Steve (SSBU)

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Steve in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
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Universe	Minecraft
Availability	Downloadable
Final Smash	House of Boom

“	Steve Rocks the Block!	”
—Introduction tagline (Steve).

“	Alex Swaps In!	”
—Introduction tagline (Alex).

“	Zombie Spawns In!	”
—Introduction tagline (Zombie).

“	Enderman Steps from the Shadows!	”
—Introduction tagline (Enderman).

Steve (スティーブ, Steve) is an upcoming playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and will be the second third-party fighter from Microsoft after Banjo & Kazooie. He was confirmed as a playable character on October 1st, 2020 as the second downloadable character from Fighters Pass Vol. 2. Alex, a Zombie, and an Enderman will also appear as alternate costumes. Steve is classified as fighter #77, and will be released on October 13th, 2020.

Known Information

• Steve's model and movement appear nearly identical to that in Minecraft, retaining his same blocky appearance and limited animation that make him stand out from other fighters.
• Steve can crawl in a manner resembling Minecraft's sneaking mechanic.
• Steve's weapon stays in his hand momentarily depending on the move he uses.
• Other alternate costumes are taken from the default selection of skins offered to players on the "Legacy Console" and "Bedrock" Editions of Minecraft, namely "Tennis" Steve and Alex, "Scottish" Steve and "Swedish" Alex.
• Steve's jump height is extremely low, to the point that it is unable to reach the platforms on Battlefield, but his double jump covers more height, similarly to Snake.
• If the control stick is tilted upward or downward, Steve will tilt his head up or down respectively, similarly to how the player's model acts while looking around in Minecraft.
• Steve possesses a unique "resource" mechanic, which allows him to carry resources to build blocks, use certain moves, or upgrade his tools. The resources that Steve can possess are sand, dirt, wood, stone, iron, gold, diamond and redstone, all of which can be obtained through mining (detailed further below). All resources (except for redstone and sand) are displayed above his in-game portrait, with each having a limit; less valuable resources have a larger limit, and iron has a limit of 8 pieces due to its use in multiple moves.
  • Gold and diamond are only shown when avaliable by the right of the gauge, while iron, which occupies the right of the gauge, always displays its exact quantity. Cheaper materials are displayed proportionally and make up the left of the gauge.
• With continuous use, Steve's sword, axe, pickaxe and shovel will use up durability points. Once all durability points for a set tool have been used up, it breaks apart and Steve can no longer use that tool. If Steve tries to use an attack that requires a weapon he does not have, he will perform a weak punch with minimal range instead. This prevents him from constantly brawling out at close range with his weapons and constantly forces him to mine the ground for resources and craft new tools at a crafting table. The durability varies between tools made of different materials, with wood and gold being the least durable while diamond is the most durable.
• Five tool materials exist: wood, stone, iron, gold and diamond. Except for gold, each material mentioned is incrementally more powerful and durable than the last. Gold weapons are weak and fragile, but attacks with them are faster than those with weapons made from other materials, making them ideal for combos.

Moveset

Standard Attacks

• Neutral attack, forward tilt and neutral aerial - Steve quickly swings his sword in front of himself with short reach. He can repeat this attack by holding down the attack button, and can walk forward and backward, as well as jump, while doing this, making it functionally similar to Mega Man's Mega Buster and Min Min's Punch.
• Up tilt and up aerial - Steve quickly swings his axe above himself. Similarly to his neutral attack/forward tilt/neutral aerial, Steve is able to repeat the attack by holding down the attack button, and can jump or walk forward or backward while he is doing this. Both moves have low upward knockback, making them useful as juggling tools.
• Down tilt - Steve uses flint and steel to create a flame with a lingering hitbox in front of himself. The flame is a looping multi-hit attack, with the final hit launching opponents forward, and if Steve uses this move at the end of a platform or near a ledge, the flame travels downward, allowing him to edgeguard and 2-frame opponents. It is also able to absorb projectiles. This move does not use up durability points.
• Dash attack - a quick running strike with his pickaxe with high knockback.
• Forward smash - a slower but strong strike with his sword with a short reach, originating from Minecraft Java Edition. It can be jump-canceled into a neutral aerial.
• Up smash - Steve places a magma block above himself before breaking it with his pickaxe. The move has a flame effect, possesses great vertical range, and hits multiple times, similarly to Roy's up smash. However, it only hits directly above Steve, and despite its animation, Steve cannot move until the move is complete as he automatically breaks the block afterwards. This move does not use up durability points.
• Down smash - Steve pulls out a lava-filled bucket and pours lava on both sides of himself. Both hits have lingering hitboxes and are powerful semi-spikes, which can be used efficiently for edge guarding. This move does not use up durability points.
• Forward aerial - a pickaxe swing in front of himself that can meteor smash.
• Back aerial - a pickaxe swing behind himself with powerful horizontal knockback.
• Down aerial - a powerful stall-then-fall in which Steve drops an anvil directly below himself while standing on it. The move can be canceled, a first for a stall-then-fall; if it is canceled, then Steve will jump off of the anvil, but it will continue falling. After landing, the anvil remains on the stage for a brief amount of time before disappearing. This move uses up one piece of iron and is likely useless if Steve does not have sufficient iron.
• Grab - a tether grab using a fishing rod with a wide range. Unlike Isabelle's similar-looking Fishing Rod, it functions as an actual tether grab, as it can grab shielding opponents (though it does not appear to have a grab aerial). Grabbed opponents are trapped within a fence while Steve holds them. This move does not use up durability points.
  • Forward throw - Steve uses a piston to launch the opponent forward. It is a semi-spike. This move does not use up durability points.
  • Back throw - Steve throws the opponent backward with the fishing rod. This move does not use up durability points.
  • Up throw - Steve uses a piston to launch the opponent upward. This move does not use up durability points.
  • Down throw - Steve drops an anvil on the opponent, launching them forward. Without sufficient iron, no anvil will appear, and Steve will simply throw the opponent onto the ground, making it weaker overall. Both versions of the throw are good for use in combos.
• Steve's edge attack and floor attacks use his sword.

