News

Hey there squids and kids! It seems competitive Splatoon just keeps getting more and more exciting with some seriously explosive growth. Another team has been signed by an eSports organization: Squid Squad Spades has now been signed by BitterSweetGG! Having won tournaments like SCL Super Ultra Turbo Edition, Booyah Battle 1, and The Salty Splatoon #1 it is no surprise the team has been snatched up by an eSports org. Player DUDE Will Also Be Competing For BSGG Excited to see the team signed? Curious about who will be signed next? Let us know in the comments below and don't forget to stay fresh!

Nintendo has just announced its Splatoon content release for the week. This time, we are getting the new Carbon Roller Deco weapon and it will be available tonight at 7 PM PT! This familiar weapon trades in its infamous Burst Bombs and the Inkzooka for the Seeker and the new Seeker Bomb Rush! Other than that, the Carbon Roller Deco is the same Carbon Roller you have grown to love (or in some cases, hate). While Burst Bombs were a crucial part of the Carbon Roller's kit, we are excited to see how players take advantage of the Seeker Rush special weapon. Let us know your thoughts on the weapon's viability down below. I hope I am not the only inkling that will miss burst-canceling on this weapon! ;) For more Splatoon content, be sure to keep your eyes peeled to Squidboards!

It's not anticipated for this to be an incredibly widespread issue, but one or two Squidboards users have already encountered this problem, and we wanted to make sure to alert everyone. A kernel exploit for the Wii U has now been made public for Wii U's on an older firmware version. The simple and relevant explanation of what this means is that it is now much easier for unscrupulous folks to modify their Splatoon save files. The very negative side effect of this, is it means a person could potentially modify their save file to change their character ID from 1 or 2 (Inkling Boy and Inkling Girl respectively) to 3, which represents Octolings.

Hey there squids and kids! We have some seriously fresh news to report on in the world of Splatoon eSports. Panda Global Gaming has announced the signing of Splatoon team Squids Next Door! It is exciting to see a successful Splatoon team entering the realm of eSports and Squidboards would like to wish them the best of luck. Any readers who want to learn more about the announcement can watch the video below. Until next time: stay fresh!

Happy Update Friday Everyone! (AND BOY IS IT!) Today (or Tomorrow for our EU players) at 7pm PT, the new Tri Slosher will be available from Sheldon! As opposed to the Slosher's 1 ink trail, the Tri will toss 3 wider trails, but with less power and range (according to the data mining, think the range of the Aerospray or Splattershot Jr). The Kit for the Tri will come with Disruptors and the Bubbler Special, excellent for a support role or debuffing harassment. For more info on the weapon and a few more pictures of it in action, check out the official post from the Tumblr page! As a Slosher main, more buckets makes Wispy happy (and will probably end up playing much too late again tonight). For more buckets of fun, follow her on Twitter!

The fine folks over at EndGameTV are making a big splash in the competitive Splatoon scene; they have officially announced Inkstorm, their initial foray into hosting competitive Splatoon tournaments. The truly interesting aspect of Ink Storm is their prize pool: EGTV has promised up to 1000 USD in prizes for the various teams that place well in this tournament. Keep in mind that there is a 20 USD entry fee required to register but that is a small price to pay to take part in what will inevitably be a monumental moment in competitive Splatoon history. Registration closes on Tuesday, October 6th and EGTV has announced a 48 team cap so interested inklings should definitely register as soon as possible. Inkstorm will join a series of tournaments that EGTV has dubbed the "Endgame Circuit". Placing well in this tournament will allow you to accumulate circuit points. At the end of the series, EGTV will take the 8 teams with the largest amount of circuit points and put them into their...

Nintendo must be on the Messy side of the latest EU Splatfest, because new renders of Splatoon gear have appeared after some more data mining! ...in Super Mario Maker, of all places... Yeah, the game where everyone makes obscenely hard levels with pixel perfect jumps... more like Kaizo Mario Maker.... Popular Dataminer NWPlayer123, who brought us the very fresh info of all the currently unreleased weapons in another mining session, has been digging around the files of Super Mario Maker and found lots of gear that is rumored to have not passed the beta stage of Splatoon's dev cycle. Along with with the image of Nikki (from SwapNote) shown above, here is all that was found in the datamine: Considering NONE of this gear appears anywhere in Super Mario Maker, it is quite the interesting find! What do you think about all these renders? Lemme know in the comments! Go give NWPlayer123 a follow on twitter! She's done a lot of hard work for us already, and this is a nice little...

