Add 8 Player Support#12

Now with larger maps, it would be so fun to play 8 players with friends. Patch 1.3.2 added support for 8 player lobbys, but it is still only possible to play 4 players maximum. In my opinion, being able to at least have the option to play 8 players should be a big priority. Not only would it bring Rivals closer to its biggest competitor, Smash, it would also allow the game to become a way more attractive party game. Especially considering Workshop is around the corner and 8 player support would be an equally as exciting step.

The big remaining thing that is not required but would certainly help making 8 player gameplay be better, is to improve performance. It’s not a requirement since 8 player gameplay would be optional, but in order to make it smoother to play on any system, performance would probably need to be improved down the line.

Apparently there already exists a bug with the new lobby system that allows for 8 players, and so in theory servers should already be able to somewhat handle it.

The game has to get more optimized for this to be implimented smoothly. 4 players at once is already very poor when it comes to performance.

@ResponsibleEvolution063 Because 8 players would be optional, I don’t see why enabling the possibility would be an issue. Yes performance would be an issue on certain systems, but that would be a conscious choice by whoever decides to play 8 players. I would love for performance to get better, which it has slowly, but having to wait for that seems like an unnecessary thing.

100% agree that this should be added. It’s such a big appeal for casual play sessions to be able to have more than 4 players. I don’t even care if the game gets optimized. I don’t think waiting for optimizations is a good reason to hold off on making this an official online mode for private lobbies, It’s a PC game, it’s 100% okay if 8 player online doesn’t run perfectly on everyone’s machine because it’s totally optional.

it would so cool

Once they do this and fully release workshop, there wont ever be a reason to play Smash ever again.

The game already struggles on mid to high end pcs with 4 characters + hazards + items.

Once they get a big optimization patch these things will probably come naturally.

There’s some UI work and other things we’d need to do to support this. For example things like getting everyone’s stocks on screen (as you can see that missing in the video you posted).

However, we might see if we can squeeze official support for this into the game sometime this year. No promises since we have other tasks on our plate, but it would be great since 8 player matches are a lot of fun