Games Inbox: What new characters will be in the next Smash Bros.?

The Tuesday letters page has some ideas for supervillains in the next Spider-Man game, as a reader hopes Assassin’s Creed Hexe keeps its supernatural elements.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

New guests
Even if there is a new Star Fox annoucement this month or next everyone seems to agree it’ll be fairly low key, so we’re almost definitely looking at the first proper Nintendo Direct of the year being in June. I don’t agree with it, I think it’s very silly, but when did Nintendo ever listen to someone else, or common sense?

My question is will the summer not-E3 one be the mega blowout everyone’s hoping for or will it be another minimum effort, showing as little as possible of as few games as possible? I don’t think there’s any way of knowing.

Amongst the many questions I have is what’s going on with Super Smash Bros.? Surely that’s the most obvious Switch 2 Edition ever and yet we’ve heard nothing.

It also seems obvious that they’d add a few new characters to sweeten the pot, but I can’t think of any new Nintendo characters they could add. That’s a pretty bad sign for Nintendo to be honest but maybe they could add the Ditto from Pokémon Pokopia or Diana from Pragmata?

Capcom and Nintendo seem pretty cozy so why not Grace or Leon from Resident Evil too? Bayonetta is an 18 rated game and she’s already in the game, so I didn’t see why not if they don’t have any gore.
Astrocat

Combo breaker
Knowing how much GC loves Returnal, I am kind of shocked that it’s such a close run thing between Pragmata and Saros. If Pragmata had had a better story maybe it would have passed it!

Capcom has knocked it out of the park yet again and I really hope that Onimusha is a hit and then just think of the combo they’ll have from this year. What’s going to break that combo I don’t know, but I’m going to guess it’ll be something to do with Monster Hunter.

It really annoys me that that’s their biggest franchise, as no matter how much I love most of their stuff I just cannot get into it. But I don’t think it’s time for another one at the moment, so I’m hoping that whatever’s after Onimusha is also interesting. Another new IP would be amazing.
Grayling

Horror sequel
I’m not sure why possessing a witch’s cat would break some kind of rule in the Assassin’s Creed universe, given you’re always seeing the world through an eagle or falcon’s eyes – what’s the difference?

It’s not like I was dead set on being a cat or anything, but I feel after Valhalla and Shadows the series needs a change of pace. It can’t just be another big open world game, not with the Black Flag remake out this year as well.

Or maybe I’m wrong and that’s all people want out of Assassin’s Creed, but I feel with a big open world game you don’t much atmosphere or story, it’s all just shock and awe at the scale. I like the idea of a horror entry but taking all the supernatural stuff out of it sounds like that’s not going to work properly.
Bobly

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Low risk revival
Apart from just generally looking forward to a new Star Fox, I’m also really interested to see whether Nintendo really will do a low budget sequel. They’ve done plenty of indie-ish type games before, but I can’t ever recall them doing a super cheap sequel for a big name franchise.

Of course, the problem nowadays is that Star Fox isn’t big name, but it was in the Mario movie and it definitely used to be a prominent B-lister at least. I don’t know what it counts as now but it’s somewhere below Fire Emblem, which I’d say is pretty low compared to where it used to be.

If they do put out something and it’s low budget, with an option for a second bigger game later, that could be a great way to try and rejuvenate other lapsed franchises like F-Zero and, dare I say, Metroid.
Lewis

Comedy threat
Seems to me that Insomanic is building up to a new game annoucement, probably quite soon after Wolverine is out – so maybe at The Game Awards in December. That guy the other day was definitely doing something for a Spider-Man game so something is in the works.

My preference for Spider-Man 3 is that they let things get a bit more wacky and let him go somewhere other than New York, but I’m prepared for that probably not happening. I would like to see more silly villains at least. Where’s Paste Pot Pete, Big Wheel, and Walrus? I always like Spidey when he’s been funny with his lamer villains, who he doesn’t really want to hurt.
Caskill

No passion
Looking back at the legacy of Phil Spencer I think the only logical conclusion is that having a passion for video games is not a good idea for the person in charge. The people immediately below them, sure, but not the person at the very top. Is the head of Capcom or Nintendo or Activision or EA a massive gamer? No, and not only that I have no idea who any of those people are, even though I know a lot of their developers by name.

I don’t know what exactly Phil got up to but I’m willing to bet there was a lot of micromanaging and suggesting things and spitballing ideas with developers, like he’s one of the team. Even though he’s never actually made a game himself or anything like that.

This isn’t meant as an attack on Phil, who seemed a decent enough guy, but it’s just to say that if this new boss doesn’t know anything about games and is just talking in soundbites right now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing as long as she’s making the right decisions along the way.

The alternative is that she’s some super eager fan that keeps trying to get a sequel made to her favourite game (Phil kept pretending he was dong this but nothing ever happened) and is making decisions based on their own imagined gaming knowledge, instead of just listening to the experts and going with what they say.

I’m not saying she won’t end up messing things up (apart from anything she still has Matt Booty working with her and he’s always seemed awful) but if she just makes decisions based on facts and stats then that’s probably going to be better than anything we’ve had recently.
Focus

Status quo
I appreciate the Reader’s Feature at the weekend about too much rumours in news but I really don’t see what can be done. The number of rumours are so many, all the time, that it just can’t be ignored. There’s so many it’s obvious publishers don’t care and probably see it as free publicity.

I don’t think it’s good publicity but that example of Activision putting a stop to Call Of Duty leaks with a quick lawyer threat is very interesting to me. Everyone could do that but they just choose not to and I think we’ve got to assume that’s because they like the situation as it is.
Waldo

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Second surprise
I’d completely forgotten they were making an Alien: Isolation 2, which is great as I still can’t believe they are, so I go to have that nice surprise twice! I’d love for them to explain why they’re doing it, more than 12 years after the first one, but I’m guessing maybe it’s because the original became popular with streamers? Although it didn’t seem to me that it reached meme status or anything.

You’re right about saying it was too long, or maybe you could say that the story wasn’t big enough to fill out the game as it was designed, but I think they must know that by now, because it’s what everyone says.

What I’m curious to know is whether there’ll be more action in this game. If the original was Alien will this be Aliens? There’s been plenty of games based on Aliens but none of them have been great, but if you’re wandering around with a pulse rifle the whole time it’s going to be a very different kind of game.

It’s a big question and I’m not really sure which way I’d go, as I could see both options working. I just hope they don’t put any of the rubbish from Prometheus in it, which considering it ended up in Romulus, they probably will.

A good story would be welcome but my priorities for the sequel are being scared and not being bored because it’s the same old android bad guys all the time. I feel these are pretty obviously going to be top of their to-do list, so bring it on.

I hope they get Sigourney Weaver to do a voiceover again too, I really appreciated that she didn’t phone it in last time.
Xane

Inbox also-rans
If I was working at Double Fine I would polishing up my CV right now because there is no way Kiln is going to be a hit and after Keeper they must be target number one for any more Xbox cuts. Considering there are mass Microsoft layoffs meant to be on the way, that could be their last game.
Gorf

So when there’s a sequel to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 are they going to call it Clair Obscur: Something? Is Clair Obscur the name of the franchise? Because I’m still never quite sure how to pronounce it.
Balrog

GC: They’ve implied that’s the idea, yes. Although they could always change their mind.

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