Waluigi Finally Gets Added To Smash Bros And Its Total Nightmare Fuel
Halloween came early this year thanks to an AI-created version of Waluigi for "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate." Well, thanks may not be appropriate for the occasion. As adorable and endearing as the "Mario" world usually is, this time, things are different. The uncanny Waluigi creation is the stuff of nightmares.
To understand why this creepy Waluigi AI came to be, it's important to know how long fans have waited for the announcement of the final new "SSBU" DLC fighter. On Oct. 5, Nintendo finally broke the news to fans far and wide that Sora from "Kingdom Hearts" was the 12th member of the team. Believe it or not, it took the company almost three years to share this announcement. In fact, fans had been waiting for so long they thought that time was running out.
Past "SSBU" DLC fighter announcements caused quite the uproar, and for one player, the addition of Sora didn't sit right, especially given the rumors that Waluigi would finally make his "Smash Bros" return. Kotaku reporter Ian Walker was devastated that Waluigi didn't make the cut, so he took up the task of creating an AI AU where the purple dude could be part of the game with the rest of the expanded "Mario" crew. Clearly, the results were jarring.
Waluigi's Halloween Horror
Using technology from indie developer and nonprofit publisher Bearsharktopus Development Studios, Kotaku's Ian Walker input "waluigi in super smash bros" and got a bunch of vague, distorted images that are unrecognizably recognizable. Walker described one image as looking like Waluigi got "dissolved in the trans-dimensional rift," and that's just about spot-on. Somehow, his essence comes through with plenty of purple to make him recognizable, but the fact that the clearest parts of the images are his teeth, mustache, and hat is hard to sit with.
Other images from Bearsharktopus' AI-created art pages have a similarly sinister yet comical energy. Take this adaptation of the classic Edvard Munch Scream painting or this trippy take on "Bojack Horseman," for example. All the creations are distorted and uncanny, but there's still no clarity on why Waluigi looks like he's playing a baseball game in his images.
Though Waluigi has long been the "Smash Bros" character fans want, but can't have, these photos might change some people's minds. It's clear that this version of the purple antagonist is very different from the one Twitter fans were thirsting over earlier in 2021.