Last week, leakers claimed to have screenshots of the final character and stage rosters for the upcoming Super Smash Bros. games. Today, some rather convincing videos have popped up that appear to confirm the veracity of that leak, showing off some exciting unannounced characters from the highly-anticipated Nintendo fighter.
Warning: the following post contains potential spoilers for the upcoming Smash Bros. games.
On August 19, a poster on the anonymous message board 4chan published what he claimed were leaked screenshots from the 3DS version of Super Smash Bros., which is out on October 3. (The Wii U version will be out this holiday.)
One of those screenshots — compiled at NeoGAF — shows what could be the full roster of characters, some of whom have not been revealed yet:
New characters in the alleged leak include Bowser Jr. (with clown car!), Shulk from Xenoblade, and the dog from Duck Hunt. The leak also features returning characters who have not yet been announced, like Ness and R.O.B.
At first, we weren’t convinced enough of the veracity of this leak to feel comfortable publishing these screenshots on Kotaku, but today, some very convincing videos have popped up on YouTube, using that same name that’s on the first character screen: ESRB0083.
The videos show Bowser Jr and Shulk in action:
The name ESRB0083 seems to indicate that this build was designed for the Entertainment Software Rating Board, which judges and rates video games, but the ESRB does not typically play the games they rate, so it’s likely that this purported leak came from someone at Nintendo.
The leaked roster is missing some characters from previous Smash games, including the Ice Climbers and Snake, but the 4chan poster has claimed those are coming in the future, as DLC. (This claim, of course, is not nearly as solid as the leaked pictures and videos.)
We’ve reached out to Nintendo for comment and will update should they have something to say.
Here are all of the purported leaks that hit last week, as compiled by NeoGAF:
Comments
19 responses to “Huge Potential Leak May Reveal Full Smash Bros. Roster”
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy -trails off-
I bet anyone could guess what the Duck Hunt dog’s taunt would be…
Yay, Ness is back!
I’d say its pretty unlikely Snake would be back if he isn’t on the initial roster, licensing for these sorts of things are usually one offs
Considering NOA has taken them down, they must be real.
48 characters on the roster…. Sweet mother of god
OBJECTION
After reading posts on r/smashbros & looking at comparison posts, I find it very unlikely that these leaks are real, this coming from someone who has been on pokejungle & looking at how people can fake news. Also many redditors on r/smashbros are of the opinion that these leaks are fake, with the comparison posts showing inconsistencies with this news & previous news stories about smash bros. Also 1 of the ways you can tell this news is fake is that dr mario, dark pit & luciana are NOT grouped with other characters from their game series. Thus if this leak news has been proven to be a fake, then kotaku needs a drink from the n00b cup
Yeah i agree, dinoking. The only humans who could leak this content would work for Nintendo. They would not have jobs after this.
It would be a different story if we saw gameplay of fully rendered models and animations.
Characters from the same series were not necessarily grouped together on the character select screen in past SSB games either though.
The fact that Nintendo has taken the videos down seems to indicate it’s more on the “real” side of the fence, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see. I’d be a little disappointed if Ice Climbers are not part of the initial roster though.
Pretty much this, it seems real enough and the mainstream characters of a franchise were grouped together but the spinoffs/third party/lesser in general characters usually found their way to the lower half of the roster away from their counterparts
Just reporting what is out there.
Come on buddy, there’s actual footage showing Bowser Jr and Shulk in game. This is real.
dr mario, dark pit & lucina are reskins, which is why they are grouped separately (also, likely to be later unlocks).
My biggest suspicion is around the separate screen for selecting Mii Fighter, which I hadn’t heard about before. The best argument would be because they have more diverse movesets, however Palutena also has a “pick your own” move set, and she made the roster page, so I would think that’s the main tell.
Dude… there is footage of the game in action… it pretty much confirms the other leaks, i don’t think you can deny it any more.
Also the “No one is grouped together correctly” doesn’t hold up, it’s most likely all the characters haven’t been unlocked on the character select screen, which like in brawl, made the order look wrong. Also in Melee Ganondorf was next to Captain Falcon, not next to his LoZ buddies.
I for one welcome our Duck Hunt Dog overlords.
They should have kept melees roster. Nothing more.
Where is Toad??? I felt for certain he would finally get put in Smash Bros, they chuck him in everything else.
He’s part of Peach’s moveset.
They should have had Captain Toad. 🙁
No jumping? I’ll pass
Oh I definitely agree. I’d love to see him as a playable character.
I’m hoping the Duck Hunt Dog and Duck function in a similar fashion to Banjo Kazooie did back in there day. It would be a sweet little homage to previous Nintendo Characters.
Shulk? OK that’s interesting… I want Issac tho 🙁