Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s net code is still really bad, and it’s likely going to prevent it from being in any of 2020’s online tournaments.
EVO 2020 was canceled, but in its place the organization announced an online tournament. Instead of everyone piling into a stadium to watch people duke it out with virtual avatars, EVO would host a series of tournaments online that mostly do the same thing.
EVO Online will take place every weekend of July, hosting tournaments for games like Tekken 7, Soul Calibur VI, Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath, and Dragon Ball FighterZ. But there was one very high-profile name that was missing from the list, and we’re pretty sure it has everything to do with how laggy that game is.
Everyone who’s played Super Smash Bros. Ultimate online with friends knows that this game is laggier than most. Even if you’re playing with your neighbor on the same internet backbone, there is a noticeable delay between entered commands and actions in-game. While Smash Bros. is crisp and clean on the couch, online is a virtual dumpster fire of lag.
It’s so bad that even professional players have taken Nintendo to task for it.
“This is my biggest gripe with Ultimate,” pro player Dabuz told NintendoLife in an interview last year. “Online is hard to use for practice because the native input delay in Ultimate, plus the minimum input delay for netplay, ruins execution and skews tier lists hard. I have really good internet and even when I play someone else with good internet living near me, it’s noticeably different [than local play].”
The issue stems from Smash Bros.’ complete lack of native servers. Because everything gets routed through Nintendo’s general-purpose servers before getting spouted back to the players, it introduces noticeable delays regardless of internet speeds. And because it’s all on Nintendo’s end, there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
So it’s goodbye to Super Smash Bros. as a competitive esport during the pandemic. It’s a shame, but Nintendo was never really into esports anyways. Why should they care now that everyone is playing Animal Crossing?
