Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: What’s the single-player mode?

Don’t doubt the investigative abilities of Super Smash Bros. enthusiasts, as they seem to have unscrambled a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate mystery.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, in a Nintendo Direct last week, promised that there would be more reveals to come, including a mode that had its option on the menu blurred out within the Direct. Unfortunately, the blurring might not have been good enough. As found by IGN, it seems that one fan on Twitter has de-blurred the image to reveal the word Spirits.

IGN then reports on theories that this might mean that this mode will provide a way to unlock characters, but doesn’t seem to make the connection that this seems like a fresh take on Super Smash Bros. Brawl‘s The Subspace Emissary, the story mode that provided one of the ways to unlock characters in that game.

Subspace Emissary didn’t make it back for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U/3DS; in fact, those games don’t really have an adventure mode like Subspace Emissary at all. So, if Spirits really is the adventure mode, that’ll help provide a more in-depth single player experience. Since one of the Nintendo Switch’s big selling points is that it can go anywhere with you, having the ability to play offline and still have something to do in Smash Ultimate not only increases the likelihood that people will pick it up (not that Smash needs help) and also keep playing it — and maybe deciding to pick up accessories or help sell it to a friend.

It also means that fans will sink more time into the game, and more time playing a Nintendo game is probably a positive for the company. Besides, Subspace Emissary actually told a fairly intriguing and practically emotionally complex story for a game on the Wii that featured no voice acting in its cutscenes.

Here’s hoping that fans are right, and that Smash Ultimate will have something for those who like a little adventure in their fighting games.