Smash Bros. Next Unlock Guide: Hidden Characters, Secret Stages, Spirits, and How to Unlock Everything Fast

The Tradition of Unlocking Fighters

Starting with a tiny roster and unlocking the rest through gameplay is one of the best parts of any new Smash game. Melee gave you 14 starters and 11 unlockables. Brawl started you with 21 and hid 14 more. Ultimate went the opposite direction, only 8 starters with 60-plus fighters to unlock through World of Light or VS matches. If Smash Next follows any of these patterns, and it almost certainly will, you're going to spend a lot of time on the character select screen watching new slots appear one by one.

I honestly love the unlock system. There's something genuinely exciting about seeing CHALLENGER APPROACHING flash on screen after a match. Your heart rate spikes immediately. You get one shot at beating the new character to unlock them. If you lose, and I've lost to unlockable characters way more times than I'd like to admit to, they eventually come back through a rematch door or after a certain number of VS matches. The original Melee actually let you retry by going into a specific menu, but later games made you wait.

In Ultimate, the fastest unlock method was just playing one-stock VS matches and resetting the game after each one. One stock, SD immediately, beat the challenger, close the software, repeat. Took about 4 to 5 hours to unlock everyone. Not elegant at all, but brutally effective. Whether Smash Next keeps that quirk or patches it out, who knows. Nintendo usually leaves these speedrun tricks intact though. I wouldn't be surprised if the same exploit still works.

And here's a thing I wish I knew earlier: the characters you face as challengers aren't completely random. In Ultimate, the order was partially based on which characters appeared in World of Light. If you wanted someone specific, you could route through WoL to get them early. Teh same routing logic will probably carry over to whatever single-player mode Smash Next ships with.

Hidden Stages: More Than Just Battlefields

Smash games always ship with stages you can't see on the initial select screen. Melee hid Final Destination behind Event Match 51 and Battlefield behind clearing All-Star Mode with every character, which took forever. Brawl locked stages behind Subspace Emissary progress and specific VS match counts that nobody would ever hit naturally. Ultimate mostly gave you all stages upfront but hid a few behind World of Light exploration on the map.

Classic stages from previous games are practically guaranteed to return. Every Smash since Melee has brought back old stages, and some of the most beloved ones (Battlefield, Final Destination, Smashville, Pokemon Stadium) have appeared in multiple games across different console generations. If there's a stage you loved in Ultimate, there's a decent chance it returns in Smash Next, probably with a visual overhaul to take advantage of new hardware.

The stages I think are actually worth hunting for are the weird ones. The ones with unique mechanics or stage hazards that completely change how matches play out. Poke Floats, still waiting for that to come back Nintendo. Big Blue. Temple. Corneria. These stages aren't tournament legal in the slightest, but they're the most fun for casual sessions with friends, and let's be real, casual Smash is still the best Smash.

Spirits, Trophies, and All That Collectible Stuff

The collectible system changes pretty dramatically with every game. Melee had 3D trophies you earned through the lottery and specific challenges, some of which were absurdly rare. Brawl had trophies and stickers, each with their own acquisition methods. Smash 4 had more trophies, and honestly I stopped counting at that point. Ultimate replaced trophies entirely with Spirits, which were basically PNGs with gameplay effects, and there were over 1,500 of them scattered across every mode.

Spirits in Ultimate were a full-on gacha grind whether you liked it or not. You'd get them from Spirit Board battles, World of Light exploration, the in-game shop, summoning (combine two spirits to create a new one), and leveling up existing spirits to evolve them into upgraded forms. Some were absurdly rare, like the legendaries that only spawned on the Spirit Board at specific times. I spent actual hours refreshing the board trying to get specific spirits to complete challenge requirements.

If Smash Next keeps the Spirit system, expect another massive collection to grind through. If it goes back to trophies, expect detailed 3D models with flavor text written by the localization team. Either way, completionists are going to have their work cut out for them. The 100% clear time for Ultimate's Spirit collection was somewhere around 60 to 80 hours depending on how efficiently you played. And that's not even counting the DLC spirits that were added later.

Music and Sound Test Secrets

Smash games are basically Nintendo music libraries disguised as fighting games. Ultimate shipped with over 900 music tracks spanning every franchise represented in the roster, and you could customize which songs played on which stages. My Music let you set frequency rates for each track on each stage, and I've spent more time curating those playlists than actually fighting on some stages. I'm not even embarrassed about it.

Hidden music tracks are a thing too, and they're always a pain to track down. Melee hid alternative menu themes and victory jingles behind specific and obscure unlock conditions. Brawl had CD drops during matches that added tracks to your collection, and you had to physically pick up the CD before it disappeared. Ultimate mostly gave you music through the in-game shop, but some rare tracks were tied to specific Spirit battles or challenge board completions.

The sound test menu, if it returns, is a completionist's dream or nightmare depending on your personality. Finding every track means clearing every challenge, beating every event, and probably spending a ridiculous amount of gold at whatever in-game shop Smash Next implements. If you're the type who needs to see 100% on everything, clear your schedule now.

Challenge Boards and Achievement Walls

Every Smash since Melee has had some form of challenge system. A grid of achievements with rewards locked behind them. Melee's were hidden entirely, you just had to stumble into them. Brawl had challenge windows that revealed conditions over time as you played. Ultimate had a full challenge board with exactly 124 squares, each tied to a specific task, with golden hammers you could earn to skip particularly annoying ones.

Some of these challenges are genuinely cruel in their design. Clear Classic Mode on 9.9 intensity without dying a single time. Beat Century Smash with every single character on the roster. Collect all spirits, every last one of them. The kind of stuff that takes hundreds of hours and more than a little bit of luck on top of the skill requirement. My advice: save your hammers for the challenges that depend on RNG or require an execution level you know you simply don't have. Don't waste a hammer on something like clear Classic Mode with 10 characters when you can just do that naturally over a weekend.

The rewards are usually worth the grind though. Music tracks you can't get any other way. Mii Fighter costumes and headgear. Rare Spirits that make certain fights much easier. And sometimes whole stages or menu options that you'd never see otherwise. If the next game has spirits or collectibles tied to challenges, and it probably will, assume the best stuff is gated behind the hardest tasks.

Looking Ahead: What Smash Next Could Hide

Nintendo loves a good surprise, and Smash games are absolutely packed with them. Based on the series history, here's what I'd bet money on getting hidden behind unlock conditions. At least a third of the full roster, probably more if they do the Ultimate thing of starting with a tiny cast. Several classic stages from Melee, Brawl, and Smash 4. A huge batch of music tracks spanning every series represented. Cosmetics for whatever the new equivalent of Mii Fighters turns out to be. And at least one completely unexpected thing. A secret boss, a hidden mode buried in the menus, a weird minigame that references some obscure Nintendo history. The kind of thing that nobody datamines until weeks after launch because it's buried so deep in the code.

If you want to unlock everything fast, the VS match grind is probably still your best bet. If you want to enjoy the process, play through whatever single-player mode ships with the game and let unlocks happen naturally as you go. Both approaches work fine. One is faster, the other is more fun. Pick based on how much patience you have and how badly you want the full roster ready for that first online session with friends. No wrong answer here, just different priorities.