Struggling to hone your splatting skills? Then have a read of some of our guides and exclusive interviews:
- Splatoon 3: Splatana Class Guide
- Splatoon 3: Table Turf Battle Guide
- Splatoon An Interview With Legendary Pro Player Brian
Content Issues Galore
Drip-feeding Content
Before launch just like every Splatoon game there where free updates announced. This time we were confirmed 2 years worth of free updates. However even though this is longer than any other entry in the series, it does not necessarily mean more content. As of writing this we are currently in the Fresh Season. Which brought no new weapons and only new kits. Kits are the communities’ word for a weapon’s load out. Sometimes they will slightly change the textures of a weapon then slap a new sub and special on it and call it a new weapon. This is a kit.
The Fresh Season did bring 2 new specials one of which is just taken from Splatoon 1 and another is pretty worthless. It also brought 1 new stage and 1 returning from Splatoon 2 with a few minimal changes. Now that this update has come, I wonder when the next one will be… This is where the catalogs come in. Every 3 months players get a new catalog which provides them with brand new items, gear and emotes. This date also happens to be when Nintendo has decided that any kind of content update has to happen. The drip-feeding feeling is creeping in… Not only is a lot of this content often bare bones with what is new and what is not, it is going to stay this way for the rest of Splatoon 3‘s life. Only every 3 months we will get a single update.
New Gear = Gear from previous games
The fact that we are half a year into the game’s updates and still don’t have League Battle, a mode that was present in both Splatoon 1 and 2, is just ridiculous. Everything for League is most probably finished. Just like how Tableturf Battle Online was for a long while. They are likely holding the content back just so that for the next update we can have a new mode to give the illusion of “new content”.
This reminds me of another game that the Splatoon 3 development team worked on, Animal Crossing New Horizons. One of the biggest issues New Horizons had was how lacking the base game was of features and content that the previous entry had. To keep player interest high they slowly rolled out updates to add the missing content. Notice some similarities here? New Horizons one of the Switch’s best selling games. No doubt that the higher ups must have seen the update cycle as a effective way to drive sales and player interest. It seems they are doing the same thing with Splatoon 3. Slowly giving us old features back while sprinkling in new stuff to give the illusion of a lot of content.
A Blast from the Ink Covered Past
The Echoes of Splatfests
One of Splatoon 3‘s best parts is just how many events we are going to be getting. From Big Run and Eggstra Work rotations for Salmon Run to the coveted Splatfests. Despite how fun Tri-color Turf War is, Splatfests just don’t feel the same. In Splatoon 2 every Splatfest we would get a new stage using gimmicks from the single player campaign called a Shifty Station. These were so interesting and gave Splatfests something unique to play.
Splatoon 3 does have something similar. In Tri-color Turf War we get custom versions of regular Turf War stages but with some very weirdly imposed objects that make the maps more suitable for 3 teams. This confuses so many players as it feels like Shifty Stations would be perfect for Tri-color. The regular battle maps do not suit 3 teams, they often favor one side and it never feels fair.
There is a lore reason as to why we don’t have Shifty Stations anymore and that is due to the fact that Marina from Off the Hook used to make them for each Splatfest. If we had Shifty Stations or an equivalent then the developers could create maps that actually work for Tri-color Turf War. Once we get a few of these maps we could even have a Tri-color rotation. Currently, for the entire 24 hours that Tri-color is available in Splatfest, there is only a single map. Which leads to it getting very repetitive very quickly.
The Nostalgia Bait
The Expansion Pass
Recently we got the first half of the $25 Expansion Pass. This consisted of a new hub location for the player to explore being Inkopolis Plaza from Splatoon 1. At face value this was already concerning as it is just purely aesthetical changes using a model from the first game. Now that the DLC has released, it is so much lazier than we could have imagined. Not only does Inkopolis provide nothing new as each shop is the exact same but it is much less intriguing to explore and navigate due to its smaller scale.
Entering buildings just breaks immersion completely. Not only did they take the models from their Splatsville counterparts, but they also didn’t even bother to make minuet changes that would keep the immersion alive. For example, entering the Salmon Run lobby and looking back through the door that you entered, you see a staircase that is only there in the Splatsville version of the lobby exterior.
Small Inconsistencies Cause the Biggest Issues
Another one is with the Ammo Knights shop testing range, rather than using Splatoon 1‘s testing range as a cute little call back it uses the exact same model as the Splatsville one. Want to know what’s even worse? They didn’t even bother to change the background music from the Splatsville Ammo Knights theme to the Inkopolis one! This really just takes the half-baked cake.
We haven’t even touched on the battle lobby yet which is also copy pasted from Splatsville. They could have had it be the menu from Splatoon 1 or even just mirrored it or anything but that would be too much effort. Things like this are why fans are saying that this half of the Expansion Pass is only worth $5 at most. We are all anxiously awaiting the next wave in hopes that it won’t be the unfinished lazy mess we got in the first wave.
Gathering Ideas
How Can We Change Things?
One way to circumvent these issues is through making the drip-feed more of a gentle current. This can be done through having new weapon kits being released at the end of each month. Alongside a returning map from Splatoon 2. Eventually I feel that Splatoon 3 will be a “Splatoon Ultimate” at some point. Having every stage from the previous two games return. Splatoon 2 had 23 maps. Taking away the 5 we already have in-game, there’s still 18 maps left. Which is perfectly enough to last a year and a half. Conveniently, as of writing this article there is a year and a half left in the proposed content timeline, so this would work.
Then every 3 months when the catalog changes we could get a brand-new stage! Alongside the usual new gear, weapons, locker decorations and Tableturf cards. Each month we could also get 4-6 new weapon kits as these do just reuse already existing weapons models and just add a slight visual change or texture change.
Thinking Forward
The benefit of this would be that this would give them plenty of time to give each weapon 3 kits. Keeping with this 3 motif they keep pushing. Only a select few weapons in previous games got 3 kits. So it would be nice to change this and let every weapon have plenty of options for players. The only issue with these monthly kits is that the competitive scene may be shaken up very often. In the current meta that is very much needed.
Overall Splatoon 3 has issues with keeping player engagement, but if they keep introducing new events to keep players busy during the months between seasons then hopefully these issues shouldn’t affect the player base. Let’s hope they divert the game from having a similar update life to Animal Crossing New Horizons. What do you think? Do you agree that Splatoon 3‘s updates should be different or do you like the Season approach? Let us know in the comments below!
