Splatoon 3's Story Mode DLC, 'Side Order', Splats Its Way Onto Switch Next Spring

Finally more single player and a reason to go back on.

I always love the single player offerings of Splatoon.

Looks awesome! Surprised that the release is so far away though.

I thought this looked trippy and fun

Looks great so far! I wonder what they're doing with it to entice people to play through it multiple times? I kinda hope that's optional and that it can be 100% completed in a single playthrough

It looks awesome! It was strange that we didn't see Pearl or Marina in the trailer though (only the Pearl Drone)

It’s… a roguelite?? Now that’s way different from what everyone was expecting. Not bad, just different.

A bit of an annoying wait, but I'm intrigued enough to continue waiting. (I already bought the DLC anyway lol)

I’m still under the impression that this is a prologue to Splatoon 2. Maybe when Pearl was exploring the ruins under her backyard (with a drone, now) and met Marina and helped her escape. It’s looking great either way! I can’t wait!

Just want to let people know that this will be a roguelite. After playing little Noah and absolutely loving it I will definitely be playing this. (BTW are there any other great roguelites on the switch?)

Looks good so far. I loved the base game’s campaign and Octo Expansion, so hopefully it lives up to those two.

Okay. This is absolutely sick!! Cannot wait for this.

That sounds really really late, I thought it would launch this year still. Oh well, I'm sure it'll be worth the wait, it did look really good.

Finally!! I wish it would release sooner but this looks amazing, the new upgrade things are an interesting mechanic too! Also wasn’t expecting to see Dedf1sh but what happened to Marina

@masterLEON

While that would be great ... two problems.

We know that'story already. It's been told in various media. Marina was witness to the battle with agent 3 at the end of the single player events in the first game, and upon hearing "Calamari Inkantation" she fled to Mount Nantai. There she found Pearl doing a solo act, the 2 became fast friends. It's only around 2 weeks between them meeting and forming "Off the Hook".

In the early "Off The Hook" songs Marina sings in Octoling because she starts recording with Pearl before she speaks a single word of Inkling. The two "connected" almost entirely thought music, although Pearl knew a very limited amount of Octoling. In one of her early live concerts, in one of the most outstanding and mind-blowing examples of attention to detail and selling continuity I've ever seen, Marina flubbed her lines and ends up singing a line in the made up language of Octoling instead of the made up language the song called for, Inkling. For like the ... what, 1 in 100,000 fans that would notice that?

Also ... we've been told what the premises is from day one. It's an alternate reality where Order won the Splatocalypse. It looks like, based on the dialog and the fact they are they "missing" in the current continuity, the alternate reality is "real", and the girls are currently trapped inside it.

This also explains what happened to DEDF1SH.

From August 2022 - Spring 2024. This DLC’s gap between announcement and launch spans about the same as Splatoon 3’s.

I was hoping it’d be this year. But it’s fine. I never stopped playing Splatoon 3 and I’ll still keep to playing Splatoon 3 until then.

Yay dlc

I have so many questions, like WHY IS DEDF1SH THERE?! Could she be a villain, and they pull a Tartar double-cross or something? A new villain would be nice, not a character we’ve known about for years.

I also really liked how the cutscenes looked. And the best thing about that is that the campaign will be even more polished when it comes out this spring.

While you excuse me, I’ll be out studying Octo Expansion lore until this dlc comes out.

If this ends up being roguelite then I just might have to play this day one. Was not at all interested in getting the DLC until this direct.

@shining_nexus

About 70% of the team working on this were also working on the roguelite DLC for Xenoblades, so it seems likely. Not to mention that's just kinda the direction gaming is going in general.

@HeadPirate that’s really good to hear. Splatoon with roguelite gameplay just sounds so endearing to me. Just like when horde mode was announced. I’m hoping they would keep a rouge mode in future Splatoon games and build upon it.

Not to mention the card game. I really liked that too.

@HeadPirate I thought Off the Hook was on tour showcasing some new talent they scouted, Damp Socks, explaining somewhat why they’re not present in 3. This was before Splatoon 3 came out, when a preview of Candy Coated Rocks was posted on Twitter. In hindsight, the “tour” might be their cover for their operations with Agent 8. I see the official site says it’s an alternate reality, but is it a running theory that it’s actually reality or confirmed true?

Either way I think it’s cool that the color chips affect 8’s own colors and gradients. The console palette and sliders reminds me of a color picker palette from a graphics app mixed with a DJ sound board. And that there’s always darkness behind the scenes in Splatoon lore that folks who only see Splatoon as a colorful Nintendo squid game will never fully grasp.

@masterLEON

One of the big problems, and this happens a lot with Japanese properties with continuity, is that we often get localized stories that are changed significantly , while it's always the original Japanese that is cannon. The "going on tour" cover story wouldn't work in Japan because ... well, because they literally go on tour in Japan. We got the full story about how Callie and Marie stepped away from music from the reunion tour they did, so this idea of story telling though concerts is pretty established ... but Off The Hook hasn't done a live concert in a while. If they were off doing concerts with Damp Socks ... they would literally be concerts you could go to. Even after Splatoon 1, Mari Kikuma did phone in interviews with talk shows and print media while Keity.pop did a solo concert, both in character ... so that whole thing about the girls drifting apart before Callie was kidnapped literally happened in the real world before we found out about it in game.

My Japanese is ... passable, but not perfect, and the language is extremely contextual. What I can tell you is that the in the voice over after the first trailer flat out says "this game takes place in an alternate reality" and there were even interviews where the talked to how they started developing the "order" world and "chaos" world a year before the final splatfest, with the plan always being to use one as the setting for the next game and the other as the setting for it's expansion.

But, the best I can translate the Japanese official website that went up after this direct, it says:

This is a single-player mode that allows you to challenge repeatedly. Set in the "Tower of Order," you enhance your abilities with "Color Chips" while conquering various floors and aiming for the top floor of the tower.

No direct mention of an alternate reality, but keep in mind that I could just be missing some sort of contextual meaning. The place is called Hai-Cala Square ... maybe if you write that in kanji it's a pun for alternate reality or something ... I really can't say for sure.

it also seems to say that the drone IS Pearl ... I think?

"Hime (Pearl) is a drone that identifies itself as Hime and is part of the popular unit "Tentacles." Although it seems to have Hime herself inside, for some reason, it has taken on the appearance of a drone."

So ... hard to say at this point exactly what is up. Can't wait to find out!