The 99th Spirit Board event for Smash Bros. will add characters from Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Princess Peach: Showtime!
As Nintendo prepares to release Princess Peach: Showtime! on Friday, March 22, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is introducing a new Spirit Board event to celebrate the launch.
After a period with no new Spirit Board updates, Nintendo announced that it would do another four such events in 2024. Three of these have already passed, with the final one set to start on Friday.
The event will add spirits (virtual stickers that add minor buffs to your fighter) from 2023’s Super Mario Bros. Wonder and the upcoming Princess Peach: Showtime!, with new battles for you to earn them in.
There are now well over 1,000 spirit characters to collect and while many of them were included at launch many more have been introduced in the intervening years, often to promote new game releases.
The image above was added to a recent tweet by the official Super Smash Bros. Twitter account, revealing Elephant Mario and Princess Peach with Stella amongst the new additions.
The tweet also informs that the event is called Wonderful Spirits, Showtime!, and it will last for five days.
It’s now speculated that this will be the last ever update for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, since Nintendo promised only four additions for 2024 and this is the last one.
Given the Switch seems to be coming to the end of its natural life, with a new console rumoured for early next year, it would be perfectly understandable if this was it for Ultimate.
The bigger question is what comes next. Director Masahiro Sakurai has previously implied that he could never make a game on the scale of Ultimate again, although he’s seemed to soften his position in recent months.
A brand new sequel would still be surprising, at any point early in the Switch 2’s lifespan, but some fans have theorised that an enhanced version of Ultimate may appear on the new console, similarly to how Mario Kart 8 became Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the Switch.
Nintendo will certainly want to keep the franchise going in some capacity but exactly how currently remains a mystery.
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