I find it interesting how I’ve seen people looking at the salmonids in the Raiders trailer and assuming there’s something wrong with them; like fuzzy ooze got in the water somehow, or they’re diseased, or whatever is on them is driving them mad. Honestly? I think these are just a different subspecies of salmonid.
Although Salmon Run Salmonids and Spirhalite Islands Salmonids do look very different, they are both based on the two forms salmon can take: ocean salmon and spawning salmon. I will admit that the SR Salmonids are closer to being a mix of both forms rather than being purely ocean salmon, but I find it highly unrealistic to assume that the Splatoon devs ever intended on having to make another set of designs for Salmonids during S2’s production.
When it comes to how these two types of Salmonid exist, I think it’s because they live in two very different environments. First off, the two designated Salmonid Swim Zones in Inkadia and the Spirhalite Islands are significantly far apart. It’s unclear how long Deep Cut had been flying but if we match up their map with the map of Inkadia we can see the distance they flew.
Another thing to take into account is the conditions the Salmonids live in as well. One could argue that the existence of two swim zones that far apart could cause some differences, but I don’t think that’s the case here. Let’s look at two Salmon Run maps, one from the Inkopolis Swim Zone (S2) and one from the Splatlands Swim Zone (S3). Just looking at these maps, there is an overarching theme of industrialization and pollution. There’s oil drums at the shore, large factories and dams, and explorable territory that mostly consists of man-made structures. It’s also had a clear effect on the water in the area, with it being nearly opaque and dark green. Other places across the main Splatoon franchise don’t have water anywhere near this murky, let alone green! We can infer that the oily green color of the Salmonid’s ink here is because of an adaptation to these conditions.
Now let’s look at the Spirhalite Islands. Right off the bat, we can see how much cleaner the waters are! Not only are they only shown in shades of blue, we can also see coral and other plant life in the water under the gang’s raft house. And despite there being enough metal and tech in the area for the Salmonids to have their own tech (it’s unclear if the deal with the Octarians extends this far out) and for the premise of salvaging scraps and treasure to work, there are no significant man-made structures in sight, outside of the raft house, which we could assume Deep Cut made as a shelter that slowly expanded overtime. (We don’t know how much time passed between now and the crash after all) With all this evidence, it’s more likely that this new ink color is overall a more natural and healthy one, not the other way around. These Salmonid just look more wild because that’s the environment they grew up in. And if you’re looking for an in-lore explanation for the new salmonids, this environment is likely just able to accommodate these specific adult stages in ways the swim zones can’t.
So, if what makes these Salmonids messed up isn’t the ink or overall design, then what’s the deal with the stuff on their fins and hair? Well firstly, we do have to remember that the Salmonids are native to this region and have their own culture. Heck, we even take their cultural artifacts. That could be enough reason for them to fight us if the devs want to take that route (Honestly I don’t think they will though). Or maybe the Spartan-inspired cyclical lifestyle is not exclusive to Inkadian Salmonids, who knows. But secondly, I’m willing to bet the stuff in their fins and hair is caused by a large amount of salt buildup. We can see salt crystals stuck to the bases of Salmon-built structures and along the coastline, the food skewered on the metal in the above photo appears to be salt cured meat, and the large pillars appear to be based off of salt grinders. Heck, the Spirhalite Islands get part of their name from halite, which is more commonly known as rock salt!
So these Salmonids are just completely normal then? Well, I don’t think that either. There’s definitely something going on here. We can see in later parts of the trailer that the Salmonid have significantly more salt on them than in other shots, and it seems like at the very least the lessers with more salt have glowing white irises, and that’s not even covering the Alpha Pokémon-like red glowing eyes from earlier in the trailer.
So what is it? Well, if I had to guess, it has something to do with the golden pillar of light from the initial trailer. It was able to make winds so strong that it caused the helicopter crash, so we know it can affect the nature around it. Who’s to say that it can’t be throwing off the salmonids too? Perhaps it’s trying to draw them towards it in a trance, causing them to swim more, collect more salt, and be too dazed to care about the buildup? And what would happen if it caught the attention of that large eye from the end of the first trailer? What chaos could that cause?
