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Splatoon is the kind of franchise that, if it came out in the 90s, I can picture hundreds of spinoffs. I can picture party games, racing games, puzzle games, all in the Splatoon franchise

Splatoon 3 is my chill game at night most of the time, really excited for the rest of the dlc this year

Minor changes in Splatoon go a long way. The new movements and finesse in Splatoon 3 was great. I can't imagine going back to no squid surge or egg toss. Salmon Run is all I play and it's been so fleshed out.

Splatoon 3 is honestly one of the best Switch games. I’ve sunk so many hours into it now. Just so much pure fun

I think one of the biggest justifications for the new game instead of just DLC was the specials. Especially from a competitive perspective, certain specials in 2 were just really bad for the game in a way that was nigh unfixable, particularly ink armor and stingray which limited which weapons were good quite severely. But you can't really remove those from the game. The closest they did was stop adding stngray to weapons just a few months into updates because I think even they realized how bad its design was.

Arlo: "It just seemed kind of alike an incremental jump" Me: "You mean an *ink-remental* jump?

As a competitive player who didn't own any prior splatoon game, I think that comment about people "wanting an in, but everything is so established so they waited for the next game" was the perfect description that I couldn't even make myself. With nearly 2k hours and having met new friends, the engaging and ever changing update cycle would have lost the appeal if it continued trying to build on an old game with exhausted or outdated ideas - so a third entry made a lot of sense.

I have a friend who got splatoon 3 as his first splatoon game and now he has more hours in it than me, and I’m a diehard fan since splatoon 1

I put more hours in the first month of Splatoon 3 than I put into my entire time playing Splatoon 2. The quality of life improvements improved it THAT MUCH.

Another theory I have for why this was a perfect time for Splatoon 3 to come out: it's the first Nintendo game in like a decade to move on from their old architecture for online games and use the new system developed for switch. This game was basically a stress test for the new system, and we actually saw the effects of this (at launch there were all these issues with online not present in the last game, and had to be addressed with patches). The switch successor and all the online games being developed for it will use this system too, and so by coming out when it did, Splatoon 3 is laying the groundwork for all these games to launch with far better online than if the system had never been tested on such a large scale.

I’ve always thought the reaction to Splatoon 3’s announcement was dumb. The whole “one game per system” only applies to Nintendo franchises. Everyone else does it. People even compared Splatoon to COD even though there hadn’t been an entry in 5 years. Also most of the people saying we didn’t need a new Splatoon weren’t even playing Splatoon 2 anymore anyways so what were they complaining about?

Splatoon 3 may actually be more proof that the Switch successor will have backwards compatibility. I can not imagine a world where Nintendo would greenlight a continuously ongoing updating game as massive as Splatoon knowing most of their player base will be moving on to a platform that doesn't support said game only 2 years later. Im hopeful, haha

one other fact to consider now that the game is in the latter half of its update cycle, side order is looking to be a big draw to people who enjoy more single player experiences and the replayability of side order looks to be a really interesting innovation on the splatoon formula

This is one of the best games to come out for the switch, and of the two splatoon games, I have for more hours invested in this one. There's just so many features and play styles that make it a big improvement over the second game, stuff they couldn't have just made dlc. I could never go back to not having squid surge. It's existence on the same console as 2 is definitely justified.

It really makes sense when you remember Splatoon is a Nintendo franchise: they care just as much about their worlds and characters and settings as the gameplay. So when they make a sequel, they're thinking just as much about the new setting, the new characters, the new music, etc as the new gameplay mechanics and they absolutely see Splatoon 3 as a substantially different game by that metric.

