Update: The original headline of this article stated this was the second third-party VR title to offer Labo VR support. Thanks to our friends at Japanese Nintendo for reminding us it’s actually the third such game after Rooms: The Adventure of Anne & George also patched in support. It would seem that JanduSoft is no longer the best kind of correct…

Still got your Labo VR Goggles kicking around somewhere? It’s time to dust them off because a free update for arcade action puzzler Neonwall has added Labo VR compatibility. Significantly, this is one of the first games outside of Nintendo’s own first-party titles to receive such an update, as announced by developer JanduSoft on Twitter:

Last year’s Spice And Wolf VR also supported Nintendo’s cardboard VR headwear, although that game released with the functionality on Day One, so JanduSoft’s tweet is still technically correct (the best kind).

Neonwall launched on Switch in 2018, a year after the console itself, and is already available on VR formats including PSVR, Oculus and HTC Vive so it’s great to see JanduSoft adding support for Nintendo’s lo-fi take on the tech. Obviously, the result won’t compete with the higher fidelity experiences available elsewhere, but if you’ve got the game and your Labo VR just sitting on the shelf, it’ll be a nice little update to try out.

We liked Neonwall when we reviewed it two years ago, describing it as “a beautiful package of endless neon glows and electronic music filled with some stiff concentration and reflex challenges.” It’s currently on sale on the eShop with 75% off until 5th February, so if you’ve already got your Labo VR Goggles, it’ll cost you just $2.49 / £2.24 / 2,49€ to add another VR game to your Switch collection.

Let us know below if you’ve tried the update and how it compares to VR’s big boys.

In a recent Games Industry.biz article, various analysts made predictions regarding this year’s big industry trends and potential news. With Nintendo currently doing very well with both the standard Switch, last year’s handheld-only Switch Lite and software in general, opinion is divided among industry onlookers as to Nintendo’s plans for 2020 and the long-rumoured Switch ‘Pro’.

Sceptics argue that with the current models selling so well, Nintendo has little reason to muddy the waters and introduce a third SKU alongside the standard model and Switch Lite. The company had a very successful Holiday 2019 and making hay while the sun’s shining is all well and good, but they’ll also want to maintain momentum.

And let’s speak plainly: Switch is starting to get long in the tooth

This time next year there’ll be not one, but two shiny new consoles from Sony and Microsoft competing for retail space. While Nintendo has kept out of the console specs war for years now and successfully carved its own hybrid niche with Switch that’s appealed to a wide spectrum of the gaming public, the plain fact is that holiday shoppers will have two brand new consoles to choose from come December 2020. Next to those, the OG Switch may start to look a little quaint or, worse, old.

And let’s speak plainly: Switch is starting to get long in the tooth, at least in fast-moving games industry terms. The console will soon be entering its third year after launching in March 2017, and its main components were developed and finalised a long time before that. Last year’s ‘silent’ revision of the standard model improved battery life and runs cooler (as well as closing a security hole present in the original SOC or ‘system on a chip’), but there is plenty of room for significant changes. Our OG Switch is holding up fine, but as a portable system it’s taken a few knocks here and there – it wouldn’t take much for us to consider a cheeky upgrade.

Although no software announcements have been announced for the end of 2020 just yet – we’re still waiting on the first Nintendo Direct of 2020 – we’re sure Nintendo will have a strong gaming offering this Holiday season, but there’s nothing quite like new sparkling hardware. We’re all looking forward to Bayonetta 3, but it would pair even better with a shiny new Switch, no?

Potential Switch ‘Pro’ features – what are the rumours?

Analyst Dr. Serkan Toto believes an updated console is incoming this year. Writing in the aforementioned Games Industry Biz predictions article he states:

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Nintendo will launch a “Switch Pro” in 2020, my guess is at $399. More specifically, I predict 4K support, bigger cartridge sizes, and of course beefed-up components. I also think the device will launch after the summer holidays to counter the roll-out of the PS5 and next-gen Xbox later in the year – along with a first-party, system-seller game.

It should be noted that he also predicted a ‘Pro’ model last year in addition to the Lite, so it’s hardly a surprise he’s doubling down on the same prediction in 2020.

A separate report from Taiwanese website DigiTimes has also claimed that a Switch ‘Pro’ model is planned for mid-2020 and is going into production in Q1. While the details behind this report are hard to substantiate and come from “sources from the related supply chain”, analysis of Nvidia’s Tegra chip revenues and Nintendo’s Switch inventory by ‘anonymous fund manager’ PiranhaCapital does suggest that both companies are gearing up for something hardware-related later this year.