Ah well, I’m definitely going into theory territory and we’ve got three more months to put the pieces together. Hope somebody enjoyed this overly long analysis/yap session!
It feels like people are too quick to discard the Grizzco part of Mr. Grizz' identity and personality when writing him.
I do genuinely believe that Grizzco was, in a way, sort of a subconscious attempt to connect with the Inklings and that he was at least trying to reach out to them through the company and his dialog.
Especially in Splatoon 2, you can feel that he genuinely did care for the inklings at least a small amount. How far that went is debatable, but either way, I think he respects them as a society, even if he struggles to consider it home. If you read some of his lines before his fight, he says things like "a prosperous future for all", and that this is his "responsibility as CEO", all things that, to me, indicate that somewhere along the line, he started factoring in the happiness of the inklings into his plan as well, even if he was not at all actually taking into consideration what they wanted.
I like to interperate the Grizzco dialog less in the "Mr.Grizz recorded voice lines for everything and tried to pass it off as live feed" way, and much more in the "He did actively talk to the inklings and watch over their missions" direction, since I think its a little silly to point to repetition in video game dialog and say that it indicates it being pre-recorded. Especially because the Mr.Grizz statue has a radio in it, not a voice recorder, specifically having the ability to receive signals. Although this one is very debatable.
It also feels like people are too quick to write off his personality and behavior in Salmon Run as a front or just him trying to come off a certain way for the sake of keeping suspicion away. While it definetely wasn't reflecting his full personality, I think that the way he behaved in Salmon Run was still a real part of his personality, maybe one he was only comfortable fully expressing within emotional and physical distance.
Of course with how little we really know about his general life by the end of the game and even how he was operating anything, the room for interpretation is super wide and any Grizz takes are cool in their own way, but I do like to see more of his original Grizzco personality shine through instead of it being overlooked due to the revelations at the end of Splatoon 3.
tl;dr , We should let some of his scummy CEOness shine through, I think its good for him.
I am creating this post to get all my thoughts, findings and speculations on the little bits of information that we have gotten in the three trailers and the twitter posts. Any parts that are my own opinion and speculation will be marked in purple. Anything I give my own name will be in pink. These are the acronyms I'll use to reference to videos, Announcement Trailer(AT), Release Data Trailer(RDT), Nintendo Direct Trailer(NDT), Nintendo Treehouse Gameplay(NTG). If I miss anything please let me know, also I will be making another post after the Splatoon Raiders Direct so look out for that. Enjoy :)
The Mechanic
We get to play as both Inklings and Octolings with gender differences are very minimal, males have a slightly larger frame and male octolings don't have the extra triangle eyelash things on the eyes. Each species has 6 unique hair styles, 4 unique eyebrow shapes, 7 different skin tones, ability to add freckles, and 21 different eye colors. A new addition to the Splatoon franchise is the addition of a health bar and an exp system. The experience system works by gaining exp by killing Salmonids, upon leveling up you get a flat upgrade to your health and damage as well as getting a token and a random gadget part (NTG). The tokens are used to upgrade the ink tanks in the form of health, weapon damage, gadget damage, and gadget part slots (NDT). we also see that after using a select amount of tokens we unlock a limiter release, what this means is unknown.
Weapons
The weapons we have seen are:
Splattershot
Splattershot Jr.
Blaster
Range Blaster
Octobrush
Squiffer Charger
Mini Splatling
Dynamo roller
Big swig roller
Slosher
We have seen that weapons drop from killing boss Salmonids and multiples of the same weapons can be obtained (NTG). With every weapon we have we get 3 different unique aspects of each, their level, star rating, and extra abilities. Levels most likely indicate how strong they are damage wise. Star rating probably indicates how rare the weapon is judging from the gadgets part system. Extra abilities are mostly unknown as we have only see one on a blaster in the NTG that looks like it has something to do with health or healing.
Ink tanks
We have seen 4 different types of ink tank types each with their own distinct designs and available relic powers and gadgets.
