Back in December, it was announced that Nintendo were releasing new Spirits for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in celebration of the game’s fifth anniversary. There would be four events in total, the first of which will take place between January 12, 204 and last until January 17, 2024.
With the new Spirit Board, players can collect Spirits for Rauru from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Deep Cut from Splatoon 3, Noah & Mio from Xenoblade Chronicles 3, and Oatchi from Pikmin 4. Notably, all of these Spirits hail from characters and games that were released after Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s last update.
By booting up Super Smash Bros. Ultimate now, the user will be prompted with a new notification about this Spirit Board event. It’s also mentioned that players will be able to earn more coins than usual by participating in these challenges.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be any sort of additional balance patch that’s being packaged with this additional content, and it doesn’t even appear that players need to download a new update of any sort to gain access.
A patch is still probably going to be required for Sora amiibo compatibility once that figurine is released on February 16, 2024. While it’s still not likely that we’ll see any balance tweaks, it’s not entirely an impossible scenario.
Regardless, there are still three other Spirit Board events that will be revealed later. Rumors suggest that Nintendo intends to celebrate the Super Smash Bros. series’ 25th anniversary, which happens to be this year.
Things seem to be happening behind the scenes as Masahiro Sakurai recently announced he’ll be wrapping up content for his YouTube channel at some point this year, suggesting that he may need to become more involved with a game project. In a previous video, he curiously mentioned that he’s still “creating games for the time being.”
We’ll just have to see what all of this means in the (hopefully) not too distant future.
For five days starting 1/11, new spirits from various series’ latest titles, such as The Legend of #Zelda: #TearsOfTheKingdom and #Splatoon3, will be making their way to the #SmashBrosUltimate Spirit Board! Defeat them in battle to earn more gold than usual. pic.twitter.com/OlLHn3C1sm
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) January 10, 2024