A complete overview of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on Switch.
Our Super Smash Bros Switch guide contains everything you need to know about the game, including returning and new characters, spirits, World of Light and more.
Super Smash Bros Ultimate isn’t just another entry, but easily one of the best since the almighty Melee. “Everybody is here!” is the slogan, and Nintendo certainly haven’t had us on here. The roster is enormous, the game modes are loaded and it runs like a dream.
Below we’ve rounded up everything you need to know about Super Smash Bros Ultimate, including a quick overview of all the game modes, Spirits and how World of Light works. There’s a lot to get through, so let’s get stuck in:
Super Smash Bros Switch: Characters
There’s a total of 74 characters in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, with a few more to arrive with DLC.
Starting Roster
When you first boot up the game, you’ll start the roster with 8 characters in total:
- Mario
- Donkey Kong
- Link
- Samus
- Yoshi
- Kirby
- Fox
- Pikachu
Entire Roster
For a complete overview of the entire roster, we’ve embedded a video by ProsafiaGaming which gets straight to the point:
DLC Characters
5 characters are being released with DLC.
Here’s who has been revealed so far:
- Piranha Plant
- Joker (Persona 5)
How To Unlock Characters
To unlock characters, you’ll simply need to spend time in matches. After a certain amount of time has passed, a new challenger will approach and you’ll need to beat them in a 1 vs 1 battle to unlock them for all modes. If you don’t manage to beat them, you can revisit the fight through the main menu and have another crack at it. Fail again, and you’ll need to wait until a certain amount of time has passed – the cycle continues.
Stages
Fights can take place on a total of 103 stages, which each come with a Battlefield form and an Omega form. A total of 5 DLC stages will be added in the future.
New Stages
- Battlefield
- Big Battlefield
- Dracula’s Castle (Castlevania)
- Final Destination
- New Donk City (Super Mario Odyssey)
- Moray Towers (Splatoon 2)
- Great Plateau Tower (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild)
Returning Stages
From Wii U
- 3D Land (Super Mario Bros)
- Arena Ferox (Fire Emblem)
- Balloon Fight (Balloon Fight)
- Boxing Ring (Punch Out!)
- Coliseum (Fire Emblem)
- Dream Land GB (Kirby)
- Duck Hunt (Duck Hunt)
- Flat Zone X
- Gamer (Game and Wario)
- Garden of Hope (Pikmin)
- Gaur Plain (Xenoblade)
- Gerudo Valley (The Legend of Zelda)
- Golden Plains (Super Mario Bros)
- Kalos Pokemon League (Pokemon League)
- Living Room (Nintendogs)
- Magicant (Earthbound)
- Mario Circuit (Mario Kart 8)
- Mario Galaxy (Super Mario Bros)
- Midgar (Final Fantasy 7)
- Mushroom Kingdom U (Super Mario Bros)
- Mute City SNES (F-Zero)
- Pac-Land (Pac-Man)
- Palutena’s Temple (Kid Icarus)
- Paper Mario (Paper Mario)
- Pictochat 2
- Pilotwings (Pilotwings)
- Prism Tower (Pokemon)
- Reset Bomb Forest (Kid Icarus)
- Skyloft (The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword)
- Spirit Train (The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks)
- StreetPass Quest
- Super Mario Maker (Super Mario Maker)
- Suzaku Castle (Street Fighter)
- The Great Cave Offensive (Kirby)
- Tomodachi Life
- Tortimer Island (Animal Crossing)
- Town and City (Animal Crossing)
- Umbra Tower Clock (Bayonetta)
- Unova Pokemon League (Pokemon)
- Wii Fit Studio
- Wily Castle (Mega Man)
- Windy Hill Zone (Sonic)
- Wrecking Crew
- Wuhu Island
From Brawl
- 75 m (Donkey Kong)
- Bridge of Eldin (The Legend of Zelda)
- Castle Siege (Fire Emblem)
- Delfino Plaza (Super Mario Bros)
- Distant Planet (Pikmin)
- Electroplankton Hanenbow
- Figure-8 Circuit (Mario Kart)
- Frigate Orpheon (Metroid)
- Green Hill Zone (Sonic)
- Halberd (Kirby)
- Luigi’s Mansion (Luigi’s Mansion)
- Lylat Castle (Star Fox)
- Mario Bros (Super Mario Bros)
- Mushroomy Kingdom (Super Mario Bros)
- New Pork City (Earthbound)
- Norfair (Metroid)
- Pirate Ship (The Legend of Zelda)
- Pokemon Stadium 2 (Pokemon)
- Port Town Arena Dive (F-Zero)
- Shadow Moses Island (Metal Gear Solid)
- Skyworld (Kid Icarus)
- Smashville (Animal Crossing)
- Spear Pillar (Pokemon)
- Summit (Ice Climber)
- Warioware, Inc.
- Yoshi’s Island (Yoshi’s Island)
From Melee
- Big Blue (F-Zero)
- Brinstar (Metroid)
- Brinstar of Depths (Metroid)
- Corneria (Star Fox)
- Fountain of Dreams (Kirby)
- Fourside (Earthbound)
- Green Bay (The Legend of Zelda)
- Green Greens (Kirby)
- Jungle Japes (Donkey Kong)
- Kongo Falls (Donkey Kong)
- Mushroom Kingdom 2 (Super Mario Bros)
- Onett (Earthbound)
- Pokemon Stadium (Pokemon)
- Princess Peach’s Castle (Super Mario Bros)
- Rainbow Cruise (Super Mario Bros)
- Temple (The Legend of Zelda)
- Venom (Star Fox)
- Yoshi’s Island (Yoshi’s Island)
- Yoshi’s Story (Yoshi)
From original Smash Bros.
- Mushroom Kingdom (Super Mario Bros)
- Dream Land (Kirby)
- Hyrule Castle (The Legend of Zelda)
- Kongo Jungle (Donkey Kong)
- Peach’s Castle (Super Mario Bros)
- Saffron City (Pokemon)
- Super Happy Tree (Yoshi)
This video by BeardBear showcases them all:
Game Modes
There are ten game modes in total, and we’ve listed them all below.
- World of Light (Story Mode)
- Spirit Board
- Smash
- Squad Strike
- Tourney
- Special Smash
- Classic Mode
- Training
- Mob Smash
- Challenges
Our Super Smash Bros Ultimate Game Modes guide has a complete overview of them all, so make sure you check it out too.
Spirits
Spirits are exclusive to the World of Light story mode, and are essentially augments which enhance your fighter in different ways. They’re based off of characters that span the Nintendo franchise and are split into two main categories : Primary and Support.
Primary Spirits buff your fighter’s attack, while Support Spirits attach to them and provide your fighter with special abilities. They also serve a surprising number of purposes too. You can feed them snacks to level them up, send them exploring in search of treasure or even train them in the dojo.
We’ve broken down how they work in more detail over on our Super Smash Bros Ultimate Spirits page, so do give it a glance if you want more info on them.
The video we’ve embedded below by ProsafiaGaming showcases all 1297 Spirits. It’s exhaustive, to say the least. Prepare for a lengthy watch!
