The newest update to Masahiro Sakurai's blog for Super Smash Bros. Brawl seems at first like another boring interface explanation. It walks us through how to join an anonymous online match. Simply choose "With Anyone," "Battle," or "Team Battle," and your character. You can then vote on a stage, and a random selection from all the votes will decide which stage is played. Item preferences are chosen randomly from every player's settings. You can beat up Sandbag while the game waits for other players to select their characters.

None of that is terribly important or new. The big reveal comes later in the update, when Sakurai comments that it's always frustrating when players disconnect from online games. Brawl handles this occurrence by simply taking over for dropped players with CPU control -- you may not even notice when it happens. This innovative feature ensures that online matches are always played out to the end.

Sakurai also brings up the likelihood that players will see characters they have not yet unlocked when battling online. He says that he has decided not to get "too hung up" on hidden characters, adding that they are bound to be spoiled anyway due to the flow of information across the Internet. Most hidden characters will be unlocked through the Adventure mode, The Subspace Emissary. Besides confirming that hidden characters will not be locked out of online matches, this update is actually the first confirmation by Sakurai or Nintendo that Brawl will contain hidden characters at all. Presumably, these characters have not yet been revealed and probably won't be until the game's release.