Special Moves

• The functionality of Steve's neutral special varies depending on whether he is on the ground, near a crafting table or in the air:
  • Mine (ground): Steve mines the ground or wall in front of himself to gather resources using an axe, pickaxe, or shovel. As with using a sword, axe, or pickaxe during standard attacks, mining uses up the durability of the weapon used. The weapon used and the speed of mining are determined by the type of terrain being mined, and the longer it is mined, the higher the quality of materials collected, such as diamond. If Steve has no tools available, he will use his bare hands instead; however, this causes him to mine more slowly.
    • Steve can mine wood, sand, dirt, stone, iron, gold, diamonds and redstone. Similarly to Olimar's Pikmin Pluck in Brawl, the resources that Steve obtains most often with this move are dependent on the type of terrain being mined, though there is a set order to the materials mined from each terrain. However, on Battlefield form and Ω form stages, materials will appear at a pre-determined rate regardless of the type of terrain. This was done in order to prioritize match quality for more serious players due to the popularity of both forms for competitive battles, and to reduce the factors of randomness.
  • Craft (crafting table): Steve uses his resources to craft a full set of tools (sword, axe, pickaxe and shovel), restoring their durability. Steve starts the battle with wooden tools, with a crafting table appearing at his starting point. The most valuable resources are prioritized when performing this move; for example, if Steve has both iron and stone, then his tools will be upgraded to iron. A Minecraft-styled progression bar appears above Steve while he is crafting, and Steve will flourish a new weapon after crafting completes, though he is vulnerable to attacks throughout the entire animation. The crafting table itself can be damaged and destroyed by Steve or his opponents, but it will respawn at Steve's location following a few seconds. Steve can also summon the crafting table to his location by pressing the special move button while shielding. If multiple Steves are present, then they can use each other's crafting tables as well as their own.
  • Create Block (midair): Steve places a block directly beneath himself, which functions as a platform. If the special move button is held down while Steve is walking on a block or jumping, he can continue placing blocks directly beneath himself as he moves. He can only place blocks a certain distance around the stage, signified by a pink barrier that appears while placing blocks adjacent to the limit. Behaving similarly to the Frost Walker enchantment, the blocks break slowly over time, but touching them or hitting them (including hitting the block on the underside while jumping) speeds this process up. Blocks placed near the build limit break faster than they would otherwise. Placed blocks can absorb incoming attacks, including projectiles, and can also be used to aid Steve's recovery or to edgeguard opponents. Only eight blocks can be onstage at a time; attempting to add a ninth will cause one block to automatically disappear. Blocks can be made using dirt, wood, stone, or iron, and will break more slowly the more valuable the material they are made of is. Unlike Craft, the least valuable resources are prioritized when performing this move.
• Steve's side special is the Minecart, where he hops into a minecart and rides around the stage, placing rails as he does so. If Steve has redstone and gold, he can use it in order to lay down powered rails (powered via a redstone torch), making the minecart faster and more powerful. Steve can jump out of the minecart at any time, but it still moves forward a short distance afterwards, trapping other fighters within it should they make contact; a trapped fighter will be stuck in the minecart for longer the more damage they have, but can escape by button mashing. Steve needs sufficient iron to place the minecart, and sufficient wood and stone to place rails. Each rail placed uses 1 unit of stone/wood and the minecart itself consumes one piece of iron. During Steve's showcase, Masahiro Sakurai is shown making a track in an enclosed space and driving forwards and back, which appears to confirm that the rails last for some time.
• Steve's up special is the Elytra, in which he dons an elytra and propels himself forward, upward, or downward with a firework rocket. During his initial burst, Steve has a damaging hitbox. The mechanics of this move appear similar to Brawl's gliding mechanic, with Steve being able to control his trajectory while gliding, though he travels a larger horizontal distance than vertical. He is also able to turn around during the startup of the move. The elytra falls off after a short while, leaving Steve helpless. This move does not use up durability points.
• Steve's down special is TNT, in which he lays a TNT block on the ground; this uses up less valuable resources such as sand, dirt, and stone. The TNT acts similarly to a Blast Box; it can be detonated if hit by a sufficiently strong attack and is more likely to detonate from flame attacks (though not immediately like the Blast Box). Its explosion is extremely powerful and triggers Special Zoom on a direct hit. Players hit from further away receive less damage and knockback. Steve can also place a pressure plate next to the TNT, or further away if he has sufficient redstone to create a trail between the TNT and the pressure plate, which will manually detonate the TNT if stepped on. The TNT affects both Steve and his opponents; however, if the TNT is triggered via a pressure plate, then the fighter who triggered the TNT takes reduced knockback from the explosion, allowing for creative traps.
• Steve's Final Smash, House of Boom, begins with Steve placing a giant piston in front of himself, which extends to catch his opponents in the attack. A cinematic plays where the affected fighter is launched into the House of Boom. a structure filled with TNT, where they are attacked by Creepers and Zombies, resulting in the entire building exploding as Steve comically eats a victory steak. The piston can hit multiple fighters, but only the first one hit will appear in the cinematic, other fighters just get launched away. This attack does not use up durability points.