The features mentioned will prove exciting to gaming fans who would like to see Switch competing more directly with the competition, if only to enable more third-party support on Nintendo’s system, but it’s always wise to have a fistful of salt ready when it comes to Nintendo spec rumours. Every console cycle there are wishful whispers that this time Nintendo is rejoining the specs arm race. Remember when Switch was supposed to have twice the power of PS4? Or was it almost a match for Xbox One?

So, mindful of wishful thinking and misplaced enthusiasm, we thought we’d take a look at these predictions and ask you lovely people what you’d actually want from this ephemeral Switch ‘Pro’. First we’ll look at them one-by-one (plus a couple of extras we’ve added to the wishlist) and at the bottom you’ll find some poll questions where you can vote for the things that you’d be excited for a new Switch SKU.

We begin with a feature we believe would be the hardest for Nintendo to pull off…

4K output (docked) or increased resolution

Of course, it would be great, although we’re sceptical about how realistic Ultra HD is for Switch right now. The affordability and adoption rate of UHD televisions has meant that it’s getting tough to find a new TV set that isn’t 4K, but rendering another three HD screens’ worth of pixels is one hell of a tech leap, which for a portable console sounds unfeasible – or more accurately unaffordable – right now.

we’d argue that the best we can hope for in terms of resolution increases is probably a modest boost that pushes games with dynamic resolutions much closer to the current 1080p maximum

More likely is a minor increase in resolution. The standard Switch outputs up to 1080p while docked, although a great many games fall well short of that resolution and the console’s handheld screen is only 720p. We think the current Switch’s screen holds up just fine thanks to its diminutive proportions, although a bump to 1080p wouldn’t go amiss, especially if the screen itself grew in size (see below).

In isolation Switch still looks fine docked on 55-inch and larger TVs, but there’s perhaps room for improvement via some of the upscaling tricks used by other current gen consoles to fudge their way to 4K. It seems unlikely given the company’s stance historically, but if it was determined to somehow get ‘4K’ on the packaging of a new Switch (the upcoming Sony and Microsoft systems promise native UHD out of the box), one potential solution might be to offload 4K signal output to a beefed up dock that could theoretically handle 4K upscaling while keeping the main console cool and trim.

That would likely introduce latency issues that would need to be overcome. We’re still sceptical, but it’s a potential workaround.

A more powerful CPU

© Nvidia

The revised standard Switch and Switch Lite both use the updated ‘Mariko’ version of Nvidia’s Tegra X1 which draws less power and therefore runs cooler while offering better battery life. General performance isn’t improved over the launch version in any noticeable way, although the chip is technically capable of more.

Whether a Switch ‘Pro’ would tap into this unused potential for minor (repeat, minor) improvements or Nintendo would replace it with a more powerful substitute is unclear, although the former option perhaps makes the most financial sense at this time. Staying in the realm of reality, we’d argue that the best we can hope for in terms of resolution increases is probably a modest boost that pushes games with dynamic resolutions much closer to the current 1080p maximum.

As we mentioned above, if 4K inexplicably became a do-or-die goal for Nintendo, it would arguably make more sense to add 4K upscaling tech to the dock and improve the console itself through minor tweaks and upgraded materials for that ‘premium’ feel.

Speaking of which…

A magnesium alloy body

Sounds sexy, no? Replacing the current model’s plastic chassis with metal would improve the handheld’s structural integrity (preventing any cracking as experienced by some owners) and give the console a refined ‘premium’ feel. At once more durable and sophisticated, a magnesium alloy casing suggests that this gaming tool is for the serious, professional gamer. Sure, the standard model is fine, but nothing’s more hardcore than metal. Except perhaps chromed metal.

Alternatively, throw in a couple of colour variants and who could resist? Spice Orange, anyone? That’s hardcore, right?

A reduced bezel around the screen

Another obvious way to give a new SKU a premium feel would be to reduce the black bezel around the screen, resulting in more visual real estate while keeping the same basic dimensions of the current model. A 1080p screen would complement this increase nicely, although we’d probably still take the size increase with another 720p screen.

Even the smallest mobile devices boast screens with resolutions in excess of Switch and Switch Lite’s lowly 720p, and it’s possible that switching to one with more pixels wouldn’t cost too much more from a production standpoint (indeed, it could theoretically be cheaper depending on supply and demand and available materials), although it would naturally have to work in concert with a CPU boost.