Me personally, I'm SO glad Splatoon 3 came out- even though I had splatoon 2 and enjoyed it a bit, I never really got into it since I got it after content had stopped in 2019. Splatoon 3 was like an opportunity for me (and probably so many others) to get into the community!! I've made so many friends from this game and it's such a big part of my life that I can't imagine what I would do if it had never come out

I think what may have helped the sales of Splatoon 3 during launch was the fact Splatoon 2 launched so early into the life of the Switch, back before it REALLY kicked-off in popularity. What probably deterred people from trying 2 was because of the end of content arriving around the time the Switch sales began to really get going with Animal Crossing (and the rising popularity of Mario Kart, Smash, Pokemon etc) so as you said Splatoon 3 is a perfect time to jump in. By the end of Splatoon 2's life the game could be incredibly rough to get into because there were so many weapons (and kits) which could confuse or overwhelm new players, not to mention things like the Kensa .52 Gal meta, Tenta Missile Spam, and EVERYTHING revolving around how gear worked in that game. 3 helped reset a lot of that but also carry-over a lot of the established elements from Splatoon 2, so players familiar with the game weren't missing out on things they liked from that game while also making sure new players had a healthy amount of things to discover and learn. Not to mention the singleplayer is MUCH better designed to teach players about the game than the S2 campaign, while also having moments for longer-time players to feel payoff too!

The funniest bit about current-day Splatoon to me is that for as beloved as the series is, the core fanbase here in the west is probably the most critical of the games? Especially 3, admittedly 3 is far from a perfect game but apart from the Tenta Missile meta of Splat 2, 3 has probably had the biggest "controversies" within the fandom. But despite all that, the fanbase still loves it and agree that despite its flaws it's probably the best Splatoon yet. Even with some of the worst maps in the series, metas that are actually on par with Splat 2 Missiles (looking at you Crab Tank) and a netcode possibly worse than Splatoon 2's, we still love it and the game has a huge playerbase. Most of the community, shockingly, did actually move from 2 to 3 and 2 is kind of around for nostalgia purposes. It's a fun game, and that's enough for most people. As for the topic of the video itself, most multiplayer games fall into what I like to call iterative sequels, as opposed to innovative sequels. Innovative sequels are most of Nintendo's sequels, brand new games built from the ground up to be completely different from the last. Your average Mario, Zelda, Smash, and others. Iterative sequels prioritize improvements over the last before adding brand new things, which at launch is pretty much what Splat 3 did. I still think at launch it had enough to be its own game (whereas Splat 2 at launch was a glorified port of the first game), but when it comes to new content, we've probably tripled new content since launch with the updates. It gives each game its own identity if it didn't have one at the beginning. Eventually we might need a game that's closer to an innovative sequel just because the current game would be nearly perfected, but we're a while off from that day. For a majority of multiplayer games, iterative sequels are perfectly fine until the formula is completely run into the ground, and if you need any evidence: just look at how much Call of Duty sells each year. Or nearly any multiplayer shooter with relatively frequent sequels. Might not indicate quality, but at least indicates it works for sales.

Splatoon fans are feral and we love our little squids lol. I really agree, I was a bit dubious as to whether 3 needed to happen at first, but it really is a completely different feel playing the game as opposed to 2.

Arlo about Zelda: "It's not all about money". Arlo about Splatoon: "Money talks"

Not many people realize how dead splatoon 2 was before the announcement of splatoon 3. Not that it was hard to find a game, but the community online wasn't really all that active and the splatoon community was dead. The announcement and eventual release of splatoon 3 really brought a lot of people new and returning to join to community and it became a lot more active again.

Finally, Persona 3 and Splatoon 3 together in an Arlo video.

0:04 "Please forgive the lack of visual on my handsome face." Do we ever actually see Arlo's face though?

