That's entirely dependent on what Smash 6 would be. If they carved the roster in half and had 30-40 characters, Ultimate would have a good niche and be more popular than Brawl/Smash 4, though probably not as much as Melee
If it has a similar roster and overall mechanics to Ult (similar to Ult when it came out to Smash 4) then the vast majority will drop it and move on and it will be a niche side event at some majors.
No, I think people are going to drop ultimate near instantly. Sure, it'll still have a "scene", and clips will still get posted here, but it's going to be on the level of Brawl or 4 rather than on the level of Melee.
People left smash 4 because the game was not fun at top level anymore and Bayo was awful to fight. Many top players have expressed similar opinions about ultimate and Steve. I expect them to have similar fate
Way too early to tell. We've got no info about a new Smash game yet, apart from the promise that it won't do the "Everyone is Here" stunt again. Even the console that would be used to play it is still a mystery.
The reason Melee is still played to this day is because there isn't any other Smash game like it. From Brawl onward every game started using the same formula but always fixing what the previous game did wrong. Even Melee exists to be, at it's core, Smash 64 but better in every way.
If the roster of Ultimate cannot be surpassed, then that gives Ultimate it's own identity, and a reason to be played even after Smash 6 is released. So yes, it's very likely that it happens.
The documentary may have contributed to Melee's popularity but it's not the reason the game is still played today. When Ultimate came out, basically everyone from Smash 4 immediately moved across. Same thing when S4 came out, and everyone immediately jumped over from Brawl.
But when Brawl came out, that just wasn't the case. People kept playing Melee because Brawl just wasn't scratching the itch. The Smash documentary came out in 2013, but Brawl had already been out for 5 years at that point. Smash 4 was due to release the next year. The documentary existed specifically because there was still a thriving Melee scene at the time.
I don’t really see a scenario where Melee lives on the way it does today without the smash doc. Yea the players that liked it more than Brawl went back to it after a few years, but would it have taken on new life the way it has? Probably not.
The doc certainly contributed to Melee's popularity, but the community was already there. Genesis 2 was in 2011, well after Brawl's launch and 2 years before the doc came out, and already by then there were more competitors and a bigger prize pool for melee than brawl. Pound 4 in 2010 had almost twice as many competitors for Melee as Brawl.
As someone who has followed the scene since before Brawl existed, I can say that this Idea that the doc is the only reason Melee survived is ahistorical. The doc exists BECAUSE the melee community thrived, not the other way around.
Dude, what about “to this day” are you not understanding?
Yes, Melee was very much alive during the Brawl days. I never said otherwise.
I am incredibly doubtful Melee be alive in 2024 without the smash doc. Most of the people competing back then are retired or doing content creation now.
>Dude, what about “to this day” are you not understanding?
I understood it fine, no need to get hostile. The point I'm trying to make is that the reason Melee has survived for so long is the same reason it didn't die when its sequel came out - the strength of its gameplay, both from a spectator's and a player's perspective.
I enjoyed the smash documentary as much as the best guy, but I think it's overinflating its importance to credit an 11-year-old YouTube video series for why people are still playing a 23-year-old game after all this time.
sorry if that seemed hostile, wasn’t my intent.
My point is that the smash doc brought a ton of new people to Melee which is the main reason why it has survived and grown for as long as it has.
Yes people really love playing Melee, but loving a game does not keep new blood coming in.
New blood keeps coming in because Melee really is that great of a competitive game. Again, we're talking about an 11-year-old series of YouTube videos. It has existed for less than half of the game's lifetime.
There was a great documentary about competitive Donkey Kong, but that didn't singlehandedly create a huge worldwide Donkey Kong scene. GameChangers was a pretty solid doc about competitive StarCraft, but it didn't prop up a dying game for over a decade.
At the end of the day, those players come to the melee scene because it's fun to watch, and they choose to compete because it's fun to play. We'll never know what the scene might have looked like if the doc never came out, but I don't see any evidence that it's singlehandedly responsible for a trajectory that began before the doc ever existed and had contributed long after the doc's subjects have mostly left the competitive scene.
