Splatoon: Splashdown

**Splatoon: Splashdown** is the sequel to the critically acclaimed shooter *Splatoon*, this time co-developed by Pyro Enterprizes. The game retains similar characteristics to the original, but also introduces several new mechanics.

The game entered a hiatus during late 2015, but underwent a reboot as of mid-February 2016.

## Gameplay

*Splatoon: Splashdown* is a third-person shooter with online multiplayer as its primary focus. In the main mode, Turf War, eight players are divided into two teams of four and tasked with covering the arena in as much ink of their team's color as possible in a set amount of time. The playable characters have two main forms—their humanoid form, in which they can use weapons to spread ink and splatter opponents, and their cephalopod form, which can swim through ink at amazing speed, recharge the player's ink tanks, and hide in similarly-colored ink—and may switch between either at will by pressing or depressing the left trigger.

Players can also utilize Sub Weapons, such as Ink Bombs, and Special Weapons, such as Ink Launchers, with the right shoulder and stick, respectively. Typically, teams are awarded points based on the amount of land they cover in their team's ink, and the team that covers the most territory within a specified time wins the match.

The game also features a single-player Hero Mode, which sees the player travel to an area known as Octopodea Station and traverse levels based on 3D platforming and puzzle-solving. In this mode, the player uses Hero Weapons, modified variants on the basic weapon classes.

The gameplay is largely similar to its predecessor, but with new mechanics added in to spice up matches.

## Customization

Customization of the player avatar has been expanded upon, and even more things can be changed about initial appearance and clothing.

The following attributes can be changed when making an avatar, and are merely cosmetic:

* **Species**: Decide the avatar's species: Inkling, Octoling, or Jellyling.
* **Gender**: Determine gender. Boy and girl options are available for Inklings and Jellylings, but Octolings can only be female.
* **Eye Color**: Choose the avatar's eye color.
* **Skin Color**: Choose the avatar's skin color.
* **Hair**: Change the avatar's hairstyle. The options available change depending on species.

The following attributes are considered gear, and have an impact on the avatar's stats and abilities:

* **Hat**: Change the avatar's hat.
* **Shirt**: Change the avatar's shirt.
* **Pants**: Change the avatar's pants.
* **Shoes**: Change the avatar's shoes.
* **Trinket**: Decide what special passive ability the avatar will have during matches.

## New Mechanics

### Grinding

By jumping on a railing or similar object in humanoid form, players can grind down the rail while moving and shooting. Typically, any objects that players can pass through in squid form can be utilized for grinding.

### Tricks

While jumping off of a ramp in squid form, players may press one of the shoulder buttons to perform a trick similar to the Mario Kart series. Once a trick has been performed, players will create a small explosion of ink upon hitting the ground. Multiple tricks can be chained together in order to increase the size of the explosion.

## Characters

**Inklings**
Strange, squid-like creatures made entirely of ink, Inklings act as the player characters in the Splatoon series. They can be customized with various hair colors, hairstyles, skin and eye colors, and clothing, as well as their vast repertoire of ink-based weaponry

**Krakina**
An older Inkling who has become disillusioned with her race, deciding to "clean up" the issues that they themselves refuse to take care of. As such, she has essentially gone rogue, and has modified her body to generate water instead of ink. Krakina is the primary antagonist of Hero Mode, but also makes a playable appearance in Vs. Krakina matches.

**Sheldon**
A horseshoe crab who has pretty much been working with machinery since day one. While his eyesight has weakened because of this, it has given him a great amount of skill with weaponry. He runs a shop in Booyah Base, selling various weapons to players.

**Crusty Sean**
This shrimp is pretty much the master of footwear in Inkopolis. He started off as a shoe collector, but his collection eventually grew so huge that he began selling off extra pairs of kicks. Don't worry- that's a jacket he's wearing, not breading.

**Jelonzo**
While he may not be a native speaker of the Inkling language, Jelonzo seems to have a deep connection with the younger denizens of Inkopolis. Perhaps it's because of his impeccable fashion sense- after all, he does own Booyah Base's clothing store.