Aesthetics

• One of Steve's victory poses has him build a house similar to ones found in villages and stand outside of it, then close the door.
• In one of Steve's taunts, he eats a cooked steak. His other taunts are jumping while punching the air and repeatedly crouching towards the camera, both of which are based on common actions that Minecraft players make while interacting with others online.
• When put into a sleep state, Steve will place a red bed on the ground and proceed to lie on it. When waking up, he collects it back in his inventory.
• If a perfect shield is performed, Steve will use an equippable shield to block the attack, like in Minecraft.

Spirit Battles

As the main opponent

Spirit				Battle parameters
No.	Image	Name	Series	Enemy Fighter(s)	Type	Power	Stage	Rules	Conditions	Music
		Zombie	Minecraft Series	•Zombie Team (20 HP) (×10)		1,700	Minecraft World (Savanna)	N/A	•The enemy has super armor but moves slower •Stamina battle •Defeat an army of fighters	Clockwork Crafter

Alternate costumes

Gallery

• 

  Steve's splash art.

• 

  Alex's splash art.

• 

  Zombie's splash art.

• 

  Enderman's splash art.

• 

  Steve and Alex on Minecraft World.

• 

  Steve striking King K. Rool with his down tilt on Gerudo Valley.

• 

  Alex attacking Builder Mario with her back aerial on Tomodachi Life.

• 

  Steve using his up special near Pit and Dark Pit on Temple.

• 

  Steve and Alex using their Minecart with Bowser Jr. following behind on Port Town Aero Dive.

• 

  Scottish Steve, Swedish Alex, Zombie, and Enderman on Palutena's Temple.

• 

  Steve, Alex, and Mario on the Minecraft World stage.

