8-Player Smash

8-Player Smash (, 8-Person Fray) is a gameplay mode in and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. This mode allows up to eight players to play together at once, as opposed to the standard four. In Ultimate, 8-Player Smash is not a separate mode with its own menu option; instead, Smash modes allow up to eight players to join.

In Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
8-Player Smash is a mode accessible within the Smash menu. It is similar to the regular Smash mode, but it allows up to eight players to join, instead of only four as in other modes. Coin Battles and Special Smash cannot be used in conjunction with 8-Player Smash. The 8-Player Smash mode can still be played with four or fewer players, in which case it functions largely identically to the regular Smash mode, with the exception of being unable to partake in Coin Battles or Special Smash. With more than four players, many stages function differently, and some stages cannot be selected depending on the number of players.

In addition to red, blue, yellow, and green player colors for players 1-4 (red for player 1, blue for player 2, yellow for player 3, green for player 4), players 5-8 use the colors orange, cyan, purple, and slate, respectively. In Team Battles, an additional team color, the yellow team, can be selected, in addition to red, blue and green teams.

Stage availability
Only certain stages and their Ω forms can be selected; if there are more players present than a stage (or Ω form) allows, the stage's icon on the stage selection screen will be darkened and the stage will not be selectable. Additionally, several stages' hazards or other background elements will be disabled in 8-Player Smash. Custom stages are not available in 8-Player Smash, with the option on the stage select screen replaced with the button for DLC stages if any are installed, or another Ω form switch button otherwise.

In 8-Player Smash, Ω form stages will be scaled up to approximately 1.6 times their normal size. Battles with more than four players in other modes, such as All-Star Mode and horde battles in the Special Orders mode, will count as 8-Player Smash and thus use the 8-Player Smash versions of stages.

Update history
 1.0.2
 * Added 8-player mode versions of the following stages:
 * Luigi's Mansion
 * Lylat Cruise
 * Mario Circuit (Brawl)
 * (previously supported max 6 players)
 * Norfair
 * Pokémon Stadium 2
 * Pyrosphere
 * Smashville
 * Town and City
 * Wii Fit Studio (existing Ω form remained at max 6 players)
 * Smashville
 * Town and City
 * Wii Fit Studio (existing Ω form remained at max 6 players)
 * Wii Fit Studio (existing Ω form remained at max 6 players)
 * Wii Fit Studio (existing Ω form remained at max 6 players)

 1.0.6
 * Added 8-player mode versions of the following stages:
 * (previously supported max 6 players)
 * (previously supported max 6 players)
 * (previously supported max 6 players)
 * (previously supported max 6 players)
 * (previously supported max 6 players)

 1.0.8
 * Added 8-player mode versions of the following stages:
 * Dream Land (64) (DLC)
 * (DLC)
 * Suzaku Castle (DLC)
 * (DLC)

 1.1.0
 * Added 8-player mode versions of the following stages:
 * Peach's Castle (64) (DLC)
 * (DLC)
 * Hyrule Castle (64) (DLC)
 * (DLC)

 1.1.1
 * Added 8-player mode versions of the following stages:
 * Super Mario Maker (DLC)
 * (DLC)
 * (DLC)

 1.1.3
 * Added 8-player mode versions of the following stages:
 * Midgar (DLC)
 * (DLC)

 1.1.4
 * Added 8-player mode versions of the following stages:
 * Umbra Clock Tower (DLC)
 * (DLC)

In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
8-Player Smash is not a separate mode in Ultimate, and instead, all Smash modes (except for Custom Smash) allow up to eight players to join. Stages are not restricted by number of players, and only a few stages have differences by number of players.

Players 1-6 reuse their SSB4 colors (red for player 1, blue for player 2, yellow for player 3, green for player 4, orange for player 5, cyan for player 6), while players 7 and 8 have a switch of colors (pink for player 7 and violet for player 8). In Team Battles, the yellow team can be selected regardless of the number of players.

functions differently in battles with more than four players. In such battles, the Pokémon Trainer will not be visible, but their voice can still be heard. The Poké Ball and its energy effects can be seen travelling to and from the foreground, implying that the Pokémon Trainer is in the foreground, outside of the camera's view.