Of course, a bigger screen will impact battery life, but we’d take that hit if only to help reading all the unoptimised tiny text cropping up in Switch ports.

Wireless audio out of the box

The fact that Switch has a standard 3.5mm audio jack should be commended as a thoroughly sensible, practical inclusion. However, the reality is that wireless headphones are commonplace these days and as a portable device in 2020, Switch’s lack of support stands out as a massive oversight. Several companies offer third-party solutions via USB-C dongles which work admirably, but any updated Switch should pack in this tech and remove the need to carry yet another gadget around in addition to our phone, charger, AirPod case, Switch, charger, Kindle, charger, etc, etc.

Also audio-related, a built-in microphone and Dolby Digital support wouldn’t be a bad idea, either.

5G compatibility

Another feature rumoured for the original Switch which didn’t materialise, the ability to play your portable online when you’re out and about without being tethered to Wi-Fi would be nice. As 5G gradually rolls out it makes more sense for Switch to incorporate the tech, especially in Nintendo’s homeland. With services like Google’s Stadia and Microsoft’s xCloud banking on improved networks in the coming years, and with Nintendo looking to expand its online offering with Nintendo Switch Online, the ability to truly play anywhere would be a significant bullet point on a list of upgraded Switch features.

Alternatively, a non-portable, ‘desktop’ Switch

We’ve already had the portable Switch-that-doesn’t switch, so why not a home-bound version? A dock-sized ‘desktop’ Switch might seem improbable, but by eschewing the inherent problems of squeezing all that miniaturised tech into the current console’s form factor Nintendo could use cheaper components to achieve the 4K output and improved speeds some of us want without charging $600+.

It’s arguable that further diluting the gimmick of the Switch after the non-switching Switch Lite would be counter-productive, and we don’t want to even start thinking how Nintendo would approach game sharing between a standard hybrid console, a portable and a SKU that stays under your telly, but stranger things have happened.

A Switch that doesn’t? It’s been done once, so why not again?

Switch ‘Pro’ – So what would you want?

So, of all those possible features, which ones would make you interested in upgrading from your current Switch? Does a more iterative approach to hardware along the lines of the mobile phone business model appeal to you, or do you prefer the traditional 5(ish)-year cycle we’re used to with video games hardware? Let us know your thoughts by answering the questions below and let’s see what you lovely people are really interested in:

Thanks for voting in the polls. Got any more ideas? We’ve kept things relatively simple and haven’t discussed the potential ‘Elite’ Joy-Con, accessories or unique software that a ‘New’ Nintendo Switch might bring. Let us know what you’d like to see in the future with a comment below.

pic.twitter.com/npDp5Pkrqa

— Taika Waititi (@TaikaWaititi) January 17, 2020

At Microsoft, we are inspired by how artificial intelligence is transforming organizations of all sizes, empowering them to reimagine what’s possible. AI has immense potential to unlock solutions to some of society’s most pressing challenges.

One challenge is that according to the World Health Association, globally, only 1 in 10 people with a disability have access to assistive technologies and products. We believe that AI solutions can have a profound impact on this community. To meet this need, we aim to democratize AI to make it easier for every developer to build accessibility into their apps and services, across language, speech, and vision.

In view of the upcoming Bett Show in London, we’re shining a light on how Immersive Reader enhances reading comprehension for people regardless of their age or ability, and we’re excited to share how Azure AI is broadly enabling developers to build accessible applications that empower everyone.

Empowering readers of all abilities

Immersive Reader is an Azure Cognitive Service that helps users of any age and reading ability with features like reading aloud, translating languages, and focusing attention through highlighting and other design elements. Millions of educators and students already use Immersive Reader to overcome reading and language barriers.

The Young Women’s Leadership School of Astoria, New York, brings together an incredible diversity of students with different backgrounds and learning styles. The teachers at The Young Women’s Leadership School support many types of learners, including students who struggle with text comprehension due to learning differences, or language learners who may not understand the primary language of the classroom. The school wanted to empower all students, regardless of their background or learning styles, to grow their confidence and love for reading and writing.

Watch the story here.

Teachers at The Young Women’s Leadership School turned to Immersive Reader and an Azure AI partner, Buncee, as they looked for ways to create a more inclusive and engaging classroom. Buncee enables students and teachers to create and share interactive multimedia projects. With the integration of Immersive Reader, students who are dyslexic can benefit from features that help focus attention in their Buncee presentations, while those who are just learning the English language can have content translated to them in their native language.

