Site News: Nintendo Life Will Remain A Smash Ultimate Leak-Free Zone

Not sure what is there to spoil really. The game is a silly fighter, not a deep story-driven game with existential questions.

@SmaggTheSmug there are actually 2 things that are spoilerable in a major way. The bosses and the cutscenes.

And there are minor spoilers within spirits and music. Believe me, I’ve seen some suprises within both and I get why some people want that unspoiled.

Thank you.

Insert characters to fulfil quota here.

Great to hear! When does the review embargo lift?

Good to hear!

11 days away!

#Bless
At least I won't have to worry about browsing here, thanks NintendoLife!

I'm still playing so much "Let's Go" that I haven't really noticed any leaks recently.
Check out "Switchforce" on YT if you want more spoiler-free coverage.
Not promoted just saying!

Spoiler: Smash Ultimate is pretty good.

I haven't seen any of the leaked footage but I really don't see how a game like Smash can be 'spoiled'. All the enjoyment comes from playing, it's not like it's a story heavy single player.

Just as well Nintendo showed off as much as they did already.

But 11 days of 20 articles a day about the game anyway... so literally article on article of nothing.... it’s been a long slog already.

We all know the game is coming and we all have it preordered how about making Nintendolife a smash free zone until release. If you aren’t gonna post new info... all new info would be spoilers so let’s just focus elsewhere until release....

TBH the game has already had so many spoilers...

Depends on your own definition of spoiler

Companies post their own spoilers now

I understand people worrying about spoilers if it concerns something with actual narrative substance, like, say, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, but Smash? Really? It's hard to imagine people getting upset because someone reveals that "[X Nintendo character] shows up as a boss in Adventure Mode" or something.

I mean, I know they will. It's the internet. I'm sure some people are upset that Nintendo "spoiled" the current roster of returning and new fighters.

I support this approach.

To reconnect with my 8 year old self I’m keeping this game for Christmas so as an adult I have something to be giddy about. I’m pretty sure everything will be ‘spoiled’ by then as it’s post release. But reading the details will get me excited, not spoil it for me personally.

@SmaggTheSmug
Yeah hth do you "spoil" something for which there has been excessive coverage, too?

This is a silly pledge to make.

is this a promise backed up with a guarantee backed up with a warranty backed up with compensation for psychological trauma caused should the worse happen and we are subjected to spoilers here?

Who would have thought that Tom Nook would turn out to be the final boss and mastermind behind the spirit stealing scenario.

There’s so much salt in the comments. Does the fact that some folks like little surprises really destroy the life of those who don’t care? I un-watched the Smash forum topic so I wouldn’t even see screens.
To some folks, even little things like costume variations are tiny “that’s neat” moments, especially when so much has officially been shown already.

Thanks. I personally want to discover some things on my own regardless of the game so I'm not looking into the leaked stuff. It's fun to have few unknowns even if they are some small things like spirits and music.

I am already playing it, I don't mind the spoilers. It's amazing what they can put inside 13.6 GB.

@Rob3008 12PM GMT Friday 30th or 12PM GMT Tuesday 4th December. Nintendo often have earlier embargos for certain titles. (I recall MK8 Deluxe being like 3 weeks before release).

This is my safe space.

This is a very respectable choice from NL. I wish everyone would do the same so those @#%$&£ would stop leaking info prior to releases.

"Nintendo Life will remain a Smash Ultimate leak-free zone"

or more precisely

"Nintendo Life wants to maintain good relations with Nintendo and NOT risk multiple strikes akin to the Youtube channels currently being shut down for leaking the soundtrack"

Can we do this with Pokémon next year?
I've found I enjoy Pokémon games so much more if all the new monsters are a complete surprise to me!

Except the starters that is...I need to know those final evolutions.

Haha, weird stance tbh. Wouldn't it be a better alternative to report on actual news and simply mark it as "SPOILER" for those who don't want to read it?

SNAKE KILLS DUMBL- I MEAN DONKEY KONG

Thank you! I'll still be avoiding looking at the official videos and such too till the release date but the sentiment is appreciated anyway.

After the gane broke the street date in mexico, I've had to be EXTREMLY careful about watching smash bros youtubers.

Thank you.

Now if you could only move the X of "data miners find thing X in game Y" to the article itself and not the title, you'd be even ultimater! Ultimatier? Uhh.... ultimeatier?? NINTENDO LIFE: ULTRA MEAT EATER!!!

Thanks NintendoLife

Good decision. I for one appreciate it. Thanks NintendoLife.

Good looking out NL, I for one don't want anything spoiled, regardless if it's "story driven" or not i want to go in as fresh as possible. Plus, there is a whole new big ass mode dedicated to story that yeah, I really don't want spoiled

How do you know that these "leaks" weren't intentionally created by Nintendo? Isn't that what happened with Meltan?

Everyone dies in a train crash.

Oh wait, that’s Narnia. My bad. Haven’t played Smash yet, so I don’t know how it ends.

Thank you NintendoLife. Sincerely.

Thank you.

I'm glad to hear this, but....I'm also curious how one "spoils" a fighting game. Especially when Nintendo dedicated their entire E3 to showcasing every mundane detail with still frames, arrows, and annotations.

I suppose we haven't seen much of World of Light though.

That's a good decision on behalf of NintendoLife.

Appreciate it!

Thank you so much for playing my game

I appreciate this. ...I stopped visiting GameSpot because it felt like whatever I was excited about at the moment might be spoiled just by their headlines alone! It’s a real bummer when it happens.

Spoiler: Mario is in Smash.

On a serious note, I welcome spoiler-free zones. This is really difficult to pull off in this day and age where information is easily shared and people want their fifteen minutes of Fame.