Trivia

• According to Masahiro Sakurai, Steve was largely easy to develop conceptually, but the programming work required to "bring the fighter to life" was very difficult.
  • He also revealed that every stage in the game had to be reworked to make use of Steve's mining and block-placing abilities.
  • Sakurai stated that when Nintendo approached him about adding Minecraft content, he was at first skeptical of the idea, before deciding to go through with it. This has been misinterpreted by some to mean that he did not desire to do so.
• According to former Minecraft production director Daniel Kaplan, it took at least 5 years of negotiating between Nintendo and Mojang for Steve to appear in Smash.
• Steve was created by Swedish video game developer Mojang Studios. This makes him the second third-party fighter that was created outside of Japan.
  • The first were Banjo & Kazooie, created by the UK-based developer Rare, which is coincidentally also owned by Microsoft.
  • Steve is also the first fighter to come from an indie (independent-developed) game. Although Mojang Studios has been a part of Microsoft since 2014, Steve was introduced to the game in 2009, when the company was known as "Mojang Specifications" and was fully independent.
• Steve's reveal trailer contains multiple references to Minecraft:
  • The trailer features players performing actions such as repeatedly crouching and punching in mid-air while jumping, which are common behavior by Minecraft players interacting with others online.
  • Alex is shown attacking a Cucco with a diamond sword, referencing the need to hunt passive mobs such as chickens or cows to obtain food in Minecraft.
  • Alex is also humorously shown "mining" a Hero for iron while the latter is using Kaclang, playing with the fact that Hero turns to metal and could potentially be mined like an iron block.
  • The Enderman picking up the crate references Endermen's affinity for picking up blocks and carrying them around.
  • The Enderman also hides from the rain on Distant Planet, referencing how Endermen receive damage from water in Minecraft.
  • The Enderman watching Snake, with the latter hidden inside his box, references the fact that Endermen's eyes glow in the dark in Minecraft.
  • Wolf using his up throw against the Zombie causes it to drop meat, a reference to Rotten Flesh, which is their most common drop in Minecraft. The character being Wolf also references Minecraft's own Wolf mob, which can be tamed and can help the player in combat.
  • Zombie is revealed breaking down a wooden door, which is an ability that Zombies have in Minecraft when playing on hard difficulty.
  • The tiny Zombie that fights alongside two other Zombies after the reveal is a reference to the Baby Zombies that can also spawn.
  • The title of the reveal trailer, "A New Seed!", references the seed mechanism in Minecraft; seeds are strings of integers that the game uses to pseudo-randomly generate its worlds.
• Steve is the third fighter to have one of their victory animations shown in their reveal trailer, the first two being Joker and Terry.
• Zombie and Enderman are the second and third playable fighters in the series to be generic enemies, the first being Piranha Plant.
  • However, they are merely alternate costumes, whereas Piranha Plant is a unique fighter.
• Steve and Byleth are the only characters in Ultimate whose alternate costumes are displayed alongside their default costumes on the official Ultimate site, similarly to Robin's page on the official SSB4 site.
• Steve is the only character who has two names (in Steve's case, he is listed as "Steve / Alex") displayed on the list of fighters on the official Ultimate website in all languages. Byleth was the first character to display two names in general, though this was only the case in languages where male and female Byleth had different names.
  • Coincidentally, both of them are also the only fighters who have multiple taglines, with Byleth having two and Steve having four.
• Steve is the first character with other characters as alternate costumes where each character does not have the same amount of costumes. Each character with multiple genders has four costumes for each gender (excluding Pikachu), Bowser Jr. and each Koopaling have one costume, Olimar and Alph each have four costumes, and each Hero has two costumes. In this case, Steve and Alex have three costumes while Zombie and Enderman have only one (their default appearance).
• Steve, Alex and Mario are the only characters with alternate costumes that explicitly reference real-life nationalities. Mario's stars-and-striped Golf Outfit from Family Computer Golf: U.S. Course references the United States, Steve's third outfit sports a modern Scottish kilt with formal evening wear, and Alex's third outfit sports a Swedish national dress; the latter two of which both originate from Minecraft as "Scottish Steve" and "Swedish Alex".
• Several of Steve's abilities were slightly modified for gameplay purposes compared to his original game:
  • TNT blocks are crafted with sand and dirt instead of sand and gunpowder, as gunpower is obtained from hunting Creepers.
  • Axes appear to be weaker than swords and have no attack speed penalty, making them function similarly to pre-version 1.9 Java builds of Minecraft. Pickaxes are also shown being stronger than both axes and swords, despite pickaxes being extremely weak for combat in the main game.
  • None of Steve's melee weapons are affected by the swing speed meter (introduced in Java 1.9, which penalizes spamming attacks in the original game), nor feature a "critical hit" system when the user is falling. This is presumably due to these mechanics making combat inconsistent in a fast-paced brawling game.
• Steve's default design in Ultimate has a beard (often confused for a smile), which was used in early "Classic" builds of Minecraft but removed from his texture in version "0.24_SURVIVAL_TEST," although it has continued to appear in promotional artwork and merchandise since then.
• Steve is the only character to date with a unique tumbling animation where he performs his running animation midair while staying upright, reflecting the same damage animations from Minecraft.
  • He also falls to the side when his HP is depleted in Stamina Mode, referencing the death animations of said game.
• Steve and Alex's eyes can blink in the game, which was previously present exclusively in the Bedrock Edition. Otherwise, their facial expressions never change beyond that, in contrast to the other characters' varied expressions. The Zombie and Enderman do not blink.
• "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – Mr. Sakurai Presents "Steve & Alex"" marks the first time Alex is explicitly referred to as female in any officially sanctioned Minecraft media. Previously, it was only implied in one video's description on the Minecraft YouTube channel.