One thing I love about Splatoon is how they do release a game where it isn't a live service game, but still has some of the main advantages of a live service game. The updates, though maybe more mild than a successful Live service game which relies on recurring user payment models. However, the thing that really gets me is that they, unlike Live Service games, design the exit plan right into the game. So whenever that day comes and they can no longer support the servers, all the content is playable offline and fully supports LAN multiplayer. They thought of the idea that one day servers will go down, but they also don't want you to lose the game when that happens. It's also nice that the Switch is so popular so that you can still get a game together and play Splatoon, or Salmon Run, or just about anything except for the Splat-fest. All of those cool customization options? Included with the initial purchase price. Pretty much every aspect of the game that is here or comes later? Included with the initial purchase price. The only time you pay more is usually for a brand new Single Player adventure, at a reduced cost. I think it's kind of akin to the old Guild Wars model, except the expansion being specific to single-player and that you aren't server reliant to play the game, single nor multiplayer. It is why I feel I really make out well with just paying the premium price. I get the game, I can play it from start to finish, and when it comes down to it, my time being able to play it isn't over until I say it is over. Each FTP Live service game easily gets people paying way more than I ever would on a single Splatoon game. So for me, it's a great value proposition and runs on a business model that I personally want to stay with. That model will always beat out Live service games, anytime.

It kind of makes sense, as much as I don't like buying a game over and over to keep up with the player base, this is one way to not have things like microtransactions or battle passes in a game like this; while still having a standout multiplayer and singleplayer experience that slightly evolves with each iteration.

Side Order is the big thing that still holds the potential to move S3 forward in a big way. Octo Expansion pushed the series forward both narratively and gameplay wise. It isn't the worst model to have the base game play it more safe and take large risks with the DLC. And then add what works into the base game of the next entry.

Another thing about sequels is they can REMOVE. They did not bring back main weapon power up, and I'm SO GLAD. It makes lots of weapons completely busted. How do you remove an entire gear ability? Logistically, it's a nightmare.

Well, Arlo, you know what we have to do now... *hits hammer on desk* WRONGZO!

I was one of those new Splatoon people! I didn't have a Switch when Splatoon 2 came out and didn't think I would like it after I got one. But when Splatoon 3 was coming soon and they gave us a Splatfest to try the game out, that was my chance to see what I was missing out on and I loved it. That chance to try it out for free turned out to be exactly what I needed, and I didn't have that chance during the launch of Splatoon 2.

There's also something to be said about the single-player mode. You can release an iterative series by the single-player mode alone.

I'm right there with you on finding it strange that Nintendo abruptly stopped discussing Splatoon 3's sales numbers. I feel like we don't even get updates through their quarterly fiscal reports. Reminds me of what they did with Metroid Dread.

The changes to Salmon Run ALONE would have me buying a new version and then the minor rewards of Seasons was a great idea, for me anyway. Plus all the small changes to movement is so lovely.

One of my favorite changes in Splatoon 3 vs 2 is the loading times and main hub layout. There's a video on twitter showing the load times side-by-side when changing shop menus and Splatoon 3 is almost instantaneous while Splatoon 2 takes a solid like 10 seconds at the worst of times.

Zelda, Metroid and Splatoon are my favorite game series of all time. I love them all, but something about the splatoon world is just so lovely. It makes me happy, and I can’t quite describe it

I'm glad Splatoon 3 was made because it's what really got me into the series. I played Splatoon 2 and liked it well enough. I thought the campaign was fine and had some fun with the online. I really loved the Octo Expansion campaign, but didn't touch the game very much after that. I had around 27 hours on the game. But then Splatoon 3 came out and something clicked. I loved the campaign and really got into playing online ranked matches. I finally got to participate in Splatfests after missing out on them in Splatoon 2. So far, I have clocked in over 300 hours on the game.

From a sales standpoint, Splatoon 3 was the right call……for Japan. The west did see the usual dip for sequels of franchises already on the same system, it’s just that Japan overperformed. And even then, it’s still below Splatoon 2. *EDIT:* And it looks like sales dropped off hard a year later. Unless Side Order gives Splatoon 3 a sizable boost (which is entirely possible, as shown by Octo Expansion for S2), I don’t think it’s passing Splatoon 2.

LITERALLY my favorite game on switch. My first game in the series was S2 on release day and I’ve been HOOKED ever since!! ❤ They improved and expanded upon every single aspect of S2 with the release of 3, and it continues to gift the community through updates!!