@aznable Despite the massive coverage, there's still a lot of content that has not been revealed to the public(by Nintendo):
What's the total number of music tracks?
What's the total number of Spirits?
Are there more cutscenes in World of Light? How many?
Are there new bosses in World of Light aside the ones shown? Or we're getting only Subspace comebacks?
Does the game have unlockable modes?
Unlockable secret stages?

Remember Sakurai said that he was revealing all the roster before the game arrived. But only that. We don't know about the other content. So it can certainly be spoilable.

Thank you NintendoLife! Having had secrets from the previous Smash game spoiled by sites I no longer visit or trust, I’m happy to keep visiting your good selves for the coming weeks!

Good call! I have being treading very carefully on the internet recently to save myself from spoilers, I just want to discover things by myself. Very glad I can trust you guys on this, appreciate it.

This is why I love N Life!!

@Sebas
Those don't seem all that experience-ruining, especially the soundtracks question. I guess I just don't care enough.

Sounds like an attack from Nintendo Wil happen if they do since they never did it for other games.

Thank you, NL! You're my main source for Nintendo news, so I'm grateful for the spoiler protection.
I've watched all the directs and read the official news, but still look forward to discovering the unrevealed content on my own, after release.

In other words you don't want to lose that Nintendo connection.
Yeah we see you

Thank you thank you thank you!

0.o what is there to spoil? theyve already announced everything.

Is good know. Thanks

@Vapeguy "...new big ass mode..."
You have my attention good sir!

Nintendo really screwed the pooch on this one. Ship the game out to stores in developing countries weeks before allowing access to even trusted reviewers.... gee, I can't see how THAT would ever backfire. I don't think the Russian guy is the only Nintendo executive in imminent risk of termination.

@SmaggTheSmug there's always someone who finds a deeper story with essentially questions with games like this.
Example: https://youtu.be/g_2OPd25FOw

Now I'm aware that this counts as thread necromancy at this point given how late to the party I am, but... honestly, how is getting spoiled post-release any better than being spoiled pre-release? Sure, less people get spoiled after release, but it still counts as getting spoiled nonetheless. Leaks hardly matter - it's not like the surprise factor behind the roster is at stake, anyway. I'm almost totally with @SmaggTheSmug on this one, minus the "silly fighter" thing his comment had going for it.
Also, people always suggest leaks are inherently bad for the dev team, and as much as Sakurai poured his heart and soul into Ultimate, saying his hard work has been "immediately wasted" is a BIG stretch. How many people would have canceled their preorders because of that? While I do know that people can, at times, be petty as all hell, there's also the fact that going as far as cancelling a preorder because of some minor thing in the final build is something we could only expect from a very small minority. I think seeing Isaac as an Assist Trophy in the final Direct would have been a lot more of a preorder-killer, both due to actual character deconfirmation and the fact... well... we're two weeks from release now. How can a preorder be canceled now? You either buy the game online or don't, at this point. Any preordered copy was already well on its merry way to its destined Switch system by the time the leak happened.
Furthermore, the vagueness of some aspects of the game makes it look Nintendo didn't want to spoil it out of actual fear of preorder cancelling or something along those lines. For a total non-spoiler - I'm going to say something about the full game that I've seen on the net in a really vague manner - there's the fact that the unannounced non-Smash bosses that have been lifted from their original franchises, like the Dracula one mentioned by Sakurai himself (and aside from it, of course), amount to a grand total of two. Now, don't you wish you at least knew it beforehand, before the vague "there's going to be more bosses in the game" didn't blow your expectations so out of proportion that you ended up impulse-buying the game? Same story for the Spirits Collection, which had a review embargo on it suggesting the Spirits did have trophy-like descriptions, but in the final game, as some who played it claim it to be the case, they don't, they're much like Kirby: Triple Deluxe's keychains. Now, I don't mind that much as the actual game is more important to me than its museum-like appeal, but it is the franchise's second-biggest draw to me: I was expecting this, but I'm still annoyed. Someone else out there, though, might be burnt about this a bit more, and while he or she paid for the game already, could at least wish to have known about this fact beforehand.
A real spoiler, to me, is - for example - anything about Super Mario Odyssey's endgame. Yes, you do fight Bowser - big shocker right there - but what happens right after you pummel it? I could put any frame from that sequence right here, and I could ruin it for everyone who still hasn't played that gargantuan masterpiece of a game. That's as far as the story goes, however; everything that's fun about the game, and therefore a selling point? It's right there in the trailers, go check 'em out.
I ultimately (sorry) don't feel like I can take a definitive stance on this. On one hand, Sakurai could be disappointed in the surprises from Ultimate being spoiled (hoping this is not hinting at a Smash 4 scenario all over again), but on the other, imagine how many people seeing leaked footage are instead thinking "wow, I'm even more hyped now, can't wait to relive all of this first-hand!"
It's more of a fifty-fifty scenario, actually.

Tl:dr; yes, surprises mustn't be spoiled, but at the same time no, selling points should.

@Shadowmoon522
I hardly count Game "Mario is mental and we're bringing it up every time we could" Theory as something worthy taking seriously at all.

@Sebas "Unlockable secret stages?"
Nope, for sure not.

Really good to know thank you.

@Mew
Not sure if that's an opinion or a spoiler. But a human can dream.

At least we know there are cutscenes. All hail Sakurai, we thought bringing every character back was amazing but now this game is godly

@Sebas It's not an opinion, he revealed all the stages and said they are all unlocked from the start.

@Mew Yeah, but what if... that was a clever ruse to surprise everyone? I want to believe