The Pouch: It appears to be the beginning of the game and no gadgets appear to be compatible with this tank as it looks to be missing slots on the sides like the other 3 types of tanks.
Power Tank (The big tank): This is large tank with it's stove burner on top of it that has been showcased in the second half of the NTG and parts of the RDT and NDT. This tank has been seen with 3 different gadgets, Splatchet, Spinwheel, Splatellite, and conch blast (NTG and twitter). We also see the Shot Pot and the spin hose on this tank but only in the AT so I am unsure of the compatibility of these gadgets with the tank in the full release.
Speed Tank (The horizontal tank): This is a long horizontal tank that has it's stove burner on the right side of the tank and was mostly shown off in the RDT and NDT. This tank has been seen with 2 gadgets, the spin hose and the boot (NDT).
Tactic Tank (The circular tank): This is a circular tank reminiscent of those of the Salmon Run game mode, this time with a stove top burner on the center of the tank shown off in the RDT and NDT. This tank has been seen with 2 gadgets, the Shot Pot and the balloon.
The way I named these tanks is based off of the upcoming Splatfest where the themes are Speed, Power, and Tactic (twitter). What I believe the tanks to be used for is anchors to the varies amounts of relic powers and gadgets. I don't believe that each tank will have their own abilities by themselves such as ink consumption and/or usage. When and how do we obtain these tanks? I have two theories, we get them/unlock the ability to create them after finishing one beginning level, we get them/unlock the ability to create them after finishing each individual beginning level.
Gadgets
Probably the biggest and most exciting part of the game that is to come. Gadgets are tools that are replacing sub weapons in the game, they function in several ways but all appear to serve the same function of killing the Salmonids. Gadgets are created with Spirhalite shards and resources from boss salmonids (RDT), they don't require ink to use but after used they go on cooldown and can't be used until the cooldown is done. These are the gadgets we have seen so far:
Splatchet: Charges a large slash attack that pierces through armour
Splatllite: Creates disks of ink that orbit around the player that ink the floor and damage the enemies hit by the disks
Spinwheel: Locks onto an enemy and spins towards them causing damage
Shot Pot: Sets down a turret that continuously shoots at enemies
balloon: spawns floating explosives that explode once shot.
boot: sideways splashdown
spin hose: unknown
conch blast: unkn0wn
Gadget Parts
These are peak! Gadget parts where fist showcased in the RDT and later showed up un the NDT and a twitter post. Parts are additions that can be used to upgrade individual gadget abilities. Each part takes up slots and each gadget has the same amount of slots that can be upgraded. We only get to see some of the parts for the Splatchet being:
Slash Area Up: increases area of the primary slash
Overpowered Attacker: increase damage done to boss Salmonids
Slash Damage Up: increases damage of the primary slash
Emergency Damage up: increases damage when on low health
Explosive Steps: Creates an explosion when charging in
Vertical Slash: Primary slashes are performed vertically. In general, damage is increased compared to that of horizontal slashes
Charge-In Damage Up: increases damage of charge-in burst
More Charging In: Increases number of times the character charges in
Victory Cooldown: decreases cooldown after killing a boss salmonid
Cooldown Reduced: dresses gadget cooldown
These all the parts showcased so far and their descriptions, some being my own interpretation. Parts appear to have rarity levels displayed by the number of start they have at the bottom of each parts symbol and the border (RDT), 1 star has a grey border, 2 has a green one, 3 has a blue/purple one, and 4 has a golden one. An increased rarity has shown to decrease the the number of slots it takes up and increase the amount of damage it does. For example, a 4 star Slash Area Up part takes up 6 slots and has a 60% increase while its 2 star counter part takes up the same amount of slots but has a 40% increase. Another example is Explosive step, a 3 star rarity takes up 4 slots and has medium explosives and a 1 star takes up 5 slot and also has medium explosives (RDT).
Relic Powers
Information about relic powers are very minimal. As of now all we know is that we get them from Relics that are found in chests at the end of chest levels. Relic Powers are unique to each tank but some can be applied to multiple tanks (RDT).