That was more or less my thoughts any time I saw people doubting the necessity of Splat 3. I think most Nintendo fans are just not experienced with the release model for non-live service multiplayer titles. This is how the business works, especially with shooters and double especially if a single player campaign is a significant part of the appeal. Honestly, Splatoon's release schedule reminfs me a lot of Bungie era Halo

On the financial side, Nintendo’s pretty formulaic - they only update sales numbers of games that have sold over 1 million in a fiscal year. Since they haven’t updated the number since their last fiscal year ended on March 31, we can assume that it hadn’t sold a million when they last updated the number on September 30th. I expect to see it on the earnings report for December after the holidays.

13:40 I think this is the case because the majority of people got the game for Christmas around December, which fits perfectly in the 3-month span. After that it probably suffered the same problem you mentioned with Splatoon 2 where people wouldn't want to get multiplayer games that already have an established history and meta.

Homestly it is weird that it fell off so hard especially with the updates. If im correct its actually sold like either 11 or 13mil but i cant find the source but its a chart that shows that Super Mario Party recently sold like 500k more units. But its not really just a splatoon problem cuz totk sold 10 mil in 3 days then the next financial report should about 18mil units and after 3 months it went to 19mil. A million is def still a lot but the drop off rates seem to be much higher around now. Its still way more noticeable with splatoon 3 tho and it is interesting that nobody seems to talk about it

I didn't think it would hit so hard with me. It's my first Splatoon. I have thousands of hours. It was the only online multiplayer game aside from fighting games that I have played in the last decade. It's probably my third favorite game ever. My whole household plays on and off. Sales talk: The 10.67 million sales in Nintendo's earnings report only reports to March 31, 2023. We'll need to wait for the next earnings report, but Splatoon 3 is likely still selling pretty well. I frequently run into players with starting gear clearly figuring out the controls. It's pretty fun to watch people forget motion controls are default.

I was actually one of those new players you mentioned in the video. I loved Chugga's LP of Splatoon 1 (I would've bought it but money was too tight at the time), and I was considering on Splatoon 2 once I had my Switch, but then 3 got announced and figured I should just wait until then, and Chugga ended up doing a Splatoon 2 LP on top of that. At that point Splatoon was my favorite game I never played and I was super excited to play Splatoon 3. The World Premiere launched and I had so much fun with it that it secured my interest in getting the game. Since getting it, I've played it on and off regularly. I never missed a single Splatfest or Big Run.

Regarding sales, I thought it was notable that in the latest Nintendo sales report, they listed all first party games that sold over 1 million copies between April-September 2023. The usual Mario, Pokemon, and Zelda games are there, but interestingly to me even Nintendo Switch Sports and Mario Party Superstars met the sales threshold to make the list, but Splatoon 3 less than a year after launch did not. It really is like everyone who bought the game bought it at launch and it fell off of a cliff.

You're absolutely right about people waiting for a chance to get into the game. Consider that Splatoon 2 came out in 2017 when the Switch hadn't sold 10 million units yet. By the time Splatoon 3 came out, the Switch now had over 100 million sold. That's a huge growth in install base of people who potentially missed the first entry but would be interested in a sequel.

Nintendo only reports game sales data for games that sell over 1m units within the previous fiscal year during their quarterly earnings reports. If they haven't reported on it in their updated sales data, that's becasue it has sold over 1m unitls in the previous 4 quarters.

A big problem with Splatoon 2 was there were a lot of special weapons and abilities that were so badly designed that they were removed/redesigned in S3. Even the few changes to Salmon Run improved the game way more than most people realized. The fact that you can throw eggs meant that the whole mode had to be WAY harder to compensate. Not to mention that mode’s new stages have much better level design.

I love the quack every time Arlo highlights "Yeah, I goofed, it's supposed to be three months".

All Splatoon needs are dedicated servers and it would be perfection.

The main reason why people were turned away was because of how long untill you could play any other ganemode then Turf War ( lv10 ). Which has been calculated to be over 50 battles.