All the squids and kids in Japan are getting in their freshest gear because the biggest turf war of all time is about to go down! Alongside a tournament for Puzzle & Dragons the largest tournament ever for Splatoon with over 1 Million dollars in prizes. The tournament series is being hosted by Kadokawa and Toukaihi / Nicovideo parent company Dwango. Eight cities are set to hold forty events in this major series, the first of which start here: Fukuoka (September 13) Sapporo (September 26) Nagoya (October 11) Osaka (November 3) Miyagi (November 15) Hiroshima (November 22) Kagawa (December 13) Tokyo (January 30) The tournaments will feature four on four Turf War matches with no weapon limitations. If any tournament has too many entrants those playing with be decided by a lottery. The grand finals will be held on January 30th through 31st in 2016. There is no current word on if a similar tournament will be coming to Europe or North America but stay tuned Squidboards for Splatoon...

We hope squids are ready to make it RAIN! Or at least ready to play more ranked soon, as Rainmaker will be released this upcoming Friday in another Splatoon update! Being the third of the ranked matchmaking trio, Rainmaker asks you deliver a golden fish to the other team's base, similar to the Bomb gametype in the Halo series. Though be warned, it won't be easy. The Rainmaker has a shield to protect itself, and can only be held for 60 seconds. Teamwork and bodyguarding will be essential. Luckily, whoever is holding the Rainmaker is not defenseless, as the fish of gold can be charged up and fire huge whirlpools of ink! (Think like a shorter range inkzooka, but with much more width! AND SCARY SOUND EFFECTS!)

In the ever heart-racing race to secure turf and stay fresh, data miners have been racing to find out just what we can get our tentacles on in the (hopefully) near future. Coming from this website, we can see all the weapons, their subs and their specials that are to be released. Looking around the site a bit more, it seems that this may be every weapon left in the game, but it is yet to be confirmed. Knowing Nintendo, they may always have another trick up their sleeve when releasing new patches and updates. Here is a list of all the unreleased weapons. For more info on the weapons including pricing and how each weapon affects movement, check out the website! Beyond this point are the details, so don't look if you want to keep it a surprise!

The big August update has been looming on the horizon for a long time, but it's finally here! This is the big one - party matchmaking, private games, level/ranking increases, map changes, and more. Truly the largest and most significant to the final product since launch. The developers were generous enough to provide us with official patch notes. Read on to learn more about what the update brings to the table: Update Details: Ver. 2.0.0 [To be released on 08/05/15] Squad Battle Users will be able to create a squad with friends and battle against other squads in Ranked Battle. *Squad Battle can be accessed by players who are at level 10 or higher. *Once a squad is created, friends of friends will be able to join the squad. *Passwords can be set if users wish to only play with specific friends. *Squad Battle can only be played against other users who are playing Squad Battle. (Ranked Battle players will not be matched up with Squad Battle players.) Users will be able to...

Thanks to the technicians and interns over at Splatoon HQ, the map that started it all is getting a major rehaul a few months following launch. Some changes include a different location for the base trees, opened-up chokepoints and mid, and different side-path structures. You can check out a full tour of the new map with the help of a new video from GameXplain:

Welcome squids and kids! We've had a bunch of news coming in from all over and have a lot of things to cover. Let's get down to business to get this news out! Starting off, it seems that Japan will have another chance at a Testfire! This special event will take place from August 3rd through August 9th from 9AM to 10AM (JST). Players won't have access to all of the maps, weapons, and equipment but they will be able to play if they have the demo version installed. Inkoming Stage: Camp Triggerfish! Lots of pictures and information has been put out for the stage through various official Twitter accounts and the official Splatoon Tumblr. These new maps will be in at the usual times: – Europe: 4AM – UK: 3AM – North America (EDT): 10PM (July 24th) – North America (PDT): 7PM (July 24th) – Japan: 11AM For more pictures and information be sure to check out the official Splatoon Tumblr post. A rough translation: "A sketch was sent to us by a research lab worker. Seems like an...

Hey there squids and kids! We have a few fun things we wanted to share today so let's get right to it. It seems the next Splatfest for North America has been announced and it looks to be quite the battle. This will pit lovers of roller coasters against those who like water slides! It will be interesting to see which of these action packed rides will win the battle. It will begin on July 17th so Callie and Marie had better get ready to dance and sing once again! While players should keep an eye out for the inkoming Splatfest trucks there's another thing to watch for as well. In the upcoming game Yoshi's Woolly World it is possible to scan in amiibos to make the cute little Yoshi's look a bit like a favorite Nintendo character. Well it looks like they wanted Yoshi to be inkredibly fresh as it was announced that Splatoon amiibos could be scanned in as well! That;s it for our little update, so hopefully this news has readers excited! Give us those opinions on these developments...

