(Editor’s Note: This week’s regularly-scheduled Pulse post has been pushed to Friday.)
We’re about a month away from the Sept. 9 release of Splatoon 3, and up to now information about the game had been fairly sparse, limited to a bunch of Twitter posts and a few minutes of previous Direct space. The dearth of information had brought to mind a quote I half-remember from an old PSA, something along the lines of “People tend to assume the worst if you don’t tell them you really care,” because the hot topic in the Splatoon community for the last month has been concerned hand-wringing. It started with tons of people asking “Is there something wrong with Splatoon 3? Is it just going to be the same as Splatoon 2? Is Nintendo going to turn it into the next Call Of Duty?”, followed by the usual counter-content saying that everything would be fine and people were just silly for worrying. The whole mess felt manufactured and overly-dramatic to me, but such is life in the age of the 24-hour news cycle.
My initial thought was that a) we wouldn’t get a dedicated Splatoon direct at all, and b) we didn’t actually need a Splatoon Direct anyway. The Directs for the first two games focused mostly on the basics: What the game was, how to play different modes, what the shops in the plaza were, and so on. It made sense for Splatoon because the series was new, and it made sense for Splatoon 2 because nobody bought a Wii U and thus the game was still relatively unknown, but after selling over 111 million Switches and over 13 million copies of Splatoon 2, I didn’t think a Direct for S3 was necessary. We know what Inklings are (they’re Smash Bros. fighters, obviously), we know what this franchise is, and we know how the game works—do we really need another guided tour through the hat and shoe shops?
However, after seeing all the knee-jerk reactions online, I decided that we did need a Splatoon Direct, less for the information it contained and more to calm the frayed nerves of the community and assure folks that everything was going to be okay. (Given the state of pretty much everything in the world right now, people can be forgiven for wanting a little extra reassurance.) Finally, Nintendo announced a dedicated Splatoon 3 Direct earlier this week, and then dropped the video this morning (and apparently almost dropped it yesterday). So what did we get?
…Well, we got what the game was, how to play different modes, what the shops in the plaza were, and so on. What else did you expect? Still, there were enough new details, surprises, and quality-of-life upgrades to get the hype and analysis machines cranked back up for the franchise, so I’d say the presentation served its purpose. Let’s dig in!

The presentation started with the Turf War basics: Teams, objectives, ink traversal and consumption, etc. The new Squid Surge and Squid Roll movement options were shown off, but details remained a bit vague: For example, the surge seemed to take a moment to charge—does this happen every time, or can the user decide how long to hold it, and can you get bigger surges with longer charges? For the Squid Roll, when the announcer says it “slightly repels ink” while it’s glowing, exactly what does that mean? Are you fully invincible when you roll, or is damage just reduced and a powerful enough shot can still get you? (This would be a great way to make a niche for the Goo Tuber: Maybe a Splat Charger/Squiffer/E-Liter couldn’t one-shot through a Squid Roll, but a fully-charged Goo Tuber could.) Overall this section felt a little lackluster: Either we were told something we already knew, or we weren’t told enough about what we didn’t know.
As far as the announced stages, we only got a few glimpses of the new ones, so there isn’t a ton to say about them except that generally they look really large and fairly open. I’m curious to see how this impacts general gameplay: Splatoon 2 took a lot of heat for its special-spamming meta, and ProChara cited larger map sizes as a reason for why more specials were being deployed. Continuing the supersizing trend could lead to similar issues in S3, and while there are a ton of ways to balance special weapons besides map size, it remains a cause for concern. On the returning stage front, we got a number of confirmations for S1 maps that didn’t appear in S2: Museum D’Alfonsino we knew about, but Hammerhead Bridge and Mahi-Mahi Resort are coming back as well, and there was also a teaser for an unnamed stage coming post-launch…

