Super Smash Bros. Ultimate players were treated to a surprise update on Tuesday when Nintendo dropped a patch that claims to improve online play while also adding a new stage catering to competitive play called “Small Battlefield.”
We’ve got the details for Version 8.1.0 right here:
Online Play
There have been several changes made to the online component of Ultimate, including:
- A better online user experience. It’s said that the quality of online play has been improved by reducing input lag by a few frames.
- The threshold for Elite Smash has been lowered. Elite Smash has always been intended for the top percentile of players, but Nintendo has made a change to their algorithm that now allows for more players to finally be eligible for Elite Smash.
- Ongoing improvements to online play. Nintendo has stated that they will continue to investigate Ultimate’s online experience and potentially make further improvements.
The changes made to online play could be huge, as Ultimate has famously been criticized for having a subpar online experience. The fact that Nintendo is making an effort to improve their netplay could be a game-changer.
Small Battlefield
A new stage has been added to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate called “Small Battlefield.”
It has the same aesthetics as the regular Battlefield stage, except it is significantly smaller and only features two platforms instead of three. Additionally, the blast zones are much closer to the stage than many of the tournament legal stages in Ultimate.
Alongside this new stage, Nintendo has added a new feature for Final Destination, Battlefield, Big Battlefield and Small Battlefield where players can assign any in-game song to play on these stages rather than the stage-specific tracks.
It will be interesting to see how Small Battlefield is incorporated into competitive rulesets and what players think of the stage as they get used to it.
Additional Updates
There is a new feature on the stage select screen that allows players to choose “Random Omega” “Random Battlefield” and “Random Custom Stages.” This will certainly make for an easier time when wanting to play on simple competitive matches without having to constantly choose individual maps.
Unfortunately, there were no character changes in this update, so everyone will still play the same. It’s expected that the next wave of character patches will be when the next DLC character is released.
For a full view of the patch notes, check out this page.