During E3 2018, it was announced that Mr. Game & Watch's moveset would be visually updated to more closely resemble its original Game & Watch inspirations. While the design of his forward smash attack was first shown to be the same from the previous Super Smash Bros. games, it was eventually replaced with an original sprite from the game Fire Attack, depicting him as a stereotypical Native American with an angry expression and a feather in his hair (the original context in Fire Attack being that a tribe was attacking a cowboy's fort that the player needed to defend). This change was criticized by some for its portrayal of a racist stereotype, and it was pointed out that this depiction had previously been censored when the game was included in Game & Watch Gallery 4. After being questioned about it, Nintendo released an official apology and removed the feather from the attack animation in a Day 1 patch.