Like Buncee, companies including Canvas, Wakelet, ThingLink, and Nearpod are also making content more accessible with Immersive Reader integration. To see the entire list of partners, visit our Immersive Reader Partners page. Discover how you can start embedding Immersive Reader into your apps today. To learn more about how Immersive Reader and other accessibility tools are fostering inclusive classrooms, visit our EDU blog.

Breaking communication barriers

Azure AI is also making conversations, lectures, and meetings more accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing. By enabling conversations to be transcribed and translated in real-time, individuals can follow and fully engage with presentations.

The Balavidyalaya School in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India teaches speech and language skills to young children who are deaf or hard of hearing. The school recently held an international conference with hundreds of alumni, students, faculty, and parents. With live captioning and translation powered by Azure AI, attendees were able to follow conversations in their native languages, while the presentations were given in English.

Learn how you can easily integrate multi-language support into your own apps with Speech Translation, and see the technology in action with Translator, with support for more than 60 languages, today.

Engaging learners in new ways

We recently announced the Custom Neural Voice capability of Text to Speech, which enables customers to build a unique voice, starting from just a few minutes of training audio.

The Beijing Hongdandan Visually Impaired Service Center leads the way in applying this technology to empower users in incredible ways. Hongdandan produces educational audiobooks featuring the voice of Lina, China’s first blind broadcaster, using Custom Neural Voice. While creating audiobooks can be a time-consuming process, Custom Neural Voice allows Lina to produce high-quality audiobooks at scale, enabling Hongdandan to support over 105 schools for the blind in China like never before.

“We were amazed by how quickly Azure AI could reproduce Lina’s voice in such a natural-sounding way with her speech data, enabling us to create educational audiobooks much more quickly. We were also highly impressed by Microsoft’s commitment to protecting Lina’s voice and identity.”—Xin Zeng, Executive Director at Hongdandan

Learn how you can give your apps a new voice with Text to Speech.

Making the world visible for everyone

According to the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, more than 250 million people are blind or have low vision across the globe. Last month, in celebration of the United Nations International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Seeing AI, a free iOS app that describes nearby people, text, and objects, expanded support to five new languages. The additional language support for Spanish, Japanese, German, French, and Dutch makes it possible for millions of blind or low vision individuals to read documents, engage with people around them, hear descriptions of their surroundings in their native language, and much more. All of this is made possible with Azure AI.

Try Seeing AI today or extend vision capabilities to your own apps using Computer Vision and Custom Vision.

Get involved

We are humbled and inspired by what individuals and organizations are accomplishing today with Azure AI technologies. We can’t wait to see how you will continue to build on these technologies to unlock new possibilities and design more accessible experiences. Get started today with a free trial.

Check out our AI for Accessibility program to learn more about how companies are harnessing the power of AI to amplify capabilities for the millions of people around the world with a disability.

This week at Bungie, Osiris requests your assistance.

I’m currently writing this TWAB from the warmth of my home office. There’s been an abundance of snow in the greater Seattle area, so many of us with long commutes have been keeping up the pace through the miracle of the internet and conference calls. The show must go on.

There’s a mysterious new quest being offered by the wily Warlock who’s always messing about with time itself. The community’s already on the case and working together to explore the Corridors of Time. We don’t want to spoil anything, but do want to let everyone know that this one’s a marathon, not a sprint. We’ll keep an eye on things and so far we’re impressed with your progress!

Iron Banner

The Dawning has come to a close, and that clears up some room in the Tower for Lord Saladin to return and kick off the next Iron Banner.

Iron Banner and Valor Bonus

Start: 9 AM PST on January 21

End: 9 AM PST on January 28

Based on feedback collected during the first Iron Banner from this Season, we’ll be auto-completing everyone through the portion of the quest that requires Rocket Launcher defeats. We weren’t able to deploy a change to this step, but we can complete it for anyone who hasn’t already done so. This gives us time to consider changing or removing this step for next Season.

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Guardians to the Rescue

Last week, we pledged to support Australia’s firefighting efforts and animal rescue and conservation efforts due to the ongoing bush fires devastating parts of the country. Today, we shared the full details on how you can support these efforts by purchasing a limited-edition “Guardians for Australia” T-shirt that also comes with a free “Star Light, Start Bright” emblem as a thank you for your donation.

The shirt is now available for pre-order on the Bungie Store, and here is a quick preview of what it looks like.