Ditto cannot be summoned if there are eight fighters

's taunts will not summon Morgana with 5 or more fighters.

Stage changes
All stages are available to play with any number of players. Custom stages are limited to four players once a part of the weight limit is reached.

In battles with more than four fighters (including Spirit battles with enough participants), and all Ω form stages are scaled up to approximately 1.5 times their normal size. Additionally, a few stages have aesthetic differences in battles with more than four fighters (stage hazards and other elements that affect gameplay are retained with any number of players, as they can only be turned off in the Rules, with the sole exception of the Blowin' Up and Kitty Cover microgames being absent from WarioWare, Inc. in 8-Player). For Ω forms, only the main platform is scaled up, and the background is not moved to compensate, so on some stages, the platform will clip into elements of the background, or at least get much closer to them than usual.

Trivia

 * According to Masahiro Sakurai, 8-Player Smash was going to appear in Super Smash Bros. Melee, but was "more than impossible" at the time. Notably, usage of Melee's can allow for partially implemented 6-player battles, though this is only used for Multi-Man mode and certain event matches.
 * includes various unused elements for 8-Player Smash within its data.

In Super Smash Bros. for Wii U

 * Various stages unavailable in 8-Player Smash in publicly available versions of the game have been shown in official media with more than 4 players. Examples include:
 * Wuhu Island being shown with 6 players in one of Jigglypuff's screenshots on the official website.
 * Skyloft being shown with 8 players in the official trailer for the third wave of downloadable content costumes (at 1:20).
 * Coliseum being shown with 5 players in Corrin's reveal trailer (at 1:37).
 * Boxing Ring being shown with 7 players in the official trailer for the sixth wave of DLC Mii Fighter costumes (at 1:06).
 * Wrecking Crew being shown with 6 players in the Final Video Presentation (at 32:57).
 * being shown with 5 players in a challenge grid image.
 * Final Destination being shown with 6 players in another challenge grid image.
 * It is unknown what exactly dictates why some stages are playable and some aren't, as a smaller stage like Smashville is playable but a larger stage like Boxing Ring is not.
 * The normal versions of Flat Zone X, Pac-Land, and Skyworld are the only stages without a maximum limit of 4 or 8 players (6).
 * While Ω forms of stages are available in 8-Player Smash, itself cannot be selected in 8-Player Smash.
 * After the 1.0.8 update, players no longer have to select a separate page for Ω forms and can now simply press a button on the controller for the Ω version, like in a normal Smash. This means that the blue stage select color scheme previously used for the Ω form page is now unused.
 * Every familiar stage in Smash Wii U has at least its Ω form available in 8-Player Smash. Only four of them (Delfino Plaza, Halberd, Port Town Aero Dive and Pirate Ship) have their normal form unavailable in 8-Player Smash.
 * Pirate Ship and Miiverse are the only DLC stages in Smash Wii U that are not completely available in 8-Player Smash, with Pirate Ship being unavailable in its normal form and Miiverse being unavailable in either form.
 * Through game modifications, it is possible to allow any stage or Ω form to be selected in 8-Player Smash. The stages are all functional, but Miiverse will notably cause the game to lag.
 * The majority of fighters have separate models for 8-Player Smash battles, to improve game performance. These models lack fluid hand animation, instead using sharp transitions between different hand states.
 * Due to the fact that everything on Ω forms is scaled up in 8-Player Smash, stages with fog in the background have the fog visibly covering more of the geometry. This is most noticeable on the Ω form of Kalos Pokémon League.
 * Mario Galaxy and Wii Fit Studio are the only stages in Smash Wii U that have supported more players in their normal forms than their Ω forms at one point or another (this applied to Mario Galaxy prior to 1.0.2, and Wii Fit Studio after 1.0.2 but prior to 1.0.6).