 Minecraft is coming to Super Smash Bros. Steve, Alex, Zombie, Enderman and more will be playable for those who own the Fighters Pass 2 DLC. This move, which adds yet another collection of characters owned by Microsoft into the Nintendo fighting game, is the result of a growing relationship between the two companies. Speaking about his connections in Nintendo earlier this year, head of Xbox Phil Spencer said, The relationship with Nintendo is great. Doug Bowser and I, we talk often. Furukawa-san, the CEO of Nintendo and I, know each other well, and we have conversations. When talking about publishing Microsoft games on the Switch, he said, We've been learning. Some of our development partners have really wanted to go do this, and we want to support the desires of our creative talent. Some of this has been partner led. Minecraft was the first major Microsoft brand to be brought to Nintendo platforms, and it seems that this decision was at least in part pushed, as Spencer suggests, by developer Mojang. The company's COO, VooBooie, said shortly before the announcement of Minecraft for the Wii U, If I had my way, we'd be on everything. We want to continue to be available to all players, and that means being on new platforms because everyone uses something different. I've never heard a reason why we haven't ended up on Wii U or 3DS. So, Minecraft came to the Wii U, and both Nintendo and Microsoft reaped the benefits. The port was a phenomenal success. The next step for the two companies was to work together even more closely, with the introduction of cross-platform play between the Xbox and the Switch. Said Minecraft executive producer Roger Carpenter, Since the release of the Wii U version in 2016, we've been building up a more amicable relationship with Nintendo. With the move to the bedrock edition in June, more so than before, we've realised cross-platform play, and that seems to have appealed to a lot more users. About a half a year ago, you'd see children in restaurants around the UK playing Minecraft on their tablets. Now they're playing on their Nintendo Switches. At around the same time as Carpenter made these remarks, Masahiro Sakurai was starting a new playthrough in Minecraft on the Switch. This time around, he tried out Survival Mode, and was enthralled by the simple fun of collecting resources in the hopes that they would prove useful later. Survival Mode was fun, tense and deeply satisfying. Plus, he could play the game while riding on his exercise bike, which felt like useful multitasking. In a short presentation as part of the new announcement, Masahiro Sakurai made it very clear that creating this DLC was not an easy process. While implementing the art and sound design for Minecraft characters was relatively simple, each and every Smash Bros. stage had to be reworked to accommodate for the placing of Minecraft blocks. According to Sakurai, someone from Nintendo came over to his desk, peered over their glasses and said, Mr Sakurai, surely you can put Minecraft into Super Smash Bros.? Sakurai was bemused to say the least that his work was being treated so flippantly, commenting, they make it sound easy. I guess they think this all happens by magic or something. Nevertheless, this crossover proves that when people work together instead of fighting, great things can be accomplished. Perhaps there was some magic behind the arrival of Minecraft Steve in Smash, the magic of friendship.