'Smash Ultimate': Why Fans Hate Byleth's Addition To Roster

In the recent Nintendo Direct, “Super Smash Brothers Ultimate” director Masahiro Sakurai was excited to introduce the latest addition to the game’s roster, Byleth. Even with a new upcoming character, many fans are causing an uproar throughout the whole internet. Fans have had enough of new swordsmen and Fire Emblem characters added to the title.

As seen on the latest trailer, Sakurai cordially introduced the new character to the Nintendo Direct audience. Byleth would arrive on the “Smash Ultimate” roster this coming January 28. The “Fire Emblem Three Houses” character trailer also notes of the abundance of swordsmen in the Smash cast which confirms that the developers also notice that the fans see their issues with the title.

The flak surrounding Byleth’s release doesn’t come from the character itself but in the history of Fire Emblem characters being included in “Smash” titles as explained by Twitter user MonkeyDLenny. In the previous titles since “Super Smash Brothers Melee,” Fire Emblem characters have started to get in the series.

Many fans saw the inclusion of Roy was mostly to promote the Fire Emblem title he was in which was not released yet. The trend has now been continuing in the later Smash entries as seen with the inclusion of Robin, Corrin, and Lucina which had their respective “Fire Emblem” games with just a few months of release or just about to be released prior to the “Smash” entry. As of now, “Fire Emblem” currently has around 7 swordsmen prior to Byleth’s release this January.

At best, fans would like to see this trend broken before Nintendo starts releasing details about the next set of DLC fighters for “Smash Ultimate.” After Byleth’s announcement, Sakurai confirmed that the Fighter’s Pass 2 would add more characters into the game up until 2021.

Byleth’s inclusion was not totally the director’s fault as Sakurai is garnering so much flak with this character. It was Nintendo’s decision to add Byleth in which is considered a safe pick from his origin game to avoid any spoilers. Nintendo has yet to deviate from its practice of including “Fire Emblem” characters from games that are at least a year old and not including other classic characters. Sothis’ quip about “too many swordsmen” in the game definitely shows that Nintendo is now listening to their fans for their next set of characters.