[CJ and Holmes Disagree is a series where Destructoid Features editor CJ Andreissen and washed-up Dtoid Show host Jonathan Holmes disagreeing about video games. Who will you agree or disagree with?]
When I saw the Smash Bros. direct this week, my first response was, “Wow, that was not the best time to announce another Fire Emblem character for Smash.” After the all 3rd-party cast of the character DLC pack thus far, to get a 1st-party entry at the end felt anti-climactic, and that’s not even getting into the fact that the Fire Emblem series is arguably the most over-represented in all of Smash history.
Then, after the dust settled, I got to thinking this really is the best way for Nintendo to promote the new Fire Emblem 3 Houses DLC it just announced. With six(!) more DLC characters still to come for Smash, now is the time to end of a cliffhanger. That is to say, if there was ever a good time for Nintendo to risk disappointing Smash fans for the good of the Fire Emblem series, it’s a time when they can end a direct by yelling, “But look! You’ve got six more future characters to get excited about!”, mitigating their fury in the process.
And that’s when it really hit me… six more DLC characters?!? If the current pattern remains steady, and all these characters are brand new to Smash, then that adds up to 11 fighters in total. Going by what we got in prior releases in the franchise, that’s an entire new Smash game’s worth of new fighters. More so, with the way Nintendo has hinted at Ultimate being the last time you’ll get all these characters together in one place, it feels like this DLC is just as “mandatory” a purchase for fans as an all-new Smash game would be.
Likewise, Nintendo and Game Freak also just announced that in place of creating the standard 3rd iteration of the latest generation of Pokémon games, they’re creating DLC-only expansion pass instead. Again, it looked like Nintendo might be moving its already ample DLC offerings beyond the “bonus content if you want” style extra, or the “you can get this as DLC or as as a retail prequel” options they offer us with Xenoblade Chronicles 2‘s expansion, and into the territory of “we made this online-only content INSTEAD of a sequel” thinking.
I’m not sure if I’m OK with that. CJ, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to think that’s something to worry about.
Source: Destructoid CJ and Holmes disagree: Is Nintendo putting out DLC instead of new games?