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Super Smash Bros Ultimate headlined a content-packed Nintendo Direct presentation ahead of this year's E3. Doubts about the popular fighting game resembling a glorified Wii U port were put to rest with an announcement of every existing Smash Bros character returning—and tons of tweaks big and small coming to the whopping 65-character roster. Smash Ultimate will launch on Nintendo Switch on December 7, 2018.

Every third-party and DLC character from prior games, including Metal Gear Solid's Solid Snake, Street Fighter's Ryu, and Final Fantasy VII's Cloud, will join Smash Ultimate—as, too, will the fan-favorite weirdo pair of characters Ice Climbers. ("I kind of hope you aren't expecting too many new challengers," series creator Masahiro Sakurai added before revealing one more new character on top of Splatoon's Inkling: Metroid's popular, winged-and-fanged boss Ridley.)

Move sets, "final smash" attacks, and mechanical tweaks were described at length, with the most notable mechanical tweak being the ability to charge certain attacks in mid-air. Support for Gamecube controllers and all (approximately) fifty gazillion existing Amiibo was confirmed, as well.

The nearly 25-minute-long breakdown of characters, combat stages, fine-tuned combat maneuvers (like "short-hop attacks" and "perfect shield"), and "assist trophies" was so long, in fact, that the special began to feel less like a Nintendo Direct and more like a Smash Direct. This all appears to emphasize Nintendo's burgeoning esports aspirations, with a list of ridiculous details clearly meant for a specific hardcore audience.

Other games, too—and multi-Switch insanity









Nintendo did announce other games, we swear. In particular, the new party sequel Super Mario Party looks quite familiar to anybody who has played that series before, only with a particularly crazy trick: a way to connect multiple Switch systems together so that gameplay from one screen extends to another. Some, but not all, of Super Mario Party's mini-games take advantage of this feature. Its reveal confirms that Nintendo's crazy multi-screen patent, which emerged in April, is indeed being employed for Nintendo Switch games.

As had already been spoiled via rumors, the hugely popular Fortnite Battle Royale mode is coming to Switch—as in, today at 1pm ET, as Nintendo announced the game is going live on the Nintendo eShop. Joining Fortnite in this immediate-launch party is the hugely popular indie metroidvania game Hollow Knight, which will also be live on Switch's eShop today.

Lucky us, we already knew about another new Switch sequel, the cooking co-op game Overcooked 2, but not just because of the same Switch games leak. We went hands-on with a near-final build at a pre-E3 event and found that it has enough to make it a fully fledged sequel, not just a glorified DLC pack.

Last on that leak-reveal list in today's news was Killer Queen Black, the first home-console port of the wild five-on-five arcade series from Wild Thrills. Its "2018" home-console launch will be "first" on Nintendo Switch. This home version will reduce the player count to four-on-four side-scrolling team challenges.

Nintendo finally followed through with its promise of a "mainline" Fire Emblem game for Nintendo Switch by revealing Fire Emblem: Three Houses, set for release in Spring 2019.

The video began with a segment of new game Daemon X Machina, an explosive mech battle game, from Marvelous Entertainment. The flashy reveal was scant on details but looked like it will push Switch hardware to its limits.

So much time dedicated to Smash Ultimate, however, meant other anticipated first-party Switch games were left on the cutting room floor, including the next yarn-styled Yoshi platformer and the already-announced Metroid Prime 4.

Listing image by Nintendo