Above Round Map
We have been shown shown 3 maybe 4 types of objective levels (RDT)
Chests: We kill enemies in our way and collect Spirhalite clusters marked with beams of light and the big cluster is marked with a beam and a spiral.
Clusters: This one is probably like the chest levels but maybe instead we get an increased amount of Spirhalite clusters
Weird crystal thing: I have no clue
Tank Specific chests: Probably the same as normal chest levels but instead give rewards correlating with the ink tank used?
This part of the game is still quite unclear as probably to keep us guessing and find out for ourselves when we get to play the game. I believe that we will be exploring 3 (maybe 4) different biome types (AT and RDT). The Jungles, the Lava lands, and the Ice lands, I honestly don’t know what to infer about this… An interesting detail that I found pretty interesting is that on the map you can see Boss Salmonids drawn around the different objective markers and they relate to what type of boss you will see most often as seen in the Treehouse gameplay. Probably in every level we will be able to find a sunken scroll and a compass (idk?). Also Salmonid levels are a thing, probably just there to give an idea to how hard the level will be.
Dungens
Not much is known about these but they probably consist of harder or challenge levels that have different objectives compared to the above ground levels.
Lesser Salmonids
Chums, Cohocks, and Small fries make a return as themselves but with new variants. Chums and Cohocks can be found around holding tongs ready to hit you from afar and some Chums have found themselves enjoying some air time by using springs to jump around. Two new lessers have also been spotted in the form of a flying sprinklers (RDT) reminiscent of the Drizzling Capriccioso from side order and weird probably explosive fish reminding me of the Homing Arpeggios also from Side order with their orange body, dead orange glowing eyes and fuse like esca (NDT). Another detail that I’ve noticed is the abundance of salt growing on the Salmonids with the beginning levels being very minimal, the dungeon and lava ones having pompadour like salty hair, to the ice ones having large salt crystals growing on their hair. What this implies lore wise I am unsure but maybe something wants these fish alive to want to have this much salt on them or perhaps as we approach the center of the islands salt is more abundant in the air and sea making it deposit further.
Boss Salmonids
We have seen 2 new bosses, those being the Salty tongue and a Flying one. The Salty tongue is a tanky salmonid that, when ready to attack, stops moving and charges a lunge attack dealing a good chunk of damage (All trailers). The Fliers seem to throw shopping bags filled with ink and acts as the toxic mist sub weapon, from previous Splatoon games, that can be destroyed by shooting the bag (RDT and NDT). Returning boss Salmonids include Stingers, Scrappers, Big Shots, Slammin Lid, Fish Stick, Fly Fish, Drizzler, and Steel Head and all appear to have only changed in appearance but not in attack pattern. The Salmonids that have gotten the biggest change as of yet is the Fly Fish as it appears to have an open cockpit and no more buckets to launch bombs into (thank cod) and the Big Shots slam down their ball as they bounce around as they appear to be missing their canons from Salmon Run. A small thing I noticed was that new boss salmonids appear to have a symbol above them indicating they are new as seen on top of a Fish Stick (RDT).
Powered Up (Preserved) Bosses
I’m calling them Preserved because of the salt theme and the use of salt to keep food fresh. We have only seen 3 of these Preserved Bosses, a Salty Tongue, a Flier Boss, and a Stinger. The Salty Tongue uses a Killer Wail attack, the Stinger has increased height and 2 extra stinger shots, and the Flyer is unknown. It appears that the Preserved Salty Tongue and Flyer are more akin to actual bosses while the Stinger was just a powered up boss. I hope we get to see more Preserved Bosses.
That is all I can come up with at the moment. I will be making an update post after the Splatoon Raiders Direct on the 30th. If I missed anything let me know and here is a link to a small playlist that I used to my research if you wish to watch it.
i wish splatoon 3's story mode addressed the harm to salmonoids, and the player's participation in it.
so last night i was talking about splatoon 3's story issues and why I feel like it's not as strong as splatoon 2.
Generally my biggest issue with splatoon 3's stories were the missed opportunities- and he's absolutely right side order was the biggest disappointment for missed story opportunities. But, anyway.
