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This article is about Dark Samus's appearance in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. For the character in other contexts, see Dark Samus.
Dark Samus joins the battle as Samus's echo fighter. With floatier movement, she's a little different from Samus--and she doesn't roll when dodging or jumping. If you look closely, you can see that her bombs and missiles look a little different, too.
As with some Echo Fighters, Dark Samus is nearly identical gameplay-wise to Samus, with barely-noticeable differences. However, she has many basic animations that are different from Samus, a more standard roll which does not involve turning into a Morph Ball, electric effects instead of fire effects for most of Samus's fire-based moves, and slightly different hitboxes for a handful of moves.
As with all other Echo Fighters, Dark Samus has different taunts and victory animations.
Dark Samus has a different victory theme, shared with Ridley.
Dark Samus's on-screen appearance has her warp onto the stage from a dark portal.
Dark Samus has many animations that are different from Samus, which extends to her idle, walking, dashing, and dodge animations, as well as her taunts and victory poses.
Many of Samus's two-handed animations are one-handed for Dark Samus, such as with Charge Shot and Missile.
Dark Samus's projectile attacks are visually different.
Charge Shot is mostly black and dark blue, with tendrils extending from the edges.
Her Arm Cannon-based attacks like up smash and forward aerial use dark and neon blue clouds instead of orange explosions.
Dark Samus is absent from the World of Light opening cutscene, though she was vaporized and placed under Galeem's imprisonment alongside the rest of the playable fighters (excluding Kirby) when Galeem unleashed his beams of light.
Dark Samus, alongside Little Mac and Isabelle, is one of three playable characters who was initially an Assist Trophy in a previous game.
She is the only one to become an Echo, as the others have unique movesets.
Dark Samus is the second character to be cloned from a female (in this case, Samus), with Daisy being the first.
Much like Daisy's base fighter, Peach, having had Daisy-based alternate costumes in all of her previous appearances, Dark Samus's base fighter, Samus, had a Dark Samus-based color scheme in Smash 4. This color was removed in Ultimate, likely to make it easier to distinguish Samus and Dark Samus.
Dark Samus, following Diddy Kong, is the second foreign-created character to be playable in Smash Bros., and she is the first character in the series that was created by an American developer; Retro Studios.
Dark Samus is the second playable female villain, the first being Wendy.
However, Dark Samus is the first female villain to have a dedicated slot on the character select screen due to Wendy being an alternate costume for Bowser Jr.
Originally on the Super Smash Blog, Dark Samus was referred to with gender-neutral pronouns, despite being referred to as a female in scan data in the Metroid Prime games and in previous Smash Bros. trophies. This choice may have been due to her being composed entirely of a mutagenic substance known as Phazon, and her original form, Metroid Prime, was given gender-neutral pronouns before absorbing Samus's Phazon Suit and becoming Dark Samus. This error on the blog was later corrected.
Dark Samus is the only character to do a victory pose in her showcase video.
The victory pose shown in her showcase video greatly resembles Samus's pose in her official render in Ultimate.
Phazon Laser, Dark Samus's Final Smash resembles a move she has performed in her home series: a wide, blue Phazon beam performed during the final battle of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. It is aesthetically different from but functionally identical to Samus's Zero Laser.
It also resembles Samus's fully charged Phazon Beam while in the Hyper Mode of her PED Suit in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.
Just like fellow Metroid newcomer Ridley, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate marks Dark Samus's first playable appearance.
Dark Samus also marks the first time the Metroid series has a playable Metroid.
Dark Samus is currently the only Echo Fighter to be based on one of the Original 12, as the rest are based on characters debuting in Melee and onwards.
Therefore, she is the only Echo Fighter based on a starter character.
According to Sakurai's weekly Famitsu column, Dark Samus was added due to her popularity overseas, while Chrom was added due to his popularity in Japan.
Dark Samus is the only Echo Fighter who is a villain, as the rest of the Echo Fighters are either heroes or, in Dark Pit's case, an anti-hero.
She is also the only Echo Fighter to share the same star KO sound as their base character.
While Dark Samus normally has a different idle stance from Samus, she will assume Samus's idle stance briefly if killed by a low-damaging attack in Stamina Mode.
All of Dark Samus' Arm Cannon-based moves (except for down tilt, up smash and forward aerial) alter the Arm Cannon to match the color of her "visor" and armor highlights.
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As with all other Echo Fighters, Dark Samus has different taunts and victory animations. 
Dark Samus's forward roll is slightly faster than Samus', to compensate for her larger hurtbox when rolling.
Dark Samus's backwards roll is slightly slower than Samus's.
