Splatoon 3 alluded to: Padded, not (just) spilled

Splatoon: It was more like love at third or fourth sight for me. Part one completely passed me by on my rarely used WiiU, even though the game was a massive hit. I first got started with Splatoon 2 on the Nintendo Switch and even then it took quite a while before I got a taste for the turbulent multiplayer ink battles.

I especially enjoy playing the local modes since they came out in 2017. Simply invite some friends over, connect consoles and spontaneously splatter the arenas against each other in turf wars or compete in the extremely fun horde mode in the cooperative Salmon Run.

After about five years, part 3 will be released on September 9th and I’ve already been able to try out the first solo levels, the turf war and the Salmon Run with some colleagues. Summary: It’s a lot of fun again and there are also a few smart innovations to report. First of all, let’s briefly talk about the gameplay, in case you’ve perhaps dismissed the brightly colored color fights as a children’s call-of-duty and largely ignored them.

You take on the role of an Inkling who paints the area with a whole arsenal of funny weapons, such as an oversized brush, bows or pump guns. In turf wars, two teams of four players do it, and the team that has most of an arena marked with their team color at the end of a round wins. Opponents turn off her targeted attacks, which then have to pause for a few seconds before they can join in again.

Not only do you walk across the field in human form, you also transform into an octopus if necessary, which can “swim” through the parts of the arena that you have dabbed in your team color. If you submerge, you refuel your paint – i.e. reload -, move considerably faster and even climb vertical walls. It is important to ensure that you do not swim through enemy colored water, because that means you will take damage and be slowed down. At launch you can choose from a dozen arenas, some of which are quite complex. In the following two years, free expansions will come every three months, which will certainly also include other playing fields.

If competitive matches are not your thing, then you and your friends can take on waves of monsters in the Salmon Run co-op mode, which is also available online and locally. You steal golden eggs from them, throw them in a basket and then bring down some pretty nasty final bosses. We played a few practice rounds and soon found ourselves stumbling as we couldn’t keep up with healing fallen fellow Inklings. The level of difficulty was just set to trainee, which corresponds to 10%. Up to 200% are possible! I’ll definitely try that out with a capable squad after it’s released. In contrast to part two, the Salmon Run is now available at any time and is no longer tied to specified times.

If you prefer to be on your own, the extensive story mode offers a lot of challenges. The first level turns out to be a cleverly knitted tutorial, in which you are not simply guided linearly through a parkour and are told to press a button when announced. Your mentor Cuttlefish will explain the Inkling craft to you with every new obstacle, but you should solve the environmental puzzles yourself, which quickly become quite tricky. It really put me in a good mood finding my way out of a complex maze of jump pads, switches, slingshot tapes and sepia ducts, tracking down keys and blasting enemies with the air gun.

Basically, Splatoon 3 delivers everything that its predecessor had. This includes the impressive paint splash weapon arsenal, which has been expanded a bit by the Tri-Stinger bow for long-distance attacks and the funny Wiper Splatana, a sword-shaped windshield wiper that is powerful in close-up attacks. You have a total of 26 spills to choose from, plus special weapons.

Two movements are also new. One is the squid roll, where you move in the desired direction at lightning speed in the form of a squid by pressing a button and the directional key, and the squid wallrun, with which you can climb vertical surfaces particularly quickly. So you can escape faster in sticky situations.

Otherwise, Splatoon veterans will find a lot that is familiar from the predecessors, be it the different game modes, ranked battles, arena layouts or the sheer mass of clothing and accessories with which you not only customize your Inkling, but also get tangible benefits such as a larger ink tank. Even if the innovations known so far are clear, the scope is not messy and boredom does not arise.

If you feel like playing Splatoon again or trying it out for the first time, be sure to download the demo from the Nintendo Store and try out a few matches. And make sure to save August 27th between 10am and 10pm for the Splatoon 3 Splatfest. This time the theme is rock-paper-scissors. Why? Because the exciting game mode Triple Battle celebrates its premiere, in which three teams compete against each other. As usual, there are two teams of four on the sides of the field, but there is a third team in the middle, which consists of only two players. I will definitely be there.