Nintendo To Remove Racist Imagery From 'Super Smash Bros. Ultimate' On Switch

A livestream promoting Nintendo's upcoming Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on Thursday came with a bunch of new information for fans of Nintendo's fighting game series, like three new fighters and details on the game's surprisingly extensive "spirits" mode. It also came with a racist animation for Mr. Game and Watch, one of the game's 74 launch fighters. Players noticed it during the middle of gameplay near the 31:00 mark in this livestream:

The image led to plenty of discussion across social media and elsewhere. In it, you can see Mr. Game and Watch with a torch and a feather coming out of his head in what seems to be a clear reference to Native American stereotypes. Take a look:

Super Smash Bros. UltimateCredit: Nintendo

According to Kotaku, the image is in reference to the 1982 game Fire Attack, where players had to prevent a fort from being burned down by Native Americans. It calls to mind the wide grin on Chief Wahoo, the longtime mascot of the Cleveland Indians that the baseball team only recently discontinued. Nintendo, for its part, has responded quickly and without much hesitation, saying that this animation will not make its way into the final game. The company provided a statement to both Kotaku and Eurogamer:

“Nintendo has been planning to distribute an update for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate that removes the feather from the silhouette of Mr. Game & Watch. The original game on which this depiction of the character is based was released more than three decades ago and does not represent our company values today. We sincerely apologize that this change was not noticed in our marketing material and are continuing our work to make Super Smash Bros. Ultimate an experience that is both welcoming and fun for everyone.”

The quick response makes it seems like this might have never made it into the final product. My guess is that somebody from the company put this in while looking for old materials to use that related to Mr. Game and Watch. At some point in the process, somebody flagged the image as insensitive and the team made an update to remove it from the game. That update had not been applied to the build being played during this Treehouse demonstration, and so it wound up being seen by millions.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate comes out on December 7 for Nintendo Switch.

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