New Player Guide

Hey there newcomer!

Welcome to Splatoon. Have you just bought the game, and don't know anything about it? Do you want to know how the game mechanics work and how to improve? Then you've come to the right place!

Cliché intros aside, let's start off. This article will start from a simple explanation of the game and the game modes, to a more advanced guide on how to improve your skills.
This guide will cover Splatoon 2. Might you see this article from the future, and a Splatoon 3 of some kind is now the current release, just comment and I can update the article.

Table of Contents

Game Structure

When you first boot up Splatoon 2, you will be put in the player tutorial. This will explain you the very basics of the game. Therefore, I won't go over character control. After completing the tutorial, you will be greeted to Inkopolis Square, the main hub of the game from which you can visit all the game's facilities.
You can walk your character to all the doors of the buildings, but to some you can instant travel by going to the map by pressing "X" and selecting the desired building. The facilities are (positions found from the spawning point of the character):
  • Clothing and weapon shops for new gear on the left (shoes, shirts and hats). Will be explained in further detail later.
  • Octo canyon / Single player campaign on left, but more to the front. From a distance, there is a white haired female inkling standing on a grating. She will dive in as you get closer. Press "zl" to submerge. This is where you play the single player mode and unlock unique weapons.
  • Grizzco / Salmon Run in the back on the left, up the ramp. This is where you play the new mode in splatoon 2, Salmon run, where you fight of hoards of CPU enemies with a team of 4, and earn rewards you can use in the main online gamemodes.
  • Online Lobby in the center back. This is where you play turf war, ranked battles and league battles, or start a battle with friends. This will be the main topic and goal of this article.
  • Subway in the back right. If you purchased the "Octo Expansion" DLC, you can play this campaign here.
  • Other lobbies and mini-games  on the right. There are a couple of things you can do here, but most players only enter it to see what it offers. Do so if you are curious, but it's not a place we will cover.
  • Amiibo stand, in the back. Scan your amiibo's here to get your amiibo exclusive gear.

Introduction to online modes

Splatoon's community mainly focuses on the online modes found in the central tower / online lobby. New, level 1, players can only play turf war here until they reach level 10, and can't play league matches until they B- rank in a certain mode (I'll explain what this means later). Before playing online, I recommend you familiarize yourself with the controls in the single player campaign before playing online, as it is not rewarding to lose a match because you have no clue about what you are doing.

Turf War 

Turf war is the signature game mode of splatoon. The game rules are simple:
You and 3 other team members fight it off against the 4 enemies. The goal is to ink the most of the map as possible. The team with the most wins. You can shoot at enemies to (try to) splat them. This will cause them to respawn and swim back from their spawn. The match spans 2:30 minutes, excluding the time to wait if the lobby (which is variable).

Turf War tips

A mistake many new players make is painting walls. Walls do not count towards the final turf count, so you are wasting your time. You can see the amount you have turfed by watching the number in the top right corner. This number is your total turf amount, which goes up as you paint unpainted floors in your corner, or paint enemy turf to your colour. Naturally, the latter is the best option, as it increases your team's turf percentage, and decreases the enemies'.
You might also want to press "X" to show the map (and again to close) every so often. You can see all turf on the map, including your team mates and damaged enemies. This helps you see where you can paint safely and what area's your team has forgotten to paint. 
Do not spend too much time painting really small areas. Time is valuable and this is not worth the effort, trust me.

Ranked Modes

Ranked modes unlock after you reach level 10. You can do this by playing turf war. Ranked modes is a way to play against people of you skill level, whereas in turf war, you can meet any player of any skill level. The game modes are also different. Instead of playing turf war, you play 4 different modes. The game mode is set for all players (globally) and changes every 2 hours.
A pop up message stating "Maps and Modes have been updated" will appear when they do. By winning matches more than you lose, you can rank up and play against more skilled opponents. Each mode has its own rank. You might be very skilled in one, but not as much in another, and your rank shows this. Matches in ranked take 5 minutes with sometimes extra "overtime", dependent on the current state of the match. What follows is a brief explanation of each mode.


Splat Zones

In this mode, your objective is to "control" the central area of the map, kind of like 'king of the hill'. Like in turf war, you cover the area to gain control. The difference is that the area is different on every map. The area is highlighted with a border, and is also visible from the map view ("X"). To gain control, your team must paint the whole area. Some maps have 2 (smaller) zones close to each other. In this case, both zones must be painted. A timer, show on top of your screen will tick down towards 0. When it reaches this, you win! However, the enemy can claim control of their own by covering the zone with their paint. This will add a penalty to your team, displayed by a white number below your timer, which needs to be gotten rid of before the main timer will start ticking down again. If the match timer runs out (so no team got their timer to 0), the team with the lowest timer wins. If your timer is higher than the opponent's, and the match timer runs out while your team controls the zone(s), the match will go into overtime until the enemy gains back control. This will allow you to beat the enemy with one last push.

