Kingdom Hearts’ Sora is the final ‘Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’ fighter

Nintendo has finalized the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster with the reveal of one last DLC fighter. Director Masahiro Sakurai revealed that Sora from Kingdom Hearts is joining the ranks. Sora is nimble and a skilled airborne fighter, but he’s very light, so it’s easy to launch him. His special abilities include fire, lightning and ice magic attacks and a vertical spiral move that’s a bit like Link’s spin attack.

Before the stream, Sakurai noted on Twitter (per Google Translate) that the “new fighter may be a character you don’t know.” That dashed many fans’ hopes that the addition would be Waluigi or, as was previously rumored, Master Chief from Halo. But Sora isn’t exactly an unknown quantity. In fact, Sakurai said he was fans’ most-requested SSBU character.

Sora is the 89th playable character (depending on how you count them) to join the lineup since SSBU arrived in December 2018. The other members of the $30 Fighters Pass Vol. 2 bundle are Arms’ Min Min, Steve and Alex from Minecraft, Sephiroth of Final Fantasy 7 fame, Pyra and Mythra from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Kazuya Mishima, a staple of the Tekken series. 

Nintendo has brought together characters from a vast number of franchises in SSBU, including Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Pokémon, Bayonetta, Persona and Street Fighter. Including spirits and Mii Costumes, there are connections to more than 450 games.

The new SSBU stage that will arrive alongside Sora is Hollow Bastion, in which you can see Maleficent’s castle from the first Kingdom Hearts in the background. Rather than including music with close ties to certain worlds in Kingdom Hearts, the SSBU team decided to pick central themes from the series for the nine song list additions. In addition, if you have Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory save data on your Nintendo Switch, you’ll get “Dearly Beloved – Swing Version” as a bonus song.

Sora, Hollow Bastion and the song list will be available on October 18th. The content is part of the Fighters Pass Vol. 2, but you can buy it separately for $6. Meanwhile, the final Mii Costumes, which will also be available on October 18th, are Doom Slayer (from Doom, naturally) and Octoling and Judd from Splatoon.