Editing ESRB leak

On August 19th, 2014, an anonymous user on 4chan's /v/ image board posted a list of all previous characters in the ''Super Smash Bros.'' series and all of the revealed newcomers for ''[[Super Smash Bros. 4]]'', and asked other 4chan users who they thought would be cut. Later, another user made their own post with the previous user's photo modified to include never-before seen icons on top of unconfirmed veterans [[Jigglypuff]], [[Ness]], [[Dr. Mario]], [[Mr. Game & Watch]], [[Wario]], and [[R.O.B.]], as well as four added to the end with [[Bowser Jr.]], [[Duck Hunt|the dog from Duck Hunt]], [[Dark Pit]], and [[Shulk]]. The [[Ice Climbers]], [[Lucas]], [[Solid Snake]], [[Pichu]], [[Roy]], [[Young Link]], [[Squirtle]], [[Ivysaur]], and [[Wolf]] all had red X's added to them, while [[Mewtwo]] interestingly had a ? put over its face, which, given that the leak seemed to originate from the ESRB, may have been included as speculation or to mislead readers, as many parts of the leak would.

In the same thread, a user by the name of Motherfucking Leaker<!--Despite the vulgarity of this name, do not censor it. SmashWiki is not censored.--> posted two more images. One showed renders for Ness and the Duck Hunt dog, also revealing a duck partner for the dog, while the other showed the entire roster. These two images were the subject of much debate: several users were doubtful that the characters' names would not be present in their icons, particularly so as they were on [[:File:E3 Character select screen.png|the images of the roster shown at E3]], and other users compared Ness's render to that of a [[:File:Ness Leak Fake.jpg |previous rumored leak about his confirmation]], which had been proven false almost an entire year prior. Others adamantly denied that this was the game's base roster, citing both the perceived strange character choices and alignment of the rows towards the bottom.

Following this, a number of [[List of Director's Room Miiverse posts|Miiverse posts]] from Masashiro Sakurai's "pic of the day" series featured menus matching those in the leak, and Shulk himself was confirmed on August 29th, 2014 through a Japanese [[Nintendo Direct]], with his moveset, animations, and render matching what was shown in the videos and screenshots. Furthermore, a demo of the game was released that confirmed the presence of several perceived oddities, such as {{SSB4|Yoshi}} being mixed in with the {{uv|Mario}} characters and the lack of names under the character icons.

A notable inconsistency was later discovered: contained among the leaked images was a trophy of the {{Uv|Fire Emblem}} character {{s|fireemblemwiki|Tharja}} and a trophy count of 686. The base game lacks such a trophy and features 685 trophies instead. Given that the trophies featured in the leak contained possibly objectionable content or names (such as Tharja's skimpy outfit or the [[Devil Car]]) and that the leak consisted of material evaluated by the ESRB, one can infer that Tharja's trophy was removed to prevent the game from receiving a higher content rating. This could also be related to Palutena's censorship, which Masahiro Sakurai himself went over in a 2012 Famitsu column [https://www.sourcegaming.info/2015/09/18/cero-and-palutenas-censorship/].

The later announcement that Mewtwo would be available as the first [[downloadable content]] fighter is an interesting final note to the leak's choice to label it with a "?". Some believe that the leaker knew of early DLC plans, or that Mewtwo was a late cut from the roster, and the "?" was a reflection of that. However, it is far more likely that the leaker included the "?" over Mewtwo's image to mislead the community.  

The leak remains the largest completely true leak in ''Super Smash Bros.'' history.