Patch Note Preview

When the 2.7.0.2 update slipped, we were reminded that sometimes our plans have to shift a bit. But we were able to release it today with only a 48-hour delay! So far, 2.7.1 is on schedule and here’s a small preview at a few of the changes coming in it.

Orbit/Director

Weapons

Armor

 SUPPORT RAPPORT

We launched Season of Dawn last month and we scrambled the fighters to shoot down some new bugs this week. Player Support has the details.

This is their report.

DESTINY 2 HOTFIX 2.7.0.2

Destiny 2 Hotfix 2.7.0.2 was released to the world today, January 16, and resolved several known issues, including:

• The EDZ Obelisk could sometimes not be accessed.
• The flashing notification icon for Eververse did not stop flashing above Tess’s head.
• Banshee-44’s weekly bounty was disabled and displays “You have already completed this”.

Silence Your Phones

It’s time for Movie of the Week. This is our chance to seek out our favorite community-created videos and literally force you to watch them here. Ok, maybe you don’t have to watch them, but why wouldn’t you? They’re great!

Movie of the Week:  This is the Way

Honorable Mention: Knives Out

These auteurs just won a cool emblem as evidence of their filmmaking prowess. Please allow a few days for them to arrive. Thanks for using our game to express your creativity! It’s just one of the reasons why we love this passionate community.

It’s a light TWAB week. This new year is taking its time to roar back to full speed and the weather isn’t helping at all. The current activity is hush-hush, so we’re going to step back and watch as you work together to solve it.

<3 Cozmo

It felt like only yesterday when we had the first prerelease.  Looks like Mojang is wrapping things up to get us 1.15.2 as soon as possible.  For now, take some fixes as they clean up for a final release around the corner.

• Fixed bugs

• MC-169825 – “Multiplayer (3rd party)” shows in window title when disconnecting from a singleplayer world
• MC-169839 – Certain potion effects that override lower level effects don’t get removed after their duration ends
• MC-169840 – Drinking a level 1 potion under a level 2 beacon and leaving results in the effect being lost
• MC-169848 – Crashes when trying to create Beehive From planted tree
• MC-169886 – No older world protection in 1.15.2 PR 1

Play Endless Space 2, Endless Legend, and Dungeon of the Endless for FREE starting now through Monday at 10AM Pacific Time. Save up to 75% on all Endless Franchise titles too!*

If you already have Steam installed, you can click the following links to start playing now! Endless Space 2, and Endless Legend, Dungeon of the Endless. If you don’t have Steam, you can download it here.

Following on from our reader-voted Top 50 Games of the Decade, Nintendo Life staff members will be picking their personal favourite Nintendo games between the years 2010-2019. To round off our run of features, former Nintendo Life editor Thomas Whitehead returns to let us know his pick of the past ten years…

The end of a decade is either a momentous occasion or ‘just another year’, depending on your point of view. As a landmark it does give us a chance to think about how much things have changed – or haven’t, in some cases – over the course of ten years; that definitely applies to video games.

Picking a ‘game of the decade’ is tricky, though, or at least it should be. Games have not only evolved a great deal, but the genres and styles have changed. Yet, predictably to anyone who knows me, I’m picking a ‘current-gen’ game as my favourite of the decade; it’s in the running to be my favourite game ever but, well, maybe another time for that debate.

The quotation marks around ‘current-gen’ make sense, as of course, I’m talking about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It was supposed to be the Wii U’s tentpole Zelda release, but a combination of development delays and the poor old Wii U’s woes meant that Breath of the Wild came to be better known as a Nintendo Switch game. On the one hand, it’s sad that the Wii U never had a mainline Zelda game to call its own, but in actual fact, the very nature of the Switch hybrid concept helped the game solidify its place as my favourite of the decade. Not only is it a stunning game, but it changed my whole perspective on this hobby of ours.

Gaming has always been in my family, mainly through myself and my older brother, and I have fond memories of family multiplayer nights on the SEGA Mega Drive where my parents would join in. As we all got older those family nights happened less (aside from a revival in the early Wii years), but my purchase of a DSi (and the start of my near-7 year love-affair with this very website in 2011) also brought my mum into the gaming fold. My dad plays some games too, but it still raises eyebrows when I talk about my retired mum beating Dragon Quest games, for example. The hybrid form of the Switch, meanwhile, made it irresistible when it was announced, and though I had one early and beat Breath of the Wild in 6 days to write a review (I’m still waiting for my medal), my brother and mother had pre-orders ready.