Arlo, one thing you might have forgotten: in their financial reports, whether yearly or quarterly, Nintendo only reports on games that have sold 1 million units or higher over said period. So if splatoon 3 sold 900k each quarter, a total of 3.6 million, Nintendo wouldn't report on it.

Youre kinda right. I came back to the Switch in 2021ish and I wanted to play Splatoon but was thinking the fun is gone or i was too far behind. I only gave Splatoon a shot when they released the third. Great game, and I'm glad I jumped in.

Glad to see you've changed your tune on this. It feels like Splatoon's a series that is misunderstood by general Nintendo fans who don't see the appeal. Like Fire Emblem and Xenoblade, Splatoon's been sectioned off from "core" Nintendo franchises despite being one of their most popular IP's.

I loved Splatoon 3 so much without realizing by how much; within a few months it became my second most-played video game...ever. 650+ hours, beating Smash Bros Ultimate, Pokemon Crystal, Rhythm Heaven Megamix, Plants Vs. Zombies by over 200 hours each. (But still behind Animal Crossing New Horizons by 900+ hours. That one's gonna be hard.)

The other thing is the game balance changes quite a bit when moving between games with different weapon kits and specials and lots of Splatoon 2 specials were fundamentally broken in a way patches couldn't have addressed (sting ray and baller come to mind) and the clean slate of a new game provides the ability to make those kinds of drastic changes

It’s nice to see Splatoon 3 is doing well, didn’t see too much content being made aside from the single player, but it’s great to see it’s being successful despite the worries pre release. I’m gutted that Persona 3 Reload is not on Switch, looks like an incredible game. Maybe in the future…

As someone who's been in the fandom since the first game,I'm glad people are actually enjoying 3 when I can't There's just too many issues for me that ruined the original vibe.this series was in its own words "fresh" but then the maps became Tetris blocks.maybe I'll get back into it eventually but for now it's just not for me

Sadly the only thing I can think about when I reflect on my time with Splatoon 3 was the endless, overwhelming amount of connection errors I got to the point I had to legit give up on playing it many times. Normally I'm not a huge critic of Nintendo's online service, as I barely use it, but for a game that pretty much requires online play to have that much trouble is pretty bad. Maybe Splatoon 4 will finally figure out CPU enemies.

Arlo admits he's wrong more in a video about something as trivial as Splatoon 3 than most KZfaqrs do in Apology videos for heinous shit lmao

What I like about splatoon is they keep in glitches. Sub strafing, (which i guess would be the wave dashing of splatoon) was originally a glitch in splatoon 1, and the beginning of splatoon 2 as some weapons couldnt do it, but in the middle of splatoon 2, they changed it to where all weapons can do it.

Splatoon 3 is incredible. One of my favorite multiplayer games on Switch. Also, just the world of splatoon is so unique and awesome to see. The lore in incredible too. I really think splatoon is one of Nintendo’s best franchises

Getting an Atlus sponsorship makes me hope Arlo will delve in the Persona series sometime soon. They're some of the best JRPGs out there.

The duck sound for that week's to month correction kept cracking me up. Excellent editing

The devs clearly care about this game, and i love it

This has to be the most rambley video Arlo's ever made. I'm not even sure what his point was other than being wrong which I mainly know because of the title. The thing about the 10 million sales and just pausing is weird though. They'll probably update it once the DLC pops up, maybe.

I'm glad you came around, this video perfectly demonstrates why Splatoon 3 is such a good entry in the franchise. Splatoon 2 was a game that ended up creating this foundation that was flawed and made in mind of what they had back in 2017, adding content from 3 as "DLC" wouldn't work because we're now suggesting settings, meta changes, and even graphical changes to be done in a game that was dated back on the release of the switch. It's better to save these massive changes for a new entry that would serve as an entry point for those to try out Splatoon again. Many of my friends who skipped out on Splatoon 2 hopped onto Splatoon 3 and had a blast playing that game. And to those still adamant as to whether a new entry needs to be per console, you see plenty of triple A games creating various entry points like this to give others an opportunity to join in, such as monster hunter. That was a game that got various ports/entries in a single console which only benefited it for a reason.