**Annie and Moe**
A shy anemone girl who spends most of her time hidden away in her apartment, making handmade hats for her store in Booyah Base. She's really nice if you get to know her... Oh, and the clownfish is Moe. Moe's a jerk. Nobody likes Moe.

**Marco**
A sea slug of the Umbraculum genus, Marco's new to Inkopolis and likes entertaining the younger denizens with his tall tales of far-off lands. To the older Inklings, he also sells "foreign weapons", which have more varied and bizarre stats than the ones Sheldon sells.

**Spyke**
A street urchin both figuratively and literally. Constantly on the hunt for his favorite food, Super Sea Snails, he will either unlock gear abilities or randomly re-roll them in exchange for one. Just don't get on his bad side and refuse him one...

**Callie and Marie**
The famous Squid Sister duo, the most popular idol singers in Inkopolis. Not only do they host concerts and the daily news broadcasts, but they also run the Splatfest events and the new Daily Event matches. These two truly have their work cut out for them!

## Locations

### New Sealand

A distant land across the sea from Inkopolis, New Sealand is larger and more urban than the first game's hub world. The main attraction is Sealand Tower, and is the place to be if your main goal is online battles.

In the city limits reside other prominent destinations, such as Grandlake Complex, a shopping district similar to Booyah Base, a manhole leading to the Octopodea Domes, the singleplayer area, the Figurium, a small stand dedicated to Byte-related content, and the Apartment, a large room where players can practice their battle skills.

Additionally, New Sealand provides a bit more exploration than Inkopolis, as there are multiple hidden paths that lead to small side areas, each leading to a small zone outside the city with unique content.

### Grandlake Complex

While it resembles a Western mall complex more than the Eastern Shibuya district, Greatlake Complex is the successor to Booyah Base. As such, it is the game's primary (and only) shopping district, and nearly any form of customization and fashion can be purchased here.

* **Umbra Ammunitions**: Run by Marco the sea slug, Umbra Ammunitions is the premier weapons shop in New Sealand. Weapons, weapon mods, and Gear are all sold here.
* **Clipper Crew**: A unique store not found in Inkopolis, this hair salon is run by Nora the nurse shark. While hair styles do not have stats like clothing, it goes a long way in helping with customization, and while haistyles are unlocked like weapons, they cost nothing to apply.
* **Oddelle's Ends**: A flea market run by Oddelle the spider crab. This shop sells accessories, which are wearable objects such as gloves, watches, bracelets, and earrings. Like haircuts, accessories aid in customization, but do not have stats like other clothing options do.
* **Chateau de Chaussure**: A high-end shopping outlet run by Gargou the Octarian. While it may seem like a pricey joint at first, Gargou has plenty of lower-priced footwear to offer to those who can't afford the good stuff right off the bat.
* **Shirts Off**: Lionel the lionfish runs this shop, which sells shirts of all shapes and sizes. Most of the stuff is normal for shirts, but some are jackets or sweatshirts.

## Multiplayer Modes

Modes accessed by entering Sealand Tower, these are where the meat of the game lies: online battles.

A notable difference between the original Splatoon and Splashdown is that modes are no longer divided between Regular and Ranked matches. Instead, players may selected Regular or Ranked prior to selecting the mode, similar to online matches in *Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS/Wii U*.

### Turf War

Players are divided into two teams of four, each team assigned its own ink color. Teams must attempt to splatter their ink around the arena avoiding enemy shots along the way. After the timer reaches 0, Judd calculates what percentage of the arena is covered in each team's ink. The team with the highest percentage of coverage wins the round.

### Splat Zones

This match type revolves around a central "zone," which players must attempt to cover in ink with a five minute timer. Once a team has covered a majority of the zone in their ink, the zone is "captured" and a countdown begins. The opposing team must try to capture the zone in the same manner.

The first team who holds the zone for a total of 100 seconds or has the least amount of time left to hold the zone wins the match. However if one team has held it for a while, but the other team captures it, the team that used to hold it will get a few more seconds added to their countdown timer. This penalty depends on how low your countdown timer is.

