Starting with just eight fighters feels wrong. Honestly, when you boot up Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the first time, the roster looks depressingly empty. You see Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Yoshi, Kirby, Fox, and Pikachu. That’s it. It’s a deliberate throwback to the 1999 N64 original, but when you know there are over 80 fighters waiting in the wings, those empty slots stare back at you like a challenge.
Unlocking the rest of the cast isn't just a chore; it’s the core experience of the game.
Most people just want to jump in and play as Joker or Sephiroth immediately. I get it. But there is a specific rhythm to how Nintendo hides its secrets. If you’re looking for the most efficient way to handle super smash bros unlock characters, you have to understand that the game is basically running an internal clock. It isn't just about how many matches you play. It's about how much "active" time you spend in the menus and on the stage.
The Ten-Minute Rule is Mostly a Lie
You've probably heard that a new challenger appears every ten minutes. That's sort of true, but it’s a gross oversimplification. The game tracks your "distance traveled" in matches. If you just stand still for ten minutes, nothing happens. You have to actually move.
The most famous "exploit" involved playing a match, winning, defeating the new challenger, and then immediately closing the software. By restarting the game, you reset that internal timer. It was the fastest way to blitz through the roster in 2018. Does it still work? Yeah, mostly. But it’s tedious. It turns a masterpiece of game design into a data entry job.
Instead of cheesing the system, most high-level players suggest World of Light.
World of Light is the massive single-player campaign. It's polarizing. Some people love the RPG mechanics and the Spirit system, while others find the sheer length—often over 20 hours—to be a bit much. However, when you wake up a fighter in World of Light, they are unlocked for the entire game. This is the only way to ensure you are actually learning how to play the characters while you find them.
Why Smash Ultimate Changed the Formula
In Melee or Brawl, unlocking characters was cryptic. You had to play 20 hours of Melee or finish a specific event match with a certain health percentage. It was legendary. It created playground rumors. Ultimate decided to be more democratic. It wants you to have everyone, but it wants you to work for it.
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The order isn't random.
If you're playing through "Classic Mode," the character you choose determines who you unlock next. It's a branching tree. For example, if you finish Classic Mode with Mario, you’re going to trigger an encounter with Sonic. Use Sonic to finish it? You get Bayonetta. This "pigeonholing" of unlocks allows players to target the specific franchises they actually like. If you're a Pokémon fan, you stick to the Pikachu line. If you want the weird retro stuff like Duck Hunt, you follow the paths carved out by the older Nintendo mascots.
Dealing with the "Challenger Appears" Screen
We've all been there. You play a grueling 10-minute match, the screen goes black, the siren sounds, and a silhouette appears. Then, you get absolutely wrecked.
The AI in Ultimate is surprisingly spicy. If you lose that fight, the character doesn't just vanish into the void, but they don't immediately come back either. You have to head over to the "Games & More" section of the main menu. Look for a tiny little door icon in the bottom right corner called "Challenger's Approach."
This is the redemption zone.
Usually, there's a cooldown timer of about ten to twenty minutes before a character you lost to reappears there. Pro tip: don't rush into these fights. If you lost the first time, the AI won't be any easier the second time. Switch to your "main"—the character you are actually good with—rather than trying to beat them with whoever you happened to be playing when the encounter triggered.
The DLC Exception
Let’s talk about the money.
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If you bought the Fighters Pass 1 or 2, or individual DLC packs like Steve from Minecraft or Kazuya from Tekken, you don't have to unlock them. They just appear. Some purists hate this. They feel it devalues the "completionist" aspect of the game. But from a competitive standpoint, it was a necessity. Imagine a tournament organizer having to unlock 80+ characters on fifty different Nintendo Switch consoles. It would be a nightmare.
However, even with DLC, the base game super smash bros unlock characters remains the primary barrier for new players.
Hidden Mechanics of the Roster
There’s a nuance to the roster that the game doesn't explicitly tell you. Echo Fighters. These are characters like Daisy, Richter, or Chrom. They are essentially "clones" with slight statistical differences or purely cosmetic changes. In the settings, you can actually collapse these into the main character icons to save screen space, or keep them separate.
Unlocking them follows the same rules as everyone else, but they often appear later in the cycles.
The sheer density of the roster is what makes Smash unique. No other fighting game asks you to "earn" 90% of its content anymore. Modern gaming is built on instant gratification. Smash is built on the 90s philosophy of "keep playing until something happens."
The Classic Mode Routes
If you want a specific character and don't want to wait for the random encounters in Versus mode, follow these specific Classic Mode chains:
- Mario's Chain: Leads to Sonic, Bayonetta, Little Mac, Ike, Luigi, Roy, and Dr. Mario.
- Donkey Kong's Chain: Unlocks Bowser, King K. Rool, King Dedede, and others.
- Link's Chain: Gets you King K. Rool, Ice Climbers, Simon, and the remaining Zelda cast.
- Kirby's Chain: Leads to Ness, Jigglypuff, Pac-Man, and Zelda.
Basically, if you have a favorite franchise, start with the "Starting 8" representative of that series. It’s the most logical path Nintendo laid out.
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Why the Grind is Actually Good
It forces variety.
If you had every character unlocked from minute one, you’d probably pick your favorite and never touch the other 70. By forcing you to fight a silhouette, the game makes you respect the kit of that character. You see what their Recovery looks like. You feel the weight of their Smash attacks. You learn how to counter them before you ever learn how to play as them.
The "New Challenger" music is also one of the greatest pieces of sound design in gaming history. That sudden, jarring alarm creates a genuine spike of adrenaline. It’s a mini-boss fight that breaks up the monotony of local multiplayer.
Actionable Steps for Completionists
To get the full roster as quickly as possible without losing your mind, follow this workflow:
- Trigger your first encounter by playing a standard 2.5-minute Versus match or a 1-stock match where you move around a lot.
- Defeat the challenger. If you lose, don't worry about it yet.
- Reset the cooldown. You can do this by switching the language of the game in the settings (which forces a software reboot) or simply by playing through a round of Classic Mode.
- Check the Door. Periodically go to "Games & More" to see if the "Challenger's Approach" door is active. This is where your missed characters are hiding.
- Use a Heavy. When fighting challengers, pick a character with high "kill power" like Ganondorf or Bowser. The AI is less likely to deal with raw, unga-bunga strength than it is with complex combos.
- Avoid World of Light for Speed. While it's a great mode, it is the slowest way to unlock the full roster. Only use it if you actually want to play the campaign.
The process of handling super smash bros unlock characters is a marathon, not a sprint. Even if you use the reset exploits, you’re looking at several hours of gameplay to fill that screen. But once the "Battle Portraits" are all filled in, and that final character joins the fray, the game truly begins. You aren't just playing a fighting game at that point; you're playing a museum of gaming history.
Focus on one "chain" at a time in Classic Mode to keep things organized. If you find yourself getting frustrated by a specific encounter—looking at you, Cloud and Isabelle—take a break and come back through the "Challenger's Approach" door later. The game isn't going anywhere, and the roster is worth the effort.