Today’s announcement that Minecraft characters will be coming to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as DLC was the result of at least five years of talks between Mojang and Nintendo, according to one Mojang employee. For the last six years, Mojang has been a subsidiary of Microsoft, after a massive $2.5 billion acquisition deal.
Smash Bros. series creator Masahiro Sakurai revealed today that the next DLC for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate will bring characters and a new stage from Minecraft into the game. Steve, Alex, Zombie, and Enderman will all be playable characters, and an impressive, blocky new stage will join the game’s roster. Sakurai will be revealing even more details about the upcoming expansion in a showcase this Saturday, October 3 on Nintendo’s YouTube channel.
While the announcement may have seemed to come out of nowhere for viewers, it was evidently the result of a long behind-the-scenes negotiation between Nintendo and Mojang. Posting to Twitter after the DLC’s announcement, Minecraft’s original production director, Daniel Kaplan, asked fans to guess how long the deal had been in the works. He later responded to another disagreement on Twitter about the topic, saying that talks for the DLC began at least five years ago. That would put the initial discussion of Minecraft coming to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate right around the same time that development on the game began.
Of course, now that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s next DLC has been revealed, its insatiable fans are already speculating on what it has in store after that. One persistent rumor from early last year claimed that characters from Minecraft, Dragon Quest, Ninja Gaiden, and Doom would all be added to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as DLC at some point. In the nearly two years since, the game has in fact added Minecraft and Dragon Quest fighters to its lineup, leaving some to get their hopes up that the unlikely crossovers from Ninja Gaiden and Doom could actually be in the works.
Whether or not Ryu Hayabusa and Doomguy ever show up in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the announcement of Minecraft DLC looks like it will shake things up in the game in the meantime. While all the details of the new stage and characters are yet to be revealed, the announcement showed some unique mechanics - including, of course, building - coming along with the new characters. That seems to indicate that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is getting more willing to really change up its formula as it gets further from release, which may be a good sign for thing to come.
Source: Daniel Kaplan/Twitter