Splatoon 3 Beginner’s Guide, Tips and Tricks

turn 3 is the second installment in the series for the Nintendo Switch, and with it comes new quality of life features, weapons, and customization options.

The game has a platformer story mode with fun bosses and great music, but the meat of the game is the multiplayer turf war mode. Players engage in a four-on-four battle to see who can cover more of the stage in colored ink. With all the different types of weapons and customization options, chaos reigns every time.

If you’ve never played a Splatoon game, or maybe you’re rusty from the last release five years ago, we’ve provided some tips to help you win your Turf War games.

Feeling stuck or stale? Switch it

Whether you’re stuck in a Story Mode level or hitting a losing streak in Turf Wars, switching your weapon can help you get out of your crisis.

While many story mode levels require you to use the basic hero weapon, some give you a choice of specific weapons – and the “recommended” weapon isn’t always the easiest one to use to complete the level.

Image: Nintendo via Polygon

Trades will reset at 8:00pm EDT

In our experience, all shops would get new loot at 8:00 p.m. EDT. In addition to the new stocks in stores, you can run one discounted Gachapon draw per day at the “Shell-out Machine” in the lobby, which also resets at that time. However, we’re not sure if this is a local or global time change and we’ll update this post if we find out.

It’s about painting the horizontal, not the vertical

Painting walls is important for climbing, but it doesn’t add to your score. Focus on painting the floors because that’s what Turf Wars is all about.

Use your ultimate skills to fill up your ink tank too

You should use your ultimate soon after filling the gauge, but you can also use it to fill up your ink tank completely, which can help you get out of some sticky situations.

Remember to color your base

You don’t need to colorize everything at the very beginning of the map, but every time you respawn and go through the base you should colorize it a little more until it’s fairly overcast. There are times when you beat the other team just because their base isn’t painted right, and you don’t want to be on the losing side.

Image: Nintendo via Polygon

Learning the cards is an important part of the game

Knowing the Turf War maps you play on gives you a huge advantage. Knowing where to infiltrate the enemy base and where bottlenecks are common will help a lot. You’ll also want to know several routes to take when chokepoints are contested and where to go to flank your enemies.