’s basically the Oscars of gaming, so there’s a lot of people wanting their favorite character vindicated and allowed to possibly murder Mario in a trailer.
Some notable picks include Sora from Kingdom Hearts, Master Chief from Halo as well as 2B from NieR Automata- all common names from every Smash pre-reveal that hasn’t already been de-confirmed via a Mii Costume.
Whoever it is though, someone’s gonna be upset their identity-defining favorite isn’t in. The livestream will air tonight on YouTube, so make sure to tune in for the future of Smash Ultimate.
Meanwhile, this isn’t even the first time someone’s pitched the idea of Nintendo employees being Smash characters- the late Satoru Iwata and Reggie Fils-aime were used to introduce the Mii Fighters back in Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U.