### Tower Control

In Tower Control, two teams of four Inklings fight to control a central Tower. The Tower is a tall, blue structure with a grate platform for players to stand on. When a player reaches the top of the Tower and sprays it with ink, it will begin moving on a rail toward enemy territory.

If the player standing on the Tower turns into a squid (thereby falling through the grate), falls off the platform, or gets killed, the Tower will begin moving rapidly back to the center. Because of this gameplay element, the player on the Tower is a constant target and must be guarded by teammates on the ground.

### Inklimination Match

Inklimination Matches are similar to Turf War matches, but each player possesses their own unique spawn point as opposed to a shared group spawn. Unlike the normal spawn point, these smaller spawns can be coated in enemy ink.

To win an Inklimination Match, one team must coat all of their opponent's respawn point in ink, thereby rendering them ineffective. Once all spanw points are covered up, they must turn their attention to the remaining opponents and splatter them all to win. However, blocked spawn points may be restored by ink of the same team.

### Pacifist Turf War

Pacifist Turf War is judged similarly to the normal Turf War, but all weapons are inaccessible. Instead, players now leave trails of ink in squid form, meaning that the game becomes faster and more athletically-based.

### Vs. Krakina

A 4-on-4-on-1 versus mode where a ninth player takes the role of Krakina, the antagonist of the new Hero Mode. Krakina utilizes the player's equipped weaponry, but creates water with her attacks instead of ink, and has massively increased abilities to compensate for not having teammates.

If less than 50% of the map is covered in ink by the end of the match, Krakina wins. If more than 50% is covered, victory goes to the team that covers the most ground.

### Ice Rush

Players start at the ends of a map alongside a large fish frozen in ice. The objective is to transport the ice cube from the end of the map to the center, where a large heater is placed. The ice cube cannot be moved normally unless it is on ink of its team, so players must create a path of ink to slide the cube to the heater.

### Towerball

In this mode, a large tower consisting of three rotating parts is placed in the middle of the stage. Each part of the tower possesses several holes; the lowest spins the slowest and has the largest holes, the middle spins faster and has smaller holes, and the highest spins the fastest and has the smallest holes.

Players gain points by throwing their subweapons into the holes on the tower. While not all subweapons count towards points, a good rule of thumb is that anything that can be thrown counts. The higher on the tower the subweapon lands, the more points are awarded. In order to prevent spamming next to the tower, each level locks itself for a few seconds after having a subweapon thrown into it.

The first team to reach 25 points wins. If time runs out and neither team reaches 25 points, the team with the most points wins.

### Inkrail Battle

This mode adds large storage tanks and Inkrails to the map, regardless of whether or not they were originally there. These special Inkrails deposit ink over time into each team's tank, ticking down a counter depending on how full the tank is. Taking control of as many Inkrails as possible to increase how fast the opponent's tank fills while simultaneously decreasing your own fill rate becomes the name of the game.

The game ends when one team's tank is completely filled, granting victory to the other team. If time runs out and neither tank is full, the tank with the least ink wins.

## Singleplayer Modes

Modes that take place in the desolate Octopoda Domes, a ruined wasteland after the events of the original Splatoon, as nearly all Octarians evacuated them after making peace with the Inklings and moving back onto land.

Despite the name, singleplayer modes can be played with a second player via local co-op. While player one takes control of Agent 9, their profile's Inkling, the second player takes control of the Octarian Agent 8.

## Weapons

Weapons are divided into three types: Primary, Sub, and Special. For a more in-depth overview of each type of weapon class, sub weapon, and special weapon, see Splatoon: Splashdown/Weapon Overview.

## Byte-related Content

Much like the original Splatoon, Splashdown utilizes NFC figures to unlock additional content in-game, though the Pyro Enterprises-developed Byte figures are used as opposed to the Nintendo-developed amiibo.

Most figures will simply unlock additional weapons, gear, or Hero Mode missions. The single exception to this is the Octalia Byte, which unlocks access to the game's Sound Test option.