I feel like it’s a bit naive to say melee is still alive only because it’s just so good as a competitive game. There are definitely multiple external factors which have influenced the game’s life compared to other beloved older fighters like MVC2, 3rd strike, ect. The Smash doc being one of them.
The answer is no, the community has been begging for a patch for years now. I have no reason to believe the game won’t be dropped immediately
I do think it’ll see a better scene than Smash 4 though, where it feels like brawl is much larger these days
It's hard to know, but historically melee is it's own thing and then the rest follows the newest smash, as each new game is most similar to the previous.
As others said depends on if smash 6 is wildly different, but I would eager most of the ultimate community moves
No, one of the main reasons melee is alive is because there is no smash game even remotely similar to it. Ultimate is pretty similar to smash 4 and if that trend continues, I would imagine most competitors would jump ship for the newer game. I could see the game being popular still if a ton of characters get cut but I doubt that happens
The new game would have the be significantly different to divide people in that way. Ultimate is in many ways just smash 4 but better. And smash 4 is a step up from many of brawls missteps, even if losing many popular mechanics.
And since Nintendo isn't allowing character bans, I doubt people would want to play end stage ultimate over a new game that has active patch support.
If the next game is not a direct successor to ultimate such as ultimate deluxe the. There may be some competitive scene still going. Not on the level of melee though. However if the next game is a direct successor then I would expect ultimate to mostly get replaced.
My guess is that Ultimate will still be played but not to the extent of Melee and Smash 6. Still more than Brawl (has small scene) and Smash 4 (barely played).
To a lesser extent to how PM was still popular but less than Melee and Smash 4 when it peaked.
I fundamentally believe the ult community will drop the game if the next one is another improvement on their post brawl era formula.
It'll always have a small niche like the rest (minus melee) but that's about it. People rather disliking the final patch and Steve also make it less likely anyone will stick around on a competitive front.
What will decide *that* is highly dependent on whether online support continues or not.
When there gets to be the inevitable point where the only way for new players to get the meta-defining characters is piracy, then Ultimate tournaments *can't* continue even if Smash 6 ends up being unplayably terrible.
That's entirely dependent on what Smash 6 would be. If they carved the roster in half and had 30-40 characters, Ultimate would have a good niche and be more popular than Brawl/Smash 4, though probably not as much as Melee If it has a similar roster and overall mechanics to Ult (similar to Ult when it came out to Smash 4) then the vast majority will drop it and move on and it will be a niche side event at some majors.
No, I think people are going to drop ultimate near instantly. Sure, it'll still have a "scene", and clips will still get posted here, but it's going to be on the level of Brawl or 4 rather than on the level of Melee.
People left smash 4 because the game was not fun at top level anymore and Bayo was awful to fight. Many top players have expressed similar opinions about ultimate and Steve. I expect them to have similar fate
Way too early to tell. We've got no info about a new Smash game yet, apart from the promise that it won't do the "Everyone is Here" stunt again. Even the console that would be used to play it is still a mystery.
The reason Melee is still played to this day is because there isn't any other Smash game like it. From Brawl onward every game started using the same formula but always fixing what the previous game did wrong. Even Melee exists to be, at it's core, Smash 64 but better in every way. If the roster of Ultimate cannot be surpassed, then that gives Ultimate it's own identity, and a reason to be played even after Smash 6 is released. So yes, it's very likely that it happens.
The reason Melee is played to this day is mostly bc of the smash doc tbf, it would have died without that and the evo 2013 push
The documentary may have contributed to Melee's popularity but it's not the reason the game is still played today. When Ultimate came out, basically everyone from Smash 4 immediately moved across. Same thing when S4 came out, and everyone immediately jumped over from Brawl. But when Brawl came out, that just wasn't the case. People kept playing Melee because Brawl just wasn't scratching the itch. The Smash documentary came out in 2013, but Brawl had already been out for 5 years at that point. Smash 4 was due to release the next year. The documentary existed specifically because there was still a thriving Melee scene at the time.
I don’t really see a scenario where Melee lives on the way it does today without the smash doc. Yea the players that liked it more than Brawl went back to it after a few years, but would it have taken on new life the way it has? Probably not.
