Dragon Quest protagonists galore coming to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate this summer

Nintendo kicked off its massive E3 Direct with a bang, revealing the second character of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s five-character Fighters Pass.

After Nintendo announced Joker from Persona 5 back in December and promptly released him in April, news on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate‘s four remaining DLC fighters went radio silent. Today, during Nintendo’s E3 Direct, game director Masahiro Sakurai and his team made up for that lack of news in a big way.

Before dropping the long-awaited surprise character reveal of Banjo-Kazooie towards the end of the show, Nintendo had another reveal to set the whole thing off. Set in a dark and somber forest, the trailer shows Link squaring off against a possessed Marth and Meta Knight as a horse gallops to their position through the trees, hiding the identity of its jockey.

That mysterious rider turns out to be the protagonist of Square Enix’s recent hit game, Dragon Quest XI, which is getting a Nintendo Switch Definitive Edition later this year.

Rumors had pegged a Dragon Quest character to be revealed as the next DLC character in Smash Ultimate‘s Fighters Pass for a while, but not this one in particular. Instead, all signs had pointed to the reveal of Erdrick, the series’ unofficial main character who appeared as the main protagonist of Dragon Quest III.

As it turns out, Erdrick is also included as an alternate skin, and so are two other Dragon Quest protagonists from Dragon Quest IV and Dragon Quest VIII, respectively. All four fighters will take up on one character slot in the game’s roster and will be referred to as ‘The Hero.’

Additionally, the remaining protagonists from the series who did not make the cut as playable characters will appear in the Final Smash move for The Hero, making this the ultimate celebration of the Dragon Quest series.

We’ve yet to receive an in-depth look at how The Hero will play, but the trailer showed a few glimpses of how the character’s roots will be incorporated into their gameplay. This includes the use of an MP bar that gradually decreases as you use special moves from a turn-based style menu.

No concrete date was given for The Hero’s arrival aside from a summer 2019 window, though the character appears to be relatively far in development. More information may come during Nintendo’s Treehouse, which is currently being live-streamed on their official YouTube page and will be ongoing for the next three days.