From what I understand about Nintendo recently with their quarterly reports is that they only show their top 10 sold games on each platform. I think they used to show their top 20 but they stopped after a while which kinda annoys me. Would be nice for them to show all of their big titles but since the report is for investors mainly it makes sense to mainly show their best.

Splat 4 comes out, he'll be back with another "Splatoon shouldve ended with 3" vid

You really couldn't just re-record to input three MONTHS instead of WEEKS?! I can understand once, but four times? My goodness...

I bought my Switch Oled just for Splatoon 3 with my own money from my savings without having an income source. So yeah Splatoon 3 is def. a success

I have around 2000 hours just in Splatoon 3- the game is wonderful. When I mastered motion controls in Splatoon 2, it was this epiphany "Holy shit". It changed the game completely for me vs sticks only. There is no game right now that is better than S3 in utilizing motion controls. Not only is it smooth, it fits wonderfully with everything in the game. My next holy shit moment was when I mastered my first weapon. Then understanding my play style. So many holy shit moments and the more you play, the more deep it feels. And not only are you learning more of the game as you go on, but you learn more about yourself. I have played 1000s of hours of other shooters on PC (probably more than 10,000 at this point), always mouse and keyboard, and nothing beats Splatoon 3 for me. This is one of those games where if you introduce mouse and keyboard now, it would take the spirit of Splatoon away. And I'm an old ass dude

As someone who played a lot of Splatoon 1 and didn't buy a Switch/Switch Online for a while Splat2 just didn't feel like it was worth buying because it felt like a solved game. I was also playing a lot of Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2 which filled the gimmicky shooter role. However, after Battle for Neighborville bombed I was looking to get that gimmicky shooter fix somewhere else. Splat3 however let me get back into the franchise with other people and while I don't play the online very much anymore I had a good experience in the story mode and I can definitely see myself picking up the game again for the online.

As someone who plays pretty actively, it sure feels like a different game from 1 and 2. And of course, I'd love to see your take on an actual review too. Good point though with the sales numbers never getting updated, I noticed that too back then. I assume this past christmas and the coming dlc will help it a bit, but it does seem to kinda stagnate

I still wanna play as the side characters, like blob fish. If a Splatoon 4 were to happen, I'd wanna play as them in the story mode, which could be the Great Squid war, including the main battle mode to just be a bare-bones version of the regular splat battles (just main weapons and skill)

I think the main reason they wanted to make a new game was they wanted to fundamentally change the game like you said but looking at the meta. Splatoon 2 has a really unhealthy and bad meta of quad shooters with sting ray, missiles, ink armor that sucked to play against. Ink armor invalidated one shots, missiles forced you to move constantly especially with how fast they were farmed and sting ray was the ultimate GG's that would go across the entire map (missiles also had infinite range which is an issue) S3 is a much more aggressive and fighting game where in splatoon 2 you would sit back and get specials to use in the fight first. A lotta weapons like jet schelcher in splatoon 2 just sat back and painted the entire match to get special and never really killed people or interacted much. If they wanted to fix splatoon 2 we needed a new game unless you wanna delete all the splatoon 2 specials that aren't in 3 and add the new s3 ones, then what happens to the weapon kits with the deleted specials? If we are going that far to delete specials from the game, we aren't really playing the same game anymore and you're also taking away the old game so people can't play it anymore. Yay! I'm sure there's some other back end things that you literally couldn't do in splatoon 2 with lighting and physics and maybe other tech stuff too. The whole online system of s3 (NPLN) is different than 2 for good or worse and the lobby changes were mentioned too that would be really hard or impossible to put in splatoon 2. Sorry I'm a competitive splatoon player I care way to much about the game than most casuals do. Also the same dev team makes animal crossing btw.