Tower Control

In Tower Control, there is one tower in the center of the map. If a player stands on top of it, the tower will move along a path in the direction of the enemy spawn pad. The path is highlighted with a glowing strip. If the tower reaches a checkpoint (glowing squares on the map), the tower must wait for a certain amount of time before continuing. If the tower is taken back, because the team member stepped off, or an opponent jumps on (assuming your team was riding the tower), the checkpoint is reset. When the tower is back to the checkpoint, it must sit through the whole timer again. The first team to reach the final position with the tower wins. If no team does so within the time limit, the team that pushed the tower the farthest wins.
Like with splat zones, if you are behind on the enemy, and pushing the tower while the match timer runs out, you get a chance to finish the push until the tower is retaken by the enemy (and you lose), or you surpass their score (and you win).

Rainmaker

In Rainmaker, there is a superweapon called the rainmaker in the center of the map. It has a shield surrounding it, which only breaks if it is hit by players of the same team a lot. When the shield breaks, it burst in the ink of the team that broke it, painting a large area around it and possibly splatting opponents. Generally, at the start of the match, both teams rush to the rainmaker. Since only one team can break the shield, the team with the most firepower breaks the shield. Bombs thrown at the shield will explode on contact.
When the shield is broken, a player (of either team) can pick it up, exchanging their weapon for the rainmaker. The goal is to bring the rainmaker to a pedestal near the enemy spawn pad. The closer you get, the more points you score.
The rainmaker is a strong weapon that paints very well, but it has no sub weapon or special weapon like the normal weapons. It also takes time to charge a shot. A fully charged shot will explode on contact with floors or walls, splatting all opponents in range instantly. If the player holding the rainmaker gets splatted, the rainmaker will drop in place, and gets shielded again. If the shield is not broken within a certain amount of time, the rainmaker will "reset" to the center of the map again.
If you hold the rainmaker for longer than 60 seconds, the rainmaker itself explodes in the enemy ink colour, leaving ink all around and possibly splatting allies or the carrier. The rainmaker will also reset. The number of seconds left is displayed above the carrier and is visible to everyone. This timer goes down by 1 every second, but will tick down 3 times as fast if you bring it in the opposite direction, or enter a rainmaker free zone. This will be prompted on the screen. The rainmaker free zones are also signified with a sign, only in the map during rainmaker mode.
Like with the previous modes. If your team is behind on the enemy and holds the rainmaker while the match timer runs out, overtime will kick in until the rainmaker carrier is splatted or you surpass the enemies' score.

Clam Blitz

Clam Blitz is the newest mode, and arguably the most complicated. During clam blitz, the map gets small clams all over it. These can be picked up by all player, with a maximum of 10. The 10th will turn all 10 clams into a "Power Clam" that looks like an american football in the colour of your team. Near the enemy spawn, there is a Big coloured ball in a contraption called the "Clam Basket". This is where you score points. When you have a power clam, and you are near the enemy clam basket, you can throw the power calm by pressing "A". Hitting the basket with a power clam (not with normal ones) will break the colourful shield and reveal a net cage. This scores 20 points. Normal clams can now be thrown in, yielding 3 points each. Other power calms can be thrown in too, yielding another 20 points.
While one basket is open (i.e. its shield is broken), the other one is pulled up, preventing it from being opened.
After a certain amount of time, indicated by a circle that slowly spirals to empty, the clam basket will close again, requiring another power clam to be opened. Not only that, the basket is also protected for a little while before this can be done. Once the basket is closed, a penalty will appear that needs to be gotten rid of before more points can be scored. A power clam of the colour of the basket closed back up will drop below it, allowing that team to make a counter push.
When a player is splatted, all clams will drop on the floor. These clams disappear after a little while.
Overtime is triggered when the losing team has a power clam of their colour. If the opposing basket is not broken in 20 seconds or if the basket is opened, and closes again, overtime will end.

League Battles

League battles may sound like a place for the elite players, but that's far from the truth. As soon as you rank up to B- (after C+), you get access to league matches. In league, you play with 1 or 3 friends in pairs or groups of 4. If you are in a pair, you will be matched up with another pair. You play the normal ranked mode style battles, but the map and mode rotation is different than the one for normal ranked mode.
Instead of ranking up, you build up a score for that specific team combination. Win, and your score goes up. Lose, and your score goes down. You can see the highest ranking teams per month in the splatnet 2 app.

