With the Shadow Moses Island stage making a return, Snake's exclusive Codec Call Smash Taunts also return (which are triggered by rapidly pressing the down-taunt button once as Snake on the stage). However, no new codec calls were recorded, meaning it will only work for characters that were previously playable in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. In fact, all but one of the old Brawl codecs were kept intact so they now contain many awkward slights and inaccuracies.

These include Brawl still being directly namedropped by the Colonel and Otacon instead of Ultimate during Jigglypuff and Sonic's codecs respectively, Mei Ling and Snake still discussing Sheik's transformation move that she no longer has as of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, as well as the two also referring to Lucario as having his old "purple flames" instead of his new "blue" ones, Otacon still mentioning the peanuts shot from Diddy Kong's peanut popgun being edible to recover damage despite only being the case with Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Pokemon Trainer still being referred to with male pronouns despite having a new female alt in Ultimate, and Alph being referred to as Olimar, among other things.

The only codec that was edited for Ultimate was Link's, where the Clawshot was excluded from the list of weapons Otacon reports to Snake, as Link's redesign based on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild removed it from his moveset.