Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s First 2021 Tournament Focuses On Star Items
The first official online Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tournament event of 2021 is set to begin right at the start of the new year on January 1 and will feature a star theme. The last in-game tournament event that the game hosted was called the “Dark Reunion” and only allowed villains and characters that use dark energy to be selected. Players who successfully win in battles during the tournament receive Spirits as a reward.
The recently held “Dark Reunion” tournament event coincided with the addition of Sephiroth, Final Fantasy VII’s iconic main antagonist, to the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster. The announcement that Sephiroth would be the latest character to be added to the growing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster was made during The Game Awards 2020 held earlier this month. The announcement actually came as quite a surprise as Ryu from Ninja Gaiden and Doom Slayer from Doom were the two characters that were expected to be announced due to previous leaks and rumors.
This latest online tournament event for the game was announced by the official Japanese Super Smash Bros. Twitter account. The in-game event is set to begin on January 1, 2021, and just like the “Dark Reunion” tournament will last three days. The tournament will supposedly focus on star items and only items like the Super Star from Mario Bros. and the Star Rod from the Kirby series will be available. It’s still unknown what other star-related items will be made available during the tournament.
While these in-game tournament events help keep the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate player base engaged and give them something fun to participate in, the competitive Smash scene hasn’t been doing quite well this past year. Apart from a large number of accusations of sexual misconduct and harassment from several prominent members in the competitive community, Nintendo itself has aggressively clamped down on the competitive scene lately. Most recently, the company requested a collegiate tournament organization to hold off their planned tournaments next year. Thankfully, the request from Nintendo was due to the company’s own plans to be more involved in the competitive scene, which may be partially due to the aforementioned controversies.
The currently running in-game tournament events, including this latest star-themed one, are definitely a good way to slowly introduce competitive play to the game’s general player base and if rumors that Nintendo wants to be more involved in the competitive scene hold true then there could be hope for the revival of the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate competitive scene next year.
Source: Super Smash Bros. (JP)/Twitter