Gear and Clothing

Clothing in splatoon is not just for fashion. It can also be used for benefits of the wearer. Thinks like increasing movement and swimming speed, decreasing the ink cost for bombs and other sub weapons and increasing the power of the special weapon. All gear you purchase has one "Main ability" and 1 - 3 empty slots for "Sub abilities" which effect is less than that of main abilities.  The amount of sub abilities you have is dependent on the rank of the clothing, indicated by the stars on the gear selection screen (press "+" to bring this up). By playing any online match while wearing a piece of clothing will eventually unlock a random sub ability. 
Murch is the guy to modify your gear. He can be found right of the entrance of the online lobby. 
  • With money, he can remove (scrub) all sub abilities from a piece of gear, saving the individual "chunks" for later use. 
  • These chunks, when you collected 10 or more, can be added onto other gear, to create more useful gear. 
  • He can also increase the number of available sub ability slot using "Super Sea Snails".
  • Super Sea Snails can also re-roll your slots, getting 3 new random sub abilities in place for the ones that are already there. The sub abilities will be stored for later use.
Super sea snails can be obtained in two ways. 
  1. Competing is splatfests. The higher your splatfest rank, the more snails you get. Splatfests are organized events by nintendo, and are held approximately once per month. After the results are revealed, you can collect your sea snails.
  2. Leveling up over level 30. Once you're level 30, you have unlocked all weapons and gear. Instead, when you level up, you get 1 super sea snail for every level-up. You can collect them from Judd, the cat-like figure left of the lobby building. A red exclamation mark will appear, so you probably won't miss it.

Ordering Gear

Splatoon offers 2 alternative ways to get gear without having to get it from the shops. In Inkopolis square, if you talk to other players, you can order their gear by pressing "zl", and selecting the gear. Within a day, you can come collect it from Murch. Sometimes, sub abilities will still be there, but oftentimes, there will be none on the gear piece.
Another way is through the Nintendo online app. If you download the app and login with the same account that is registered to your profile on the switch, an applet called "Splatnet 2" will appear. On the top right on the home screen of the applet, you find a shopping basket icon, which takes you to the splatnet store. From here, you can order gear that you can buy from Murch in-game. The main ability of these gear pieces are different from the ones in the stores in the game. Sadly, if you already own a gear piece with another ability, you will have to choose which you keep.

Food and Drinks

From Crusty Sean's van, you can order food and drinks to temporarily increase rewards from won battles. Food can increase the reward money or reward experience for your level. Drinks of a certain sub ability increase the chance (but not guaranteed) that that sub ability is rolled when you unlock a new sub ability. This is useful if you want gear with a lot of the same ability, instead of 3 random ones.
Food and drinks last for 20 matches, independent of loss or win.
You can not buy food or drinks, but you have to have a ticket for it. These tickets are rarely found within the single player campaign, and are more commonly gotten from the salmon run game mode rewards.

The (Awesome) Community of Splatoon

Splatoon has an incredible community. Lots of people are willing to help you out, play together and be friends! If you want to be a part of this community, here are a couple of sources:

Noteworthy Youtube Channels for all players

Here is a quick summary of splatoon youtubers. There are a lot of different kinds. Some are more for fun, uploading more laid-back content for amusement, while others are more competitive and strive to be the very best (like no-one ever was). Here's a list (click to visit their channel) with their primary weapon and role:

Competitive
  • ThatSRB2Dude - H3-Nozzlenose - Midline Support
  • Sendou - Brellas and Blasters - Front/Midline Support
  • Kiver - Dualies - Frontline Slayer
  • Sorin - Dualies - Frontline Slayer
  • Erza - Splattershot - Frontline Slayer
  • ItsKaji (or just Kaji) - Heavy Splatling - Backline Support
  • The One - Brellas - Mid/Frontline Support
  • Brian - Charger - Backline Support/Slayer
  • Wadsm - Anything and Everything
  • Zero - Dualies - Frontline Slayer
  • Rockenberg (known for his 1v1's) - Whatever he likes at that moment in time
Amusement
More will be added, there are a lot. You will find all of these people and more by just browsing the communities too!

To conclude

Now that you know a lot about the game, it is time to play and have fun! If you would like to know more about other Splatoon 2 related things, such as weapons, strategies, and more, check out the rest of this blog. 
If you have any questions, leave a comment, or visit the community.

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