The next Smash Bros. should add these new stages

There’s never an end to speculation when it comes to the Super Smash Bros. series, though most of the time it’s about new characters. Today, though, we’re talking stages instead. Sure, the next Smash title’s characters are going to generate lots of buzz, but stages are important to set the scene, make some cool references, and add variety to battles. While some levels have simple layouts that make them tournament-legal, others throw caution to the wind and add as much chaos to the mix as possible.

We’ve come up with some new stage ideas as well as how they’d work, and how likely they are to appear in the next Smash title – whenever that does get announced in the far future.

Bowser’s Castle

This is probably the most iconic location that still lacks a stage in any Smash Bros. game. It’s true that Bowser’s Castle doesn’t have a uniform look, but it’s present in almost every Mario game in one way or another – even in Mario Kart and other spin-offs. Besides, for how often lava appears as a hazard in Super Mario games, it’s strange that the only stage from the series that has lava in any form is Super Mario Maker – and that’s not even guaranteed to have lava since it’s randomly generated. You could have Thwomps and Bullet Bills as stage obstacles, or even the giant Bowser statue that appears in Mario Kart 8’s rendition of Bowser’s Castle and punches both sides of the track. Regardless, there’s a lot of potential here, and it’s kind of puzzling that we’ve never seen a Bowser’s Castle stage in any form even all this time later. Bring back Rainbow Road from the 3DS while we’re at it!

Area Zero

If the next Smash game is in development now, it’ll probably include Pokemon from the ninth generation, but not the tenth. That means a new stage from Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is possible, and Area Zero is a great pick. Pokemon Legends: Z-A is technically more recent, but we’ve already got Lumiose City present in the game as a stage.

Area Zero has a unique, calm, and unsettling vibe that would work really well in Smash. You could have fighters battle on a raised platform that goes from place to place. You could start at the top of the crater, with the light-green grass and waterfalls, and then slowly make your way deeper into the crater with the blue cave rocks and crystals. At the very bottom, Terapagos could appear and create a white flash that sends the fighters back to the beginning of the stage so that it loops properly. If you wanted to get really ambitious, you could have a mix of Paradox Pokemon attack the players as stage hazards. Either way, if something from Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is getting turned into a stage, it’s got to be this. It’d also be really cool to see Area Zero imagined with graphics on par with the Switch 2 generation.

The Stormwind Ark

The next Smash could really use a stage from Tears of the Kingdom, because let’s be real – the odds that the next brand-new 3D Zelda is out by the time the next Smash releases aren’t very good. The Stormwind Ark is a fantastic idea that differentiates itself well enough from the Great Plateau Tower stage.

You could have Colgera attack fighters from the background, and updrafts as stage hazards. It is somewhat similar to the Wind Waker’s Pirate Ship stage in concept, just without the water – but it’s very possible that Toon Link and the Pirate Ship stage don’t even make it into the next Smash, so who knows. In fact, it may be more likely that Young Link makes it in instead, in which case he already has home stages in the form of Great Bay and Gerudo Valley.

Ingot Isle

All things considered, this may be a lock for the next Smash game. Ingot Isle is the first level of Donkey Kong Bananza, and while it’s not the most interesting idea for a new stage based on the game, it is arguably the most likely as it doesn’t contain any spoilers.

The easiest idea for a gimmick here would be to be able to destroy parts of the terrain, like construction girders and lumps of gold. If we wanted to up the ambition, we could hope for a stage that visits multiple layers from Donkey Kong Bananza, though that’s probably unlikely. Maybe Void Kong could be a stage hazard and attack from the background with his little remote?

Alivel Mall

Until now, all of the Kirby stages in Smash have been from games that director Masahiro Sakurai produced. The stages are neat and all, but it’s not reflective of Kirby as a whole. Kirby and the Forgotten Land is the best-selling game in the series, so let’s include something from it!

Alivel Mall is one of the most notable locations in Forgotten Land, and there’s no stage like it in Smash at all. Very few stages in the game take place indoors, for one. There are plenty of routes you could take for including a stage from Kirby and the Forgotten Land – you could go with a more broad Natural Plains stage where you could fight on top of buildings, or maybe pick a completely different world like Winter Horns or Redgar Forbidden Lands. Either way, it’s far past time we get a stage from modern Kirby.

Miscellaneous ideas

One last big idea here: an actual Pac-Man stage! Right now, most of Pac-Man’s representation in Smash Bros. is tied to Pac-Land, which is kind of a random choice given that it’s one singular game in Pac-Man’s history, and not an extremely notable one at that. In Smash Bros. Ultimate, there is no Pac-Maze or anything remotely close to his actual origins; instead, we just have the Pac-Land stage, which looks like a cheap Microsoft Paint drawing. Sure, the graphics were fine back in the arcade days, but nowadays it’s impossible to look at the stage without feeling like corners were cut. In the next game, Pac-Man needs either Pac-Maze back or something like Pac-Village from Pac-Man World 2 instead. In all my years playing Smash, I have never heard any individual express anything except negativity towards Pac-Land. It’s time for a change!

Those are all of the “big” stage ideas we’ve got, but the list doesn’t end there. With Xenoblade Chronicles having Gaur Plain and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 having Cloud Sea of Alrest, it stands to reason that Xenoblade Chronicles 3 would get its own stage, too. Maybe something like the Great Sword’s Base, Millick Meadows, or Eagus Wilderness? Metroid could have a stage based on Fury Green from Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, or maybe even Volt Forge if we want a stage that’s more unique. Yoshi could potentially see a new stage based on Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, which does seem fairly likely given that Yoshi’s Woolly World and Yoshi’s Crafted World both received content in Smash before they actually released. I did try to come up with a new stage for Star Fox given the Nintendo Switch 2 remake, but Corneria and Venom are already appropriate representations of the game.

Pikmin could receive a stage based on the Sun-Speckled Terrace, the game’s first area; Sonic could get a stage based on the Starfall Islands from Sonic Frontiers; and Animal Crossing could maybe get a stage based on Harv’s Island? We already have Tortimer Island as a stage, but Animal Crossing: New Horizons also takes place on an island, so there isn’t a ton of potential for an all-new stage that isn’t similar to something we already have. We could see some kind of Pokemon Pokopia representation in the next Smash as well, so maybe Withered Wasteland as a stage?

F-Zero, EarthBound, Kid Icarus, and Punch-Out unfortunately haven’t received any significant new content since Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, so it wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense to include a new stage from any of these franchises. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, though!

What stage do you most want to see added to the next Super Smash Bros. game? Do you have a new one in mind, or would you be good with whatever they add as long as they bring back Poke Floats? Let us know in the comments down below.

Don’t forget to check out our list of characters that are likely to be given redesigns in the next Smash Bros. game here.