A Smash Ultimate hacker blew retired pro Gonzalo ‘ZeRo’ Barrios away after they revealed it’s possible to play on “secret” stages hidden within the game.
In his March 30 YouTube video, ZeRo explained how he was streaming an open arena that let any viewer join and participate when a player named RareKirby entered the lobby.
This player happened to be hacking the game by playing as characters you’re not supposed to, and on stages not meant for versus gameplay.
At 1:30 into the video ZeRo discovered RareKirby was hacking because he started playing as Giga Bowser – a character who is supposed to be an in-game boss and Bowser’s Final Smash ability.
As ZeRo explained, because he’s hacking elements that are already in the game, it doesn’t desync, so you can technically play against him and on all sorts of wacky stages without the game disconnecting.
“Let me show you some real hacks,” the hacker said after beating the streamer with Giga Bowser.
The first secret stage RareKirby showed off was the escape sequence found in Classic Mode. Because there’s no blast zones on the stage, winning is limited to jumping into a barrel at the end and buffering a jump to come out one frame earlier.
Next, the hacker showed off the boss stage from World of Light where players fight Ganon. “This stage is actually sick,” Barrios stated.
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“It’s really cool how you can grab these elements from the game and make them into one-on-one fights in an arena format,” he grinned. “As you can see these stages are actually playable. It makes me feel like why doesn’t Nintendo just release them in a pack or whatever?”
It’s an interesting point. While not all the maps would necessarily work as traditional stages, some, like the Ganon boss fight stage look awesome and would be really cool to play on, especially with a Battlefield version.
After that, the hacker let ZeRo try out the Monster Hunter stage, only without Rathalos serving as the boss. As the streamer pointed out, it’s a lot easier to appreciate the little details without having to fight a boss in the process.
Craziest of all, it’s also possible to play on the victory screen at the end of a round. “I didn’t even know that!” ZeRo exclaimed. “I thought it was maybe like a picture.”
As it turns out, there’s an incredible attention to detail on the victory screen stage with all sorts of majestic buildings in the background.
“I feel like we’re seen a lot of stuff that we’re not supposed to see ever,” he laughed.
Hopefully, Nintendo decides to officially add some of these stages to the game in a future update, especially considering players can already access them if they know what they’re doing.