Nintendo unleashes whoomy and chrome reveal trailer for Splatoon 3

Update: Nintendo send out an email to press running down the announcements contained in today’s Nintendo Direct, and from that, we get the following details on Splatoon 3:

In this new game in the Splatoon series, you’ll leave Inkopolis behind and head to a new region: the Splatlands. Its heart is a new city where battle-savvy Inklings and Octolings gather: Splatsville, also known as the “City of Chaos.” Splatoon 3 introduces various features to the action-shooter series, including weapons such as the bow-weapon, customization options and movement abilities to bring to the returning 4v4 Turf Wars matches. More information about the full-fledged sequel coming to Nintendo Switch in 2022 will be revealed in the future.

Original Story: A desert. There, in a sea of sand, remnants of a lost civilization decay away in the scorching mid-day air. And then, something stirs. Something alive. Something—inky.

The opening moments of Nintendo’s final reveal trailer for today’s Nintendo Direct seemed to hint as some sort of new open-world post-apocalyptic game based on the Splatoon series. However, we then got the total reveal: Splatoon 3.

(By the way, before I go any further here, can I point out that every Splatoon game is “post-apocalyptic?” I mean, at least if you were actually paying attention to the lore of the games.)

Anyhow, Splatoon 3 is indeed coming, which shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. If Nintendo wants to get the game out with enough time to have a proper life before the Switch is potentially replaced, now’s the time to do it. Or, should I say, 2022 is, since that’s when the game is coming.

We don’t get a ton of big details about the game, but definitely some smaller ones. A look at what seems to be the new city hub. A quick peek at what looks like a revised spawn system, and a few glimpses of new weapons. A robot crab. Hints that maybe the world has lost its water? And a mysterious audio tease at the end.