Side Order Conspiracy Theory

[OnePotWonder]

The educated inkfish among us should already be aware of the fact that Side Order, as it is today, is very different from the initial teaser for the mode and much of its concept art. Those tasteful inkfish among us should know that Side Order as a mode is not great.

The story is bland, with Eight's motivations for climbing the spire being completely artificial, and them gaining nothing from even clearing it with their own palette. The only character to receive any kind of growth or development is Smollusk, with Acht doing virtually nothing for the mode's story or lore. The most we get on them is distant background information from clearing the spire with... Eight's palette? The gameplay also quickly gets repetitive, with campaign mode gimmicks being used in one or two stages each.
So, what happened? What made the mode like this? Well, I have a theory. A GAM-

The first point of the theory is straightforward: Side Order was originally supposed to be a roguelike, not a roguelite. Marina's hacks were added in the last few months of development, presumably after Nintendo's play testers had awful taste and found the mode too punishing. The mode is clearly balanced around the default amount of hacks: 3 lives, 1x enemy damage, and slight color chip bias. You can even regenerate lost lives by buying more at Vending Machine Corners. Hacks were added after the mode had already been balanced, and keeping up the difficulty ended up becoming impossible. This is why the mode is so easy with full hacks.

The second point of the mode addresses the story: Marina Agitando was supposed to be the final boss, or a fake-out final boss. Order was supposed to only appear for the cinematic final battle. She was removed from this role in order to justify hacks as a gameplay device. If this hadn't happened and Marina remained the final boss, it would have had several significant *positive* consequences on the story.
For one, we wouldn't have had ninety percent of the elevator dialogue be Pearlina fan service. More importantly, Eight would have actually had a personal reason to climb the spire in rescuing Marina. Even more importantly, Acht would have an actual role in the story beyond being a third wheel to Off the Hook, being a relatable confused character in the same boat as Eight. But most importantly, and the one thing that would have saved the story, the nature of the Memverse would remain a mystery, revealed exclusively through Marina's dev logs. With the exception of Order, who would only be revealed once a player defeats Marina in the floor 30 Control Room.

With these two points alone, the setting of the memverse instantly becomes a lot more interesting, since information about it is drip-fed to the player over their many attempts at the spire with different palettes, rather than completely dropped on them after clearing the tutorial spire. Additionally, thanks to the lack of hacks, players would struggle to quickly clear the 30 floor spire and get all of the lore for free by rescuing Marina. There's a ton of evidence that this is how the mode was originally designed, since it all fits together perfectly. Even the Color Chip Collection and Jelleton Field Guide support this; they're both designed to give players insights on how to defeat enemies and create builds more effectively, already serving as a way for players to get stronger between runs by learning new information and tactics.

Oh, but I'm not done just yet. Remember the original teaser and concept art? Yeah, I'm covering that too.

Side Order's memversal setting was already set in place from when it was first revealed, but the theme of the memverse used to be a lot darker and more sinister, with Eight starting out in a much grittier, more corrupted place than what we have in-game. Marina was planned to be the boss of the mode ever since Team Order lost Splatoon 2's Final Fest, following in the footsteps of Callie after her team lost Splatoon 1's Final Fest. Side Order originally tried to follow in the aesthetic footsteps of Octo Expansion, with Eight awaking in a mysterious place (possibly with Pearl, possibly alone) and trying to figure out its true nature while traversing its trials. Acht was supposed to fill the role Off the Hook filled in Octo Expansion. It only stands to reason that the developers would start with the formula they knew worked for Octo Expansion.

The only thing I can't concretely explain is the repetitive stages. I only assume that the developers were scrambling with developmental upheavals and didn't have time to put a lot of effort into creating interesting floors while also keeping their difficulty balanced. This could also explain the addition of Danger; a shoddy, easy-to-implement fix to add difficulty and diversity to existing floors without changing their actual layouts.

To say I wish the developers had stuck with this theorized original vision doesn't come close to how I actually feel. If I had a wish to spend, I would use it on restoring this mode to its unrealized glory. Side Order isn't a bad mode, but it's easily the biggest miss the developers have had in the series what with just how hard it could have hit if it were executed properly.

Ultimately, TL;DR: My theory is that we have disgruntled play testers to blame for Side Order being mediocre.

Thank you for listening to my ramblings.
Have a wonderful day.

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

You know, this is the first one of those theories I've heard in a long time that actually makes some sense. It's probably not entirely accurate, of course, but I think it has some merit.

Kind of sad reading what it potentially could have been. I can't be too upset since most of what's impacted is the story and you can change the difficulty by just not using hacks, but it still would have been really cool to see it done like you describe.

 

[isaac4]

Even if your theory isn't 100% correct, I think it's pretty obvious that Side Order ended up being very different from what we were originally shown.
It's disappointing that despite waiting a good amount of time for Side Order to be finished, it still doesn't feel complete. There's so much missed potential and I doubt the devs will continue the same style of gameplay for S4.

I wish they were open to adding more content to Side Order through updates but we've already passed the 2 year mark.

 

[sevenleaf]

so first of all side order was never going to be a true roguelike because it was never going to be turn-based or tile-based or--

ok as for serious comments. i think characterizing testers' input in this scenario as "the testers had a hard time with the original version :/ so the devs made the game easier" is a little unfair. more charitably, i think testers in this scenario felt that the difficulty of hackless side order was significantly more than the average splatoon player was used to in singleplayer modes, outside of secret bosses/stages, and felt that it should be adjusted to match players' expectations. remember that the target audience skews young, too. and i say all this as a certified roguelike/lite enjoyer! there are a lot of ways that i feel side order missed the roguelite mark, too, but a lot of my criticisms are also "yeah but idk how they could've done it while still being splatoon" things. and i guess general difficulty is kind of one of those things. i certainly wouldn't be complaining if side order was harder... but some folks would be.

but i do agree that it does seem that the devs had grander ideas for side order, as evidenced by all the concept art, and i do mourn that sort of vibe that never made it to the final product. i thoroughly enjoyed side order, maybe more for the ways i filