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Covering Fire is Snake’s Final Smash in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, replacing his previous Final Smash, Grenade Launcher.
Overview
Snake kneels in place, and throws a smoke bomb down onto the ground, presumably acting as a beacon. A reticle appears onscreen which the player can move with the control stick. Selecting a target picks that target to take the full blast of the Final Smash. After five seconds are up, four large missiles blast the stage offscreen, hitting the character selected in the reticle. In some cases, if all four missiles connect, the knockback from all four sometimes results in an OHKO. If no targets are selected, the missiles will erratically bombard the stage. Individual missiles are generally not very useful, but the high KO potential from three or four connecting missiles makes Covering Fire a welcome addition to Snake’s moveset.
Origin
Covering Fire is based on a mechanic from Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain where Big Boss and Venom Snake could call for a salvo of missile fire on a designated target. In Peace Walker, Big Boss could either place a flare device on the ground to mark a general area where his MSF allies could attack from offscreen, or use a handgun-like device to mark the spot from afar. In Ground Zeroes and Phantom Pain, Venom Snake could call on the loyal MSF/Diamond Dogs helicopter pilot Morpho/Pequod for support from the iDroid menu or via a grenade marker, either flare or smoke, which is what Snake's Final Smash here is based on. If Pequod was called in to extract Snake from a particularly dangerous landing zone, a significantly upgraded helicopter would allow Pequod to assist in clearing the landing zone by unleashing his chopper's arsenal before extracting Snake.
Although Solid Snake performs this Final Smash in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, none of his home games had such a mechanic since his games were solo black-ops infiltration missions with no feasible room for such methods. Moreover, the only group Snake was a longterm part of, Philanthropy, was not equipped to provide covering fire of that nature.
Trivia
- Snake will kneel anywhere when using this Final Smash, most notably in midair.
- The smoke bomb is purely visual, and does not do damage to opponents.