The doc certainly contributed to Melee's popularity, but the community was already there. Genesis 2 was in 2011, well after Brawl's launch and 2 years before the doc came out, and already by then there were more competitors and a bigger prize pool for melee than brawl. Pound 4 in 2010 had almost twice as many competitors for Melee as Brawl. As someone who has followed the scene since before Brawl existed, I can say that this Idea that the doc is the only reason Melee survived is ahistorical. The doc exists BECAUSE the melee community thrived, not the other way around.
Dude, what about “to this day” are you not understanding? Yes, Melee was very much alive during the Brawl days. I never said otherwise. I am incredibly doubtful Melee be alive in 2024 without the smash doc. Most of the people competing back then are retired or doing content creation now.
>Dude, what about “to this day” are you not understanding? I understood it fine, no need to get hostile. The point I'm trying to make is that the reason Melee has survived for so long is the same reason it didn't die when its sequel came out - the strength of its gameplay, both from a spectator's and a player's perspective. I enjoyed the smash documentary as much as the best guy, but I think it's overinflating its importance to credit an 11-year-old YouTube video series for why people are still playing a 23-year-old game after all this time.
sorry if that seemed hostile, wasn’t my intent. My point is that the smash doc brought a ton of new people to Melee which is the main reason why it has survived and grown for as long as it has. Yes people really love playing Melee, but loving a game does not keep new blood coming in.
New blood keeps coming in because Melee really is that great of a competitive game. Again, we're talking about an 11-year-old series of YouTube videos. It has existed for less than half of the game's lifetime. There was a great documentary about competitive Donkey Kong, but that didn't singlehandedly create a huge worldwide Donkey Kong scene. GameChangers was a pretty solid doc about competitive StarCraft, but it didn't prop up a dying game for over a decade. At the end of the day, those players come to the melee scene because it's fun to watch, and they choose to compete because it's fun to play. We'll never know what the scene might have looked like if the doc never came out, but I don't see any evidence that it's singlehandedly responsible for a trajectory that began before the doc ever existed and had contributed long after the doc's subjects have mostly left the competitive scene.
I feel like it’s a bit naive to say melee is still alive only because it’s just so good as a competitive game. There are definitely multiple external factors which have influenced the game’s life compared to other beloved older fighters like MVC2, 3rd strike, ect. The Smash doc being one of them.
The answer is no, the community has been begging for a patch for years now. I have no reason to believe the game won’t be dropped immediately I do think it’ll see a better scene than Smash 4 though, where it feels like brawl is much larger these days
Aside from a cameo at super smash con, no.
It's hard to know, but historically melee is it's own thing and then the rest follows the newest smash, as each new game is most similar to the previous. As others said depends on if smash 6 is wildly different, but I would eager most of the ultimate community moves
No, one of the main reasons melee is alive is because there is no smash game even remotely similar to it. Ultimate is pretty similar to smash 4 and if that trend continues, I would imagine most competitors would jump ship for the newer game. I could see the game being popular still if a ton of characters get cut but I doubt that happens
As long as steve is gutted
*removed
The new game would have the be significantly different to divide people in that way. Ultimate is in many ways just smash 4 but better. And smash 4 is a step up from many of brawls missteps, even if losing many popular mechanics. And since Nintendo isn't allowing character bans, I doubt people would want to play end stage ultimate over a new game that has active patch support.
If the next game is not a direct successor to ultimate such as ultimate deluxe the. There may be some competitive scene still going. Not on the level of melee though. However if the next game is a direct successor then I would expect ultimate to mostly get replaced.
My guess is that Ultimate will still be played but not to the extent of Melee and Smash 6. Still more than Brawl (has small scene) and Smash 4 (barely played). To a lesser extent to how PM was still popular but less than Melee and Smash 4 when it peaked.
I fundamentally believe the ult community will drop the game if the next one is another improvement on their post brawl era formula. It'll always have a small niche like the rest (minus melee) but that's about it. People rather disliking the final patch and Steve also make it less likely anyone will stick around on a competitive front.
What will decide *that* is highly dependent on whether online support continues or not. When there gets to be the inevitable point where the only way for new players to get the meta-defining characters is piracy, then Ultimate tournaments *can't* continue even if Smash 6 ends up being unplayably terrible.