Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Promotional art that is also used for the boxart.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is a video game project for the Nintendo Switch released on 2018 December 7th. It is the latest entry in the Super Smash Bros. franchise of games, which are all collectively of the platform fighter genre. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is famously considered the largest crossover in video game history due to assimilating every pre-existing character in the franchise with a myriad of brand new fighters.

As a video game

The goal of Smash Bros. is to "ring out" opposing fighters by attacking them repeatedly, which incrementally builds up a percentile gauge that influences the distance that the opponent fighter is launched after an attack. Most of the stronger attacks in terms of knockback are referred to as Smash attacks. Most characters in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate have a standardised attack list comprised of normal, strong, Smash, special, aerial, and Final Smash attacks.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate aims to be "the most Smash for your buck", incorporating every previous fighter, most stages, and many game modes into one cohesive package.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate lies between Smash for and Melee in terms of game speed. It incorporates a large amount of gameplay mechanics from "for" while featuring shortened endlag for most attacks on most characters and animations. For example, all characters now have standardised "jump-squat" animation durations. From Smash for, it removes mechanics such as perfect pivoting, but it adds infamous mechanics such as directional airdodging from Melee.

As an eSport

The Super Smash Bros. series has long been a popular and professional eSport target, and Ultimate is no exception. While stymied by the COVID-19 pandemic during Ultimate's formative years, it still sees a healthy amount of lasting attendance in both minor and major tournaments.

In higher-level play, this game is about identifying and exploiting your opponent's weaknesses, psychologically misleading or conditioning your opponent into vulnerable scenarios (also known as mindgaming), and using your own dexterity and mental aptitude to apply your character's signature toolkit to your advantage in the form of combos, frame-traps, and other methods to overcome your opponent. There may be tens of inputs a second in frantic play, and split-second reaction times are essential to survival. Local tournaments may be managed by a local community which may or may not report matches to a larger repository, but regional and major tournaments are usually recognised and seen by the wider eSports community at large. These tournaments may happen weekly, quarterly, or annually, and may be separated as local, regional, semi-major, and major, based on the amount of applicants, frequency, and source of applicants.

Trivia

The game's working title is Cross2, which is a reference to the development team using Super Smash Bros. for as a base.