Masahiro Sakurai's new image post has fans heavily speculating on what the next Super Smash Bros. Ultimate DLC might be or when it is coming
Is the internet reading too much into things again? Quite possibly but there's some wrinkles
No fighting game creator likes to tease their fans more than Ed Boon does with Mortal Kombat, but Masahiro Sakurai and Nintendo have been known from time to time to provide small hints as to what's coming next to Super Smash Bros. games.
Even though Minecraft's Steve hasn't even been out in the hands of players for one week yet in Smash Ultimate, internet sleuths are hard at work digging into one of Sakurai's latest posts that seems to stand out among the rest which may be more than meets the eye.
A few days ago the Smash director shared what appeared to be one of his daily developer screenshots, which gives fans a little behind the scenes look at the dev version of Smash Ultimate, but many believe there's much more to it than that.
The image in question features two Timer items side by side with the purple warped effect behind them though it's what's on the clocks that captured everyone's interest.
Both Timers display a different time when converted to a standard clock with the left showing 12:14 while the right is set to 10:30.
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Obviously, this led to some fans believing these to be the dates / times we may see the next DLC revealed for Ultimate if converted to the dates December 14 and October 30.
That particular theory doesn't appear to hold much water, however, considering we already got a Smash announcement this month for Steve, so it's highly unlikely they'd show another one so soon. There was a three-month gap between Min Min and Steve's reveals.
A different perspective on what the times could mean also has Crash Bandicoot fans hopeful for his inclusion, and the evidence is a good bit stronger than any others.
Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time recently released as the first brand new title in the series in over a decade earlier this month, which of course has a big focus on time and the multiverse, though there's one piece in particular that's caught the sharp eyes of players.
Doctor Nefarious Tropy is back as one of the antagonists of Crash 4 along with a new gender-bent version of himself.
What's most interesting is that both doctors have clocks on their heads which look to show the same times as Sakurai's timers as pointed out by VARMANi and others.
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This could simply be a nod that Sakurai is / has been playing some Crash 4 recently or it could just be a coincidence depending on how you want to look at it.
Crash Bandicoot is one of the most highly-requested fighters to join Smash's roster now, especially after his return to the spotlight with the N-Sane Trilogy, so this wouldn't exactly be out of left field if this did end up being true.
Chrono Trigger fans are also raising their eyebrows to the picture considering the game's heavy focus on time travel and that the background looks similar to the effect used to go forwards or back in the timeline though it is the normal effect used for the timers.
Prior to Byleth's reveal at the start of this year, Nintendo shared an image of Sakurai holding up three fingers in an atypical pose which also sent speculation into overdrive trying to figure out what the numbers could mean.
Sakurai himself ended up explaining his numbers during Byleth's breakdown where he revealed that the director had been counting using the binary method with what everyone thought was a three actually being 17 for the number of titles in the Fire Emblem franchise.
If Nintendo continues the timeline of releases for Fighter Pass Vol. 2 that they've done for Min Min and Steve, we may not see the next character until January 2021 with four more slated for the season.
After reviewing the evidence for yourself, let us know if you think this is indeed a coded clue or if Sakurai was simply trying to show something like the Timer's hands actually move change in Ultimate.