Revisiting the topic reminded me what I hoped for in splatoon 3's plotline with Mr Grizz and why it disappointed me so much- I think it's because they never acknowledged the story elements I found most intriguing about Salmon Run's ties to the lore.
The idea of having you, the player, participating in what you think is a silly minigame, and what your inkling views as just a job to make ends meet, results in you unknowingly participating in invading the territory of the Salmonoids, stealing their resources and having your primary objective being to steal their eggs- their children- All the harm you're causing by participating in this silly game mode-
It's such an intriguing idea to me. And, forgive me for mentioning politics here, but I think you can see how this story element could very easily be tied into or used as an analogy for the current state of the world..
And Splatoon 3 didn't address it at all. It acts as if the problem is the way Mr Grizz chooses to use these resources, and ignores how fucked up it is he's invading their territory and stealing their resources in the first place.
And my friend did make a good argument, I can see why they wouldn't know how to address it post-story mode. It'd be dumb and insane to just completely remove salmon run, it is a fun game-mode. But to be honest- They should've thought of that before making it so lore-important.
And there are solutions to this problem. The lazy route my friend mentioned- Just going "Remember salmon run" to allow you to play it post-story mode. I had an idea that could be very interesting as either what they should've done in Splatoon 3, or what they could do for future games like the inevitable Splatoon 4-
Just change Salmon Run so Big Run is the default. As sad as it would be to lose the stages that take place in the Salmonoid territory, I think story-wise for morality, the best way to keep Salmon Run while acknowledging the harm it does, is to make it so that Salmon Run is only played when Salmonoids are invading the inklings territory, so it's more a form of self defense instead of actively invading their territory. This isn't a perfect solution, I admit. And I'm not saying they should remove Salmon Run and only ever use Big Run, what I'm saying is Salmon Run should only take place on Big Run stages, OR, they could make new stages for areas that are near-constantly under threat from Salmonoid invasion, perhaps stages that have been removed from multiplayer and didn't make it into Splatoon 3, that could be a story explanation as to why.
I dunno. I prefer the creativity of Big Run stages to normal Salmon Run stages personally, I think it'd be a lot better both story-wise and gameplay-wise. But yeah. In my opinion I think that's one of the biggest missed opportunities with Splatoon 3's involvement of Salmon Run and Mr Grizz into the story mode. I really wish they actually addressed it.
Let’s talk about these framed photographs in Ammo Knights.
In Splatoon, there’s a photo of Ammoses on the wall of Sheldon’s shop- a very old, sepia-tone personal photograph of his grandfather. Vintage. One of the few things decorating his shop, which otherwise resembles a dank basement, detached from his peers and shoved into a corner. Sheldon speaks very highly of his grandfather, with a lot of tones of reverence in his reminiscing.
Ammo Knights is given significantly more character, color, and stock in Splatoon 2. His store is notably much more high-end, with significantly more funds to pour into it. He’s undergone a notable burst in confidence, and while he suspiciously does not mention Ammoses at all during any of his speeches, and even taking credit for weaponry his grandfather had designed- unheard of behavior, in comparison to the first game- that personal photo remains, though nearly out of frame. It’s in color now. Modernized. Less of a distant memory.
Now, in Splatoon 3, Ammo Knights is as full and gorgeous as it could possibly be, a far cry from his shop in Inkopolis Plaza, and even Inkopolis Square. The Squid Research Lab notes that he’s a respected member of the community here in Splatsville, also a far cry from how he was treated in Splatoon and Splatoon 2. The photo has been replaced, interestingly, with what appears to be a monochrome newspaper clipping, Ammoses barely in frame. Impersonal. Article date unknown, but it’s impossible to argue that there’s a stark difference in tone between a lovingly framed family portrait, and the documentation of a historical figure.
as much as i love splatoon lore. you all know i love splatoon lore. as much as i love splatoon lore i am not afraid to admit that a lot of the impact is lost via the storytelling methods.
For example, the Sunken Scrolls. a HUGE part of the lore is from here. and a lot of impact is lost simply because these scrolls don't allow for any further exploration. At most you'll get a few scroll pages (a paragraph for each page) on a topic. Like the fact that Judd was from the human time and was cryogenically frozen.
If they wanted to explore that concept, it could be devastating. He had an owner, a human who loved him very much. A human who loved his cat so much that, when faced with the end of the world and the resources to only save one person, he elected to save his cat. But instead of a big story with drama and heartache, we get like 3 paragraphs on it, and then... nothing.
Humanity's downfall is another big devastating lore beat, obviously, and to its credit it does have somewhat of a focus in Splatoon 3, via the Alterna Logs! Instead of a picture of a human skeleton with a Wii U nearby (a canon sunken scroll btw), we have multiple mini stories on how the survived, and how they died. The Alterna Logs are GREAT, and in my mind they're impactful! Even the fact that you can only unlock them a few sentences at a time via completing missions didn't stall it too much, as the logs tell a whole story rather than a tiny lore dump.
But it's.. not always treated that way. There's the previously mentioned drawing of a human skeleton with a Wii U right next to it (a gamer to the end...) and characters regularly mention that humans are dead without a care. Which, y'know, makes sense. Humans are long extinct, and the fish have no attachment to them. But it does negate a lot of the meaning.
Then there's cases where the drear is hidden away within mere implications, like with OE's "hundreds of dead test subjects" beat. While it's fun to sit there and have it slowly dawn on you that many test subjects likely did get blended up, it really messes with the impact of it.
My final point here is the areas of the lore left unexplored. The biggest instance of this, imo, is the Octarian society, which we... know next to nothing about. We know they live underground. We know they are in the middle of a power crisis. We know that they can be inspired by Calamari Inkantation to leave. But what about their daily lives? What is it like deep down in Octo Valley? What is it like to live in the middle of a power crisis like that, and what is it like under Octavio's rule? This could be such an interesting perspective, but we're left with next to nothing. A few Sunken Scrolls, and a few bits of poetry from Agent 8, but after that...
Like I said, I love Splatoon lore, truly. It's fun and it's dark and it's crazy. But a lot of its impact, its meaning, its passion, is left with less simply due to the way its told.
As weird as it might be to suggest, I kinda hope we get a Splatoon spinoff that's not a multiplayer shooter, something that can properly explore the lore and let people process just how devastating it really is. It's one thing to say all of humanity went extinct, and it's another thing to really feel the impact of that.
I know the developers have passion for the world they made. That's apparent with just how much lore we have in general- if they didn't care about the world of Splatoon, we wouldn't even have an explanation for why Inklings are humanoid. Or, well, for the vast majority of things in the game. No one really needs to know that microbes in the air are what make the ink disappear after games, but we have that information because the developers love what they made.
I just hope that we eventually reach a point where this can be properly explored.
Video analysis of Hypnothesis by @sanitizedsubject !
It’s actually impossible to put into words how honored I was watching this video. Thank you so much for putting so much time and thought into our blog and the story <3 <3 <3
OKAY. OKAY OKAY OKAY. I have some thoughts about the trailer
This is really funny. Also, looks like the stick stays as a permanent stage element, which is sick considering:
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT IVE BEEN WANTING FROM SALMON RUN. The movement will be absolutley amazing with this. Lots of sick saves will be possible now, plus you wont have to risk losing if you want to deliver the egg when your team's dead.
Looks like theres a new special too, which mightve been in the other trailer too but now we can see more clearly that its definitley a stingray-type thing.
These fuckers fly now, which is deeeefinitley gonna be annoying. It adds some spice at least though, since shooting the same egg-stealing guys all the time got repetitive quick.
One last thing: this guy is like a mini version of splat zones, which is funny. Makes me wonder if theyll do more unique bosses like this.
In terms of lore, it seems like the salmonids are becoming more advanced, with the flights and such. This is also reflected in the equipment the inklings and octos are wearing, which is significantly more heavy duty. Seems like a bit of an arms race... I wouldnt be surprised if a war started between the cephalopods and salmonids.