Hey there squids and kids! Hopefully the Splatfest was inkredibly fresh for all who joined in. Callie and Marie sang their hearts out, the ink flied, and the competition was fierce. There was a lot of trash talking going on between those on either sides of the event as well but in the end only one team could be victorious. Let us lament in the losses and celebrate the winners. Here are the results! Japan Winner: Red Fox Udon Score: 161 Popularity: 67% Wins: 47% Loser: Green Tanuki Soba Score: 139 Popularity: 33% Wins: 53% Europe Winner: Rock Score: 170 Popularity: 64% Wins: 53% Loser: Pop Score: 130 Popularity: 26% Wins: 47% North America Winner: Dogs Score: 160 Popularity: 62% Wins: 49% Loser: Cats Score: 140 Popularity: 38% Wins: 51% Amidst the fun of the Splatfest however there have been some concerns from fans. Many players played on one sided teams where there were not even full 4v4 (with some player even suffering in 1v4 fights). At times teams were...

Get your suckers ready for a new kind of battle! This week, Ranked Battle gains an additional gametype. This new mode, dubbed "Tower Control," will rotate alongside Splat Zones in Ranked Battle. "Once someone jumps onto the tower, it starts moving along a set path toward the other team’s goal. If the tower doesn’t arrive at either goal before time runs out, the team that’s moved it closest toward their opponent’s goal wins. Ride the tower all the way into the other team’s goal though, and you’ll get a decisive knockout victory." Tower Control will become available in Ranked Battle in North America tomorrow, July 1st at 7PM Pacific. In Europe, the mode will launch on the 2nd. Let us know what you think about the new mode when it launches! Check out our Ranked Battle discussion thread to chat about this new mode or leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Hey squids and kids! Need the freshest information on Splatoon? Japanese magazine Nintendo Dream managed to snag an interview with Splatoon directors Yusuke Amano and Tsubasa Sakaguchi and producer Hisashi Nogami to chat on their recent game. One of the first things discussed was matchmaking in Splatoon which is done in a very unique way. According to Amano it actually pairs up players with similar play-styles where levels are more of “an indicator for how long the person has played the game.” He noted that those who tend to splat enemies are likely to play together, while those who focus more on painting are more likely to be paired up. He also commented on why there were only two maps rotated every four hours: "I think if maps were selected at random from all the possibilities, everyone would only use weapons that have “the greatest common divisor” and that work the same way in every map. But when maps are limited to two, you can have alternative weapon choices like “I’ll go...

Attention squids and kids: the next Splatfest to hit Japan has been announced and the two things battling it out look to be very unique. Famed makers of instant noodles and ramen Maruchan have gotten a spotlight in Splatoon as two flavors of their instant noodles are on both sides! Maruchan Red Fox Udon takes on Green Tanuki Soba with Japanese inklings deciding which will come out on top. While this might be more difficult for inklings from other regions to decide on this Splatfest for themselves, it should nonetheless be curious to see. This will take place from July 3rd through the 4th starting at 6pm the 3rd and ending at 6pm the 4th. With the North American Splatfest (Cats vs Dogs) being rescheduled to July 4th as well as Pop vs Rock in PAL regions, it will be interesting to see if the servers can manage this mass of inklings. Get ready to grab that extra fresh Splatfest gear, pick that favorite weapon, and spread some ink!

Patch 1.3.0 for Splatoon will be available early next week. It includes Splatfest fixes and gameplay changes. On June 30, 2015, new update data for the Splatoon game will be available for download. Users will be required to download this update prior to using the software's online multiplayer features. First, we’ll start out with discussing the Splatfest fixes. When there are more members on one team than the other and the match-making process takes too long, members from the same team will be able to battle each other Members will still receive Splatfest Points even when they battle against members of the same team Note: Only the results from matches against the opposing team will be included in the overall Splatfest results Adjustments have been made to allow some players at random to participate as early as 5 minutes prior to the official start time of Splatfest in order to make for a more pleasant gaming experience (Note: All players will be able to participate...

Inkoming news: Cats vs Dogs is back on schedule! Here is the statement from the official Splatoon tumblr: "The CATS vs. DOGS Splatfest is back on! Sorry for the delay—we experienced some…tentacle difficulties with the Splatfest matchmaking. The first Splatfest will now begin on July 4th at 12:00 AM PT and will end on July 4th at 11:59 PM PT. That’s 24 hours of pure patriotic splattitude! Celebrate your inkdependence with nighttime Turf War battles and fireworks! " Callie and Marie are excited to get back out on the stage and perform for North American players! Excited for the reschedule? Let us know in the comments below! So get ready squids and kids and be sure to stay fresh!