By: Bryce L. Jackson

Nintendo held a Nintendo Direct event to drop more details for Super Smash Bros Ultimate. In it, director Masahiro Sakurai announced 5 new playable characters (2 actually new, 3 echo characters), the current playable character count, total stages, and more!

New Characters

First in the video were the announcement of Simon Belmont and his echo character and decendent, and Richter Belmont from the Castlevania series. The addition of Castlevania legends also will include a new stage, Dracula's Castle, Dracula as a boss and other mini-bosses and the assist trohpy Alucard, the son of Dracula. Echo Character Dark Samus from Metroid, and Chrom (echo of Roy) from Fire Emblem have also been added to the roster. King K. Rool from the Donkey Kong franchise was the final new character introduced.

Stages

Super Smash Bros Ultimate will have a total of 103 stages, almost double that of SSB5. They will maintain the aesthetic of classic maps like Saffron City and Hyrule Castle from Smash 1 , revamping and rebalancing other maps like and adding in New Donk City. They state that if including Battlefield and Omega stage forms, the stage sizes can technically be more than the 103 they advertised. Also, matches can undergo transformation which they call "Stage Morph" where you can play any of 2 maps that will randomly morph in a match. With every stage, music from from its various licensed properties will accompany them. In all, there will be more than 800 tracks featured in Ultimate. This music is will also be available to create playlists and personalization for travel music.

New Battle Modes

Introducing Squad Strike, a 3v3 or 5v5 elimination style mode where players will select specific fighters they want to use in a match. Also coming is Tourney mode, where players can have their own tournament of up to 32 entrants. Smashdown will also be a new party mode coming to Ultimate where players can chose any character in a fight. Once that match is complete, the characters from that match will no longer be available, forcing players to deepen their character pool. Single Player will also make its return under the name "Classic Mode." Every character will have their own unique stages and opponents.

For full visuals, more details and the entire Nintendo Direct, the link is provided below.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is coming December 7th, 2018.