A Super Smash Bros Ultimate developer teased that the next character to join the game’s roster will be from Dragon Quest. It could all be an elaborate fake-out, but the evidence is mounting that a Smash Ultimate Dragon Quest crossover is about to happen.
An Instagram post from Smash Ultimate‘s game supervisor, Kumazaki Shinya, showed Kirby next to a blue shield. That shield was referred to as “the brave’s shield” by Shinya, the shield is a copy of Erdrick’s shield from Dragon Quest 3. Erdrick is a Luminary, a hero created by Yggdrasil to defeat evil and restore peace to the world. The player characters throughout Dragon Quest are reincarnations of the Luminary.
As such, it’s unclear which protagonist, if any, from Dragon Quest will make it into Smash Ultimate. Dragon Quest 11‘s Erdwin also wields a similar shield and could be the potential new fighter. The developers have four new characters to reveal and previously said that new DLC fighters will be from games not previously featured in Smash Bros.
The Smash Ultimate Dragon Quest tease follows a leak from December suggesting that male and female versions of Erdrick would join Smash Ultimate in the future. Alefgard was suggested to be a new stage coming with the Dragon Quest fighter, although the name refers to a large region in the Dragon Quest games. Data miners also found information in the game’s code referring to the “Brave” which is also referenced in Shinya’s Instagram post.
Joker from Persona 5 was announced to be joining the Smash Ultimate roster with an announcement at The Game Awards in December. A Dragon Quest character coming to Ultimate next seems highly likely, as Square Enix and Nintendo have already collaborated to bring Final Fantasy 7‘s Cloud to Smash Bros. Hopefully an announcement comes sooner rather than later.
