As E3 Expo approaches, the buzz surrounding the next Smash game—a title announced for the Nintendo Switch two months ago—is slowly building to a fever pitch. With the gaming expo only a month and change away, Nintendo has revealed the professional Super Smash competitors who have been invited to participate in their E3 Smash 5 invitational.
The list is evenly balanced between Melee and Smash 4 players, with four coming from each game. On both sides, the players represent the highest level of competition: coming from Melee are Adam “Armada” Lindgren, Joseph “Mang0” Marquez, Justin “Plup” McGrath, and Joey “Lucky” Aldama, each of whom with at least one major top-8 placement in 2018. Coming from Smash 4 are Gonzalo “ZeRo” Barrios, Leonardo “MkLeo” Lopez Perez, Yuta “Abadango” Kawamura, and Ramin “Mr.R” Delshad.
In addition, the Smash title representation is quite diverse with the list of invitees including five international players (including ZeRo, who hails from Chile but currently lives in the United States). Every Smash 4 player is from a country outside the U.S.—evidence of the dominance of international players within that title’s competitive scene.
While the fact that an even amount of Melee and Smash 4 players were invited may be exciting, this doesn't mean that the next Smash title will somehow be a mixture between its forebears’ physics and mechanics. Only time will tell if that is true; the even list of competitors is merely smart PR by Nintendo. By June 12 -the day of the invitational- we’ll know for sure what kind of game to expect.
Check out Nintendo’s video announcement here:
