OMG! I haven't been this stoked for a game announcement since Animal Crossing: New Horizons was fully and finally unveiled. I know everyone has a mixed and different reaction to the Nintendo Direct that aired today, but for me, Splatoon 3 was the perfect final reveal. Just knowing it exists now is validation that will keep my anxiousness at bay. Metroid Prime 4 is coming. Breath of the Wild 2 is coming. Now we know that Splatoon 3 is coming! I am so damn excited.

If you haven't seen it yet, check out the latest reveal trailer here.

This really surprised me. I thought Splatoon was going to be one of those one game per system kind of series. I’m looking forward to seeing what new stuff they have come up with and hoping they expand on the single player and cooperative content in big ways. Nintendo has a history of absolutely nailing the third game in a new series and solidifying some of the main conventions going forward, so let’s hope they do it again here!

Seeing that Salmon Little Buddy so prominently featured makes me happy. Boy, did we do those Salmon dirty in the last game... and it happened to be my favorite mode.

Secret_Tunnel said:

Yeah, I'm surprised at how many people are expecting a Splatoon 3 soon!

And I continue to be surprised!

That opening made it look like this was a totally new thing. Open-world Splatoon. And then they didn't show any more of it!

The Octo Expansion was awesome, so if the single player can keep up that level of style and design, I'm in.

I guess it makes sense. The gap between the first two games was only two years, and the gap between 2 and 3 will have been five years! Doesn't feel real.

Man, what a weirdly-paced trailer, haha. It really had a vibe. Going from the mysterious apocalyptic opening to that deliberate train ride (with that standing fish) to the muted town. And then the drums kicking everything into gear. A bold construction.

I guess Splatoon trailers are always weird, though. The Octo Expansion trailer was stylishly nutty, too.

@DrFinkelstein
Haha, with this announcement and the 2020 Animal Crossingpocalypse, we have truly entered the Finkelstein era.

@Secret_Tunnel
I wanna brag about calling this, but I'm going to save the brag for calling Mario Golf!

Anyway, I think that the Spla3een campaign will be more like a traditional campaign. Which would be a cool, novel twist to distinguish this game.

I hope that the levels aren't all brown and grungy, though!

Count me in the crowd of thinking that Splatoon was going to be a "one per system" type of series, or maybe I was just hoping it would be. This is the third game released on essentially the same hardware, so I hope they're going to do something drastically different with the gameplay to set it apart. If it ends up feeling like something which could have been DLC for Splatoon 2, that will be disappointing.

I'm...not sure how to feel about this!

Okay, so, I actually love the original Splatoon. I think it was one of the best new Nintendo IPs in years and my GOTY 2015. It felt so fresh and original and fun. But I felt the sequel didn't quite add enough onto the game for my tastes. It was still very good and I played it plenty, but I found its launch features lacking outside of the (very fun) Salmon Run, and by the time they doled out some new Ranked modes, I had moved on.

I'm somewhat worried Splatoon 3 will feel similarly "hurried out," rather than the ultimate Splatoon experience. Just kind of my gut feeling due to it being on the same hardware/engine and looking almost indistinguishable from the previous games. I dunno, maybe I'm just being a negative Nelly, but the trailer didn't really convince me a whole separate game is, like, necessary? In other words, if a logo saying SPLATOON 2 EXPANSION PASS: CANYON CALAMARI popped up instead of SPLATOON 3, I wouldn't question it at all.

Of course, it's still early and to be fair, it will have been a full five years between the games, so maybe they're cooking up some truly fresh seafood for me to chew on again.

@Anand
You and me both on Mario Golf!

It seems like a lot of people were predicting Mario Golf (myself included) so I'm not sure how much that's really something to brag about, hee hee.

@TriforceBun

I feel like Nintendo's been doing this thing lately where they show off an understated teaser for a game (the Smash Inkling trailer) that hints at a larger scope (Breath of the Wild Link's silhouette! a new logo!) without coming out and saying it, and then people get discussing whether the game will actually be huge or not (is it just a port of Smash 4??), and then later they have a MASSIVE reveal where it turns out the game is even bigger than people possibly imagined (Everyone is Here!).

That's the vibe I got from this Splatoon 3 trailer. "Wait, is this some crazy post-apocalyptic open world Splatoon? Oh, no, maybe it's just a little menu area..." They're stirring up some mystery and toying with our expectations now for the big reveal later!

Anand said:

@DrFinkelstein
Haha, with this announcement and the 2020 Animal Crossingpocalypse, we have truly entered the Finkelstein era.

You betcha!

@TriforceBun

Perhaps your expectations are just different than mine. Sequels being more content and new ideas. There were a couple new ideas in Splatoon 2, and I can understand where maybe there weren't enough for yourself. I found myself putting in over 1,000 hours into Splatoon 2 so clearly for some folks what they're doing is enough. The fanbase is still huge. As of December 2020 it has sold almost 12-Million copies, which is more than double Splatoon 1. It's the ninth best selling Nintendo Switch game. Going from Wii U to Switch I think may have given it the freedom to be a little less life-changing. However with a second Splatoon on the same console, I do think Nintendo would want to try and mix things up a bit more right now. It's too soon to tell but I think they're really going all out with the theme from the looks of it. I think we're in for some surprises here. I'm stoked for it.

I did a write up on the whole Nintendo Direct as a whole. However I'll share my Splatoon 3-specific thoughts below.

------------------
I was really hoping for one final surprise, as I think we all do with Nintendo Directs. This Nintendo Direct… the first one in over five-hundred days, couldn’t have picked a BETTER surprise. The final trailer opens up on a rock ridge. I did not know what this was about. Then it cut to a desolate canyon. Subway cars were buried partially in the ground. I too, didn’t click at all what this was. Then it cut to a third shot, of a character in a hood sitting on a rock. My brain slowly realizing what I was seeing was a bit of Nintendo magic.