Love how everyone completely glosses over the fact that the single player alone in Splatoon 3 is worth the $60. It’s on the same level as Mario Odyssey and some Zelda games. It’s an action platformer / puzzle dungeon crawler with paint guns. It has tons of content and replay value. I know so many people who haven’t gotten into Splatoon because they don’t want to get into an online competitive game. They want a great single player experience and Splatoon 3 offers that. And if you are somebody who plays online the few changes to 3 are pretty massive. And what’s great is that the Splatoon 2 and even 1st Splatoon games are all active and you can rotate between games if you get tired of map selection on one. Splatoon 3 is also the most competitive so if you want a more relaxed online experience the previous games offer an easier experience to get into. Sad that Splatoon 1 will be offline soon, it holds up and still has some exclusive maps. Really hopes Nintendo brings over the rest. Saltspray Rig please.

I've been interested in this game, but I'm not into multiplayer so I've never actually gotten it.

Splatoon 3 being announced actually made me buy splatoon 2! After seeing the trailer and being awed, I finally gave in and got 2 since I’d wanted it since well before I had a switch. I loved 2 so much I HAD to buy 3. I’m glad I did that cuz I got a good couple hundred hours of fun from it in the year before Splatoon 3, and it made me even more hype for 3.

Regarding your sales topic, which I THANK YOU for, as I can’t believe no one else brings it up… ACTUALLY, I did all the digging I could a while back, and found some more data from other sources. I can’t remember what quarters it happened at, it was sometime between July and October or something, but it DID indeed cross the 11 mil mark. We take minor victories where we can 👍 As for the why, I’m pretty sure their sales reports work SOMETHING ROUGHLY along the lines of, ‘only once it sells 1 mil more from its last report’ or ‘only if it sells ‘so much’ within a quarter, do we update the figures’. So that’s that. Ya it’s going much slower (entirely Nintendos fault for pushing it like hell in JP but doing nothing to advertise it in the west (unlike with Splat 2 if I recall correct)), but that which I figured out renewed my hope in its sales, and I’m at least fairly confident they’ll give an update on it in the next couple of quarterly reports. It’ll be over 11m once it does, not sure if more than 11, but at least that. Edit: Effin’ called it 👏

Huh? Splatoon? Oh yeah, Arlo likes timely sequels but likes to make not-timely reviews, I forgot 😂😂😂 But we are here for the depth and uniqueness of his reviews, so quality takes time.

By far the main thing that makes me believe it couldn't have been DLC is the game/special design. Splatoon 2 ended up being completely dominated by 3 specials that would just get spammed by shooters (ink armor, stingray, tenta missiles). They completely broke the game at its core since stingray and armor couldn't get nerfed in any substantial way, and you couldn't buff their counters because they had no counters. Splatoon 3 completely removed armor and stingray, and missiles got nerfed.

I think they definitely needed to put 2&3 on the same system because the WII U didn't sell well enough. I would like it if they went back to 1 per system now that the games install base is established. I will agree with Arlo that if console generations get longer 2 games a system makes sense.

As someone who had heard about Splatoon for years and had a switch after 2 had been out for sometime, the release of 3 was what finally got me to pull the trigger on the series. (All-be it almost a year after it came out) Now I own both 2&3 and have over 350+ hours in 3, it’s just such a fun game with a wonderful community~

Can't wait to hear your thoughts in palworld. I'm happy gamefreak has competition

splat for me arlo

Population is the most important thing with MP games. Even if it sells half as much initally as the previous game on the system, the playerbase will simply be larger day by day because it's new if literally nothing else and that 10million of sales that happened is also a happier player base

you know, I would have definitely agreed with the "why would you make more than one iteration per console" idea...but I did also pick and play Splatoon 3 as my first splatoon game and now love it an awful lot. It was pretty slick of them to play it that way.