Yeah, that’s definitely Flounder Heights, a stage I’ve been begging the Splatoon devs to bring back for years. (S2 maps Inkblot Art Academy, Sturgeon Shipyard, MakoMart, and Wahoo World were also confirmed as well.)
I can’t complain about anything I saw here: I was at least neutral on most of the returning maps, and the only one I truly detested (Hammerhead Bridge) appears to have been completely redesigned (the bridge is finally finished now!), so I’m curious to see how it plays. One thing I didn’t see, however, was Moray Towers, and I’m a little surprised about this given how popular that map was in S1. However, it seemed to lose its luster for a lot of people in S2, and if Flounder Heights is coming back to bring some verticality to the party, perhaps Moray will sit this game out.
In addition to all of the existing weapons classes, Splatoon 3 will feature two new weapon types from the start: “Stringers” (the bows we’ve been drooling over for over a year), and “Splatanas” (giant windshield wipers that have more range than brushes, but don’t seem to paint or move as well). While I’m sure these classes will shake up the game, I’m not all that interested in them personally: Stringers seem to play a lot like chargers (which means they require far more aim than I have), and Splatanas look like the sort of ZR-spam, RMI-causing weapons that I tend to avoid. That said, I just completed a “100 wins with 100 weapons” challenge in S2, and I know darn well I’m going to destroy myself trying to hit triple-digits with both the bows and the wipers. (It helps make the pain of Dustin Lynch reviews seem less severe in comparison.)
On the special weapon front, we’ve got a lot more returning S2 specials than I expected: Tenta Missiles, Inkjet, Ink Storm, Ultra Stamp, and the Booyah Bomb will all be coming back without any noticeable modifications (as opposed to the remixed S1 specials that were shown off such as the Tri-zooka and Killer Wait 5.1). The Tentacooler, which provides temporary stat boosts to any player who stops by the machine, likely means we won’t see Ink Armor make a return, and the Reefslider (which travels in a straight line to a specific area and then explodes) looks to be replacing Baller. Wave Breaker is a confusing one to me: It send out pulses that mark opponents and can even splat them is enough pulses connect, but I feel like Ink Storm kinda-sorta serves the same “clear out of an area or else” purpose, so are they distinct enough to convince people to try out both of them?
Sub weapons were never explicitly mentioned in the presentation, but we’ve seen most of them passing through this and other presentations. Splat Bombs, Suction Bombs, Splat Walls, Toxic Mist, and the new Angle Shooter were off in the Turf War video a while back, and Torpedos and Sprinklers made brief cameos during this presentation. I imagine some of the other bomb varieties from S2 will be coming back (Curling Bombs, Autobombs), but will have to wait and see.
The usual shops are back (hats, clothing, gear, and weapons) and a whole new set of proprietors are running them (Sheldon’s still here though; no one else wants his job). Gear abilities don’t appear to have changed too much (Bomb Resistance Up DX seems to have been replaced with a more-general Sub Resistance Up), but there’s a new Intensify Action ability which appears to provide a Quick Super Jump-like boost for the new Squid Surge/Roll abilities (although no footage was shown of a boosted Squid Roll). Murch from S2 has gotten a boost as well: He can replace gear main abilities as well as sub abilities, as well as apparently boost ‘star power’ for a weapon. Star power appears to be tied to weapon acquisition, as using weapons and gaining star power grants you ‘Sheldon Licenses’ which are then used to buy new weapons. I’m not sure how I feel about this (it seems like it makes getting new weapons more difficult and complicated), but we’ll have to see it in action to know for sure.
Remember all that speculation about apartments in S3? I’m sad to report that shrinkflation has hit the Splatlands…but happy to report that at least we now have lockers! Lockers are customizable areas that you can customize with items, gear, photos, and stickers, and there’s a new shop “Hotlantis” where you can pick up some of these items. You can also customize a “splashtag” that will display your name and title at the start and end of battle, and even set your victory animation!

Seasonal in-game catalogs will be available to order special items/gear/moves/tags/etc., so make sure to get all the stuff you want before it’s gone!
All three ranked modes from S2 are now officially confirmed (*sigh* okay, Clam Blitz is here too), but the structure of Ranked Battles seems to have been changed. Now, solo queue appears to be split into ‘Anarchy Battles,’ where you can either play a best-of-five ‘series’ against other players or play ‘open’ battles that allow you to team up with friends. This raises so many questions: Is ‘open’ the unranked ranked mode I’ve been asking for? I recall ThatSRB2Dude a while back talking about how playing a series of battles would be a more-accurate ranking system—is series mode what he was talking about? (An ‘X Mode’ was also teased as a post-launch update—will this be an extension of the ranking system?) The one headscratching choice that I saw was that League Battles won’t be in the game to start, so this means that a) they’re hoping ‘open’ Anarchy Battles will serve the same purpose initially, or b) they’re just making a bad decision (league seems like a pretty important option to me…). Private Battles are back, but they appear to be unchanged from their S2 iteration, so I don’t know if lobby codes or any of the community’s other requested QoL upgrades are present.
There are, however, some really cool QoL upgrades that made it into the game, starting with the improved Test Range. Not only is it larger and it appears to have more-varied targets to splat, you can also enter the test range while waiting for matches to start, so you’re not stuck staring at a glorified loading screen for minutes on end. You can also form teams for Turf War battles, view replays of past battles (perfect for players who want to review their gameplay to improve), and at long last be able to skip the long news updates when you start up the game. Players that are new to the series won’t realize how privileged they are!

