Nintendo's recent decision to join other game developers in producing DLC has led to the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate DLC Fighters Pass, which will come with Persona 5's Joker, alongside three unknown others. Now, a datamine has uncovered evidence that the next fighter may be from Square Enix's Dragon Quest.

Dataminers have looked into the data of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and found coded references to what appear to be upcoming DLC fighters. The characters aren't called out exactly by their standard names, but the code does seem to refer to them. For example, the upcoming free Piranha Plant appears to be codenamed as fighter_kind_packu, likely referring to its Japanese name, Pakkun Flower. The second listing, fighter_kind_jack is speculated to refer to Joker, as Persona 5's parent company Atlus uses Jack Frost as its mascot.

The final datamined fighter thus far is codenamed fighter_kind_brave. Fans of Square Enix games have pointed out that it may refer to the Hero class of Dragon Quest, which is called the Brave class in the original untranslated games. This has led gamers to believe that the second Fighters Pass DLC fighter may be the most recent protagonist of Dragon Quest 11, which will no doubt please Dragon Quest's huge fanbase.

It stands to reason that Square Enix would offer the rights to its Dragon Quest franchise to Nintendo for the purpose of putting a fighter into Smash Bros. Ultimate, as Smash Bros. already has a history with Square Enix with the inclusion of Cloud from Final Fantasy 7. In addition, Square Enix recently announced that Dragon Quest 11 would finally be making its way to the Nintendo Switch later this year, so announcing a fighter from Dragon Quest would be a good way to build hype for Dragon Quest 11 and Smash simultaneously.

Unfortunately, at this time, dataminers haven't discovered any information about who might be the third Fighters Pass character to join the game. It's possible that Nintendo either hasn't decided on one yet, or that development is in such an early stage that there's no point in putting code into the game yet for said fighter.

With the rumor that a new Nintendo Direct is coming, it's the most likely avenue to hear about the next Fighters Pass character for a while. However, with Piranha Plant still waiting to be added to the game and no in-game assets available to show for Joker just yet, the company may hold off on the Super Smash Bros. hype wagon and stick with promoting other games coming to the 3DS and Switch this year.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is available now exclusively on the Nintendo Switch.

Source: Twitter