Im really happy that they made splatoon 3 instead of just more DLC bc I’ve had my fill already from splatoon 2 after 800 hours and wanted a new game and now I believe splatoon 3 is the best game in the series the movement is better, the story mode is better, the meta is better, even little things like salmon run being available all the time now with king salmonids, big run events, and throwing eggs make it feel that much better than splatoon 2’s salmon run. Even being able to decorate your own locker and nametag is fun to me as someone who loves customization in video games all of these QOL changes makes splatoon 3 feel like a bigger of a package compared to splatoon 2.

I’m not mad at Nintendo for making a splatoon 3 since they don’t have micro transactions tied to either. It actually feels like a game compared to these online shopping malls that every other “game” tries to be. They don’t need to make another game because their players would rage about wasting money on skins etc.

I think some of the magic that splatoon as a series has is that its a full experience to have as the game develops splatfests and live updates go by like a music festival or show that you dont wanna miss and you just had to be there because the magic isnt the same when watched through a video. I think thats a very big draw for people to rush in on a new game or sequel because the series is very self referential with its lore and plot points that are completely player developed. Its a fun time and Ive seen tons of people jump into 3 because they missed out on Splatoon 2 during its live update years

One game that actually changed so much through updates that it felt completely different was Payday 2 I remember putting hundreds of hours into it and I went back to it a few years later and I felt like even the basic shooting was different. It made me realize exactly how much I missed when a game would come out and would still be the same game years later (maybe with a few bug fixes).

I absolutely adored the first game, but didn't have a Switch yet when the second came out, and Splatfests and everything were already done by the time I got one and so I was kind of like "I missed my chance" and never got 2. I got 3 pretty soon after release and it was my most-played Switch game last year, at least from my perspective making it was a fantastic decision.

I think they're waiting until the DLC comes out to get new numbers. There may be some people who waitied for the DLC to get a copy. Or forgot about it, but will be reminded by the release.

You are so correct about why they needed a new version instead of DLC. I don't enjoy shooter games and assumed that's what Splatoon was until I saw an announcement for 3 and decided I needed to try it. It's been so fun I recently bought a used copy of 2 and am very happy they came out with a new version.

Let's not forget that they changed Clam Blitzs so you get a power clam when you collect 8 clams, not 10, while still retaining the 20 points score per power clam Imho this made the mode so much better because 8 individual clams are 24 points as opposed to the 30 points of 10 individual clams and this does two things: - The max amount of clams a team can carry at any given time does NOT exceed 100 points, so an open to KO is more difficult to achieve. - The points "lost" by making a power clam are only 4, not 10, which in a way encourages players to make power clams more often. In Splatoon 2 I often carried 9 clams and tried to score them individually because 27 points is more than only 20. In Splatoon 3, 7 clams is 21 points, and grabbing an eighth clam makes a power clam that's worth 20 points, but you only need to throw once to score al 20 points and the enemies cannot pick it up if they kill you

Bungie hearing all the "you just can't do that" thinking: "Wanna bet?" 😂

I was gonna get Splatoon 3 no matter what because I already loved the series, but I too had doubts that the improvements justified a whole new game. I couldn't see a "hook" - it wasn't the first on a new console, it didn't add any big new game modes, weapons, or mechanics that would majorly change how the game was played. It just seemed like a bunch of little things. Once I started playing though, those doubts vanished. While there are still plenty of things that still could use improvement, they things they did add and change have made the game really fun, and it stays fresh longer IMO. I mostly play Salmon Run, and while I burned out on Splatoon 2's version fairly quickly, I just keep coming back to it in 3. For me, variety is important to keep me interested in coming back, and Splatoon 3 does that great. More new weapons, bosses, rewards, and events keep me coming back to Salmon Run day after day. I hope it improves even more in Splatoon 4!

I know the Persona 3 bit is a sponsor plug here, but I really hope Arlo makes a full vid on his thoughts about the game if he plays it all the way through

if you're gonna do a review, I'd say at this point it may just be worth waiting until Side Order is out and doing a whole review on both combined