While fans of Shovel Knight may be disappointed that the titular protagonist is not playable in the top-selling Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, they can at least take the consolation prize of the character's appearance as a non-playable Assist Trophy. To see a character from an independent video game rub elbows with the likes of Mario is still a big deal—and developer Yacht Club Games realize this, as they demonstrated in a recent stream.

Staff from Yacht Club Games were streaming the recently-released platform fighter from Nintendo, and they were obviously on the lookout for their own creation. Presumably, after a couple of other summoning attempts, Shovel Knight triumphantly popped out of an Assist Trophy, not only knocking out the Ness player but cementing the Samus player's victory.

As one could expect, the cheering and celebrations were ear-deafening.

Shovel Knight may have been too recent and niche of a character for the Japanese-developed Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, so the fact that the character got a nod at all is a massive accomplishment for Yacht Club Games. This game is already jam-packed with so many playable characters, assist characters, and not to mention a ton of obscure references and pulls through Spirits, so I can only imagine how ecstatic the team would be to see their work being a heartbeat away from the highest Smash Bros. honor.

Otherwise, fans can play as Shovel Knight in Rivals of Aether, if that's your thing instead. Director Masahiro Sakurai talked a bit about how discussions went with third-party developers in implementing their characters, which you can read about here.

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