I’ll be honest, I’m not really sure what to say and Table Turf battles. It’s a new mode that appears to be a turn-based Turf War that plays out on a Tetris-like grid, where each player uses a custom deck of cards to claim spaces and out-paint their opponents. Is this supposed to be a full-blown competitive game mode like Salmon Run, or a neat little diversion like B n’ D in Bravely Default II? I guess only time will tell.
Salmon Run was mostly fleshed out in a prior presentation, but some big new pieces were revealed today, such as some new bosses (Slammin’ Lids, Big Shots), the arrival of King Salmonids (the Cohozuna was teased at the very end of the old SR trailer) which appear as extra ways at the end of some battles and can be defeated using normal methods or by launching Golden Eggs at them, and the announcement of Big Runs, where Salmonids invade the Splatlands and battles take places on standard ink battle maps. In other words, SR will be expanding a lot in S3, perhaps in recognition of the vibrant sub-community that has sprung up around it in S2. The big unanswered questions: Is it still going to be available only periodically and randomly, or can we play it anytime we want in S3? Here’s hoping for the latter…
Surprisingly, the single-player mode didn’t get a lot of screen time here, and few new details were revealed. You’re Agent 3 again as in S1, but what you’re doing and why you’re doing it remains a mystery for the moment. Callie, Marie, Original Agent 3, Captain Cuttlefish, and DJ Octavio all appear to be returning, and the brief video snippets indicate that some stage design inspiration has drawn from S2 Octo Expansion DLC levels. (The gear-loss cutscene also suggests you’ll be in a Metroid Prime situation to start, and will have to regain all your tools as your play through the mode.)
The end of the “official” trailer focused on features pertaining to the plaza and the NSO app. Most of this stuff is minor (custom art posts are back, SplatNet 3 appears to work about the same as SplatNet 2, amiibos give you gear and let you save certain loadouts), and the one potentially-interesting feature (Photo Mode) felt a bit underwhelming because there didn’t seem to be a way to pose for the picture (if Animal Crossing can do it, why can’t Splatoon?). Some new S3 amiibo were also announced…

…and while they look great, I never felt like amiibo had much utility in S2 as compared to S1, so it’s hard to justify buying them for the in-game functionality.
In terms of updates, the game is slated for free content updates like the catologs for at least two years, and apparently plans for “large-scale paid DLC” are in the works (silhouettes of Pearl and Marina were teased here, so they likely won’t be seen in the base game). Oh, and speaking of idols…

Meet Deep Cut, the official hosts of Splatoon 3. They’ll be taking over for Pearl and Marina and announcing the current stages and modes (if you don’t skip them, that is). There are three of them this time, which means there’s a big change to the other mode they host…
That’s right, Splatfests are back! But with three idols comes three teams to choose from, and battles are now broken into two stages: A regular 1v1, 4v4 turf war, and a chaotic 4v2v2 Tri-Color Turf War where the winning team from the first stage has to hold on against both of the other teams. I have no idea how this is going to work, but a special pre-release Splatfest has been announced for August 27th, so I guess we’ll all find out together!
Okay…deep breaths…deep breaths…
So what did we really get from all this? While little we saw was really necessary and could have been left as a release-day surprise, I liked a lot of what I saw here, and bringing it all together in this sort of package amplified the hype levels and put Splatoon 3 front and center in the minds of both the Splatoon and wider Nintendo communities. Splatoon has felt stagnant for a while now, but Twitter and YouTube (and yes, even WordPress) are already starting to light up with reactions, analyses, and hot takes, and this train is going to keep building up steam until the game drops next month. People are finally excited for this franchise again, and I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.
See you in the Splatlands!