The hood gets pulled down and I finally realize that the person under there is a Squid girl. I screamed out in existential joy as my synapses fired off and put together the puzzle being fed through my eyes. Those subway cars were disheveled because of the Chaos that the Final Fest brought. I started to feel like I was seeing the sequel to one of my favorite games and franchises of all time. Over the last three+ years I have put over 1,060 hours into the sequel and I’ve even started dabbling into the original again (of which I put hundreds and hundreds of hours into that). I have squids on my walls. I participate in every Splatfest I can. There was even a splatfest on the day a friend of mine got married and I participated in that splatfest from my hotel room, thirteen floors up, in a state far from where I actually live. I was able to have my cake and eat it too that day. Sometimes I feel like I love Splatoon more than Zelda or Mario but saying so feels blasphemous. I just chalk them up to being different incomparable experiences, and in stating that, I must say, I love Splatoon and it’s my favorite franchise! It was funny to realize that I didn’t even notice that ‘Little Buddy’ was a salmonid right out in the open. My brain had needed more time to register it all.


You better believe it!
The trailer did a great job at continuing to be vague. I wasn’t sure if what I was seeing was a true sequel to Splatoon 2, or if it was some kind of DLC pack. The DLC in Splatoon 2 is delightfully tackled and thorough. I wouldn’t have put it past Nintendo to see a DLC pack again. However I know the fan base and the sales are so high for Splatoon 2, and the timing has been so long since the original release, that I really felt like this was my moment. This was Splatoon 3. The trailer continued forth in the desolate landscape, making me laugh all the way. Seeing the salmonid look like my own Baby Yoda is hilarious and intriguing. I’m watching The Mandalorian now and it’s hard to ignore how cute that character is. Finally our Squid Girl was in a mysterious city. By now I really suspected we were seeing the sequel.


And then as the delicious euphonic goodness of a remixed musical track from Splatoon 1 swelled up…


CONFIRMATION!
BOOM! There it was! Splatoon 3 was confirmed. I had been wishing and hoping for this day. As much as I love Splatoon 2, I have long since maxed out every single piece of gear you can collect. I have put so many hours into the multiplayer. I have 100%ed the story mode and the DLC. I have milked Splatoon 2 for every ounce of surprise and splendor. Now I am going to get to start that all over again. I’m a bit of a simpleton and I would be pretty happy with more clothes, stages, and story. However I think we’re going to see some new weapons and mechanics that change the game a bit. I hope this is true, to keep things fresh, but I don’t think they’re going to muck up the core gameplay.

In that previously mentioned tweet of mine where I listed my five MEGATON moments for this Direct, Splatoon 3 was the first one. I am so overjoyed that I managed to receive it. The remainder of the trailer looked great too. We saw gameplay in a new arena, which looks way more organic than usual. From a Japanese twitter account for the game, it seems that due to the Chaos and story, we’re going to see more organic stages going forward. I do hope they’ll bring back some old classics from Splatoon 1 and Splatoon 2, but more so the original as I miss some of those stages. They deserve to be updated as Splatoon 2 did. There isn’t much else to say about all this right now because I can’t reiterate how much in love I am with this trailer than I already have been. I am a happy Nintendo fan. I’m a Squid Kid for life. I will have to wait till 2022 for the release though… bummer! Hopefully it’s a Spring 2022 release though. Barely a year away…

@DrFinkelstein

I love this post! I like that there's a Nintendo game that people can put thousands of hours of mastery into. You could say the same for Smash, but that requires a level of technical reflex-based minutia that's far beyond people who can't dedicate their lives to it full-time. I really feel like I've hit a ceiling as to how good I can be in Smash without getting into frame-by-frame analysis of combos and matchups and yada yada. Plus it's more fun as a couch party game.

But Splatoon is designed specifically for one person per console, playing online, slowly getting better as time goes on and you learn new tactics. I'm sure building up reflexes plays a big part too, but as a team-based shooter, I assume that high levels of play are more about positioning and coordination. Do you play with your own group with voice chat, or just hopping into random lobbies solo? I feel like I always have the highest score on my team AND my team always loses, which makes me wonder if I'm the problem or if I'm just unlucky...

The final Splatfest having major repercussions for this game's direction is awesome.

@Secret_Tunnel

Thanks ST! I totally agree with what you said about Smash. Though I don't even know if my ceiling is high for even the most casual of people, lol. Splatoon though, I certainly clicked with it in a unique way. I think you're right that the best teams are those that can truly coordinate. I play often either alone or there is a group of friends I play with. Hopping on now with one of them in fact. However we usually just text chat. We don't voice chat and sync up strategies. Being able to quickly see the map generally gives me an indication of how to proceed. I have often wondered how good it would be to go full on me and three friends, voice chat, and strategizing. We've never done it though.

I'd be happy to keep playing Splatoon 2 for another four years but my time with it has slowed. I used to be in the habit of putting about an hour a day in after work. Now I do go days without playing it because I'm actually trying to play other games. Though I love going back in for matches. Having a whole new set of gear to collect and gain experience on will suck me right back in. I like 100%ing these games.

Splatoon 1's final fest inspired Splatoon 2's story a bit but it looks like they are REALLY going for it on this one. I'm loving the mystery they've put here and the whole fact that they're really making the lore impact things is so fascinating. I think I'm going to go replay all the single player content this year as a means of refreshing myself on the story.

I'm curious about this one as well. I think it will continue what Splatoon 2 was doing (if it ain't broke, don't fix it), but I'll be curious to see what elements they add and change to truly make it different from the previous two games. I loved the single player stuff in Splatoon 2, so I have high hopes for this one.