When I cleared the game for review I did it properly, in that I cleared all four ‘main’ dungeons and achieved the true ending. But I did have to rush a little because the game is ludicrously big, and despite unlocking all the towers there were areas and smaller quests I simply did not see; there was simply no time. Then I got to see my family experiencing it, right from my mum’s hesitant early steps in the Plateau where she made notes on controls (give us manuals back, darn it!) and then seeing my brother working through as slowly as possible because he loved it so much.

It became a family obsession, although at times my dad might have felt like we were all going mad. Every time we met for a family dinner we talked about Breath of the Wild in a rather (ahem) breathless way. And then my mum and brother would mention a village or quest and I’d be confused – “where is that?”. Cue a scenario where two 30-something men get Switches out of bags while a woman in her 60s fires up the TV for her system. “Over there, you have to climb up that mountain”. It was constant discovery, and for weeks all we talked about was Zelda – cool areas, tips for tough sections and why it was the most amazing game we’d ever played.

It was joyfully collaborative, and I realised my 10/10 review didn’t even cut it; this game meant more than a ‘perfect’ score to me. I discovered and learnt about the world with my family, and it felt like we could only truly experience all of Hyrule if we worked together.

That is what makes Breath of the Wild unique, special, and unlike any other game I have personally experienced in the last decade. Three players, three copies, and endless adventure. I have played through the campaign to completion 4 times – in a dash for review, slower in the aforementioned collab with family, in Master Mode, and most recently a 100% run including all of the DLC in order (but not all Korok Seeds, don’t be daft!). Those playthroughs have helped me through long travel times, tough personal moments, and just general snippets around the madness and tedium of real-life; I’m happy sitting on the couch playing it on my TV, or grabbing 15 minutes on the portable when waiting for a train. It is the only game of the past decade that I have beaten more than twice apart from Resident Evil 4 (my Halloween tradition), and across hundreds of hours. Games rarely stick with me that way; heck, writing this makes me want to start it all over again.

For some, it lacked ‘classic Zelda’ elements, and they’re not wrong. But what it did have was the ability to trigger my imagination – and those of my family members – in a way that has never been matched by any other media, of any kind. It’s not just my game of the decade, it’s my entertainment experience of the decade. Bravo, Nintendo.

Challenger #5 – the final DLC fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate‘s (first) Fighters Pass – has been revealed. Yes, feeling that the Fire Emblem series was under represented in its flagship crossover fighting game, Nintendo will be adding Byleth – the protagonist of Fire Emblem: Three Houses – to the roster.

There was other news during the nearly-40-minute presentation, of course. There was a collection of rather nifty Mii Fighter costumes that bring both Cuphead and Altair from Assassin’s Creed into the game (kind of). It was also announced that a second Fighters Pass (Vol. 2) would feature an additional six DLC fighters to be announced between now and the end of next year. All great news for Smash fans.

However, the rest of the presentation was filled with Garreg Mach goodness, so there wasn’t much to keep you interested if Fire Emblem isn’t your bag. The nature of these reveals always means that if you’re not a fan of series X, you’ll likely switch off immediately, but even series fans might have found this presentation a little saggy in places. It played up the quirkiness glimpsed in previous presentations with Smash boss Masahiro Sakurai spending time counting the FE games using binary (solving the mystery which sent the internet into a craze earlier in the week) and then explaining what he was doing. Then followed the expected deep-dive into the character, giving players a forensic preview of the fighter.

Obviously, there was nothing that would have pleased everyone, although we were surprised that Nintendo didn’t go for more of a crowd-pleaser to wrap up its first ‘season’ of DLC. Sakurai anticipated as much, asking fans before the trailer ran to calm their beans if Byleth wasn’t who they were hoping for. The reveal even played on the fact that Smash is lousy with sword fighters already, with Byleth getting his behind kicked by them and Sothis commenting on it. That’s not to say Byleth isn’t a strong addition or we don’t love Three Houses, but with Smash welcoming historic challengers from across the platform divide, yet another FE fighter perhaps wasn’t as exciting an announcement as we expected.

Still, Nintendo is keeping the Smash hype train rolling for a good while yet and there are at least six more places to be filled. All the upcoming challengers have already been decided upon according to Sakurai himself, so the future’s brimming with possibilities, even if today’s announcement didn’t fill you with cheer.

So, what do you think? Are you satisfied with today’s Challenger #5 reveal? Were you expecting someone else? Was there, perhaps, another part of the presentation you found more exciting than Byleth? Let us know in the poll below and feel free to discuss the reveal in the comments: