On February 17, 2021, it was announced that Nintendo was working on an upcoming Splatoon game in one of their Nintendo Directs. Nintendo Directs are sneak peeks of upcoming games that are soon to be released to the public. At the end of the trailer, it was announced to be released to the public later in the year 2022. While we are waiting for more information about when the game will drop and what will be in store, we can make some guesses from what we have seen in the trailers.

In a segment of the February 2021 Nintendo Direct, it is shown that the storyline of the next game takes place in some kind of dystopia. It is also shown that there will be many new features, weapons, and abilities in the upcoming game.

“I am most looking forward to the new entry because of what new things they will introduce and what improvements they make on the existing things,” said a freshman student at FLHS.

From what we see in a Splatoon 3 trailer called “Return of the Mammalians”, it seems that the new story mode is going to be including characters from the previous games such as Callie, Marie, and Agent 3 (the protagonist of the first Splatoon game). It seems like there will also be a new variant of Octolings, these kinds of Octolings being controlled by fuzz that covers the environment across multiple levels. These Octolings appear fuzzier than usual to show that the fuzz is controlling them. The storyline takes place after the last official Splatflest of Splatoon 2 which was held from July 18 to July 21 of 2019, which was “Chaos vs Order”. Whichever team won the Splatfest determined the storyline of the next game.

“I think that the story mode will be about you and the salmon teaming up to fight a bigger threat after the last Splatfest with team Chaos winning,” said another freshman at Fair Lawn High School.

From what is seen on the official Splatoon 3 trailer, it seems that old special abilities from the original Splatoon are going to make an appearance. Such abilities as the Kraken, the Inkzooka, and the Killer Whale are confirmed to be making a return to the game. There will also be some new specials such as the Zipcaster, which allows you to quickly move throughout the map and cause mass destruction to the opposing team. The other special that has been revealed was the Crab Tank which is an armored tank that adds mobility and defense while dealing a massive amount of damage to the other team.

“The new specials look interesting, I just hope that some of these specials will flow with what you are doing, and don't break pace or are just a gimmick,” said a Freshman at Fair Lawn High School.

Time will tell exactly what is to come with this upcoming game. However, from what we found out from the trailers, it seems like this upcoming Splatoon game is going to have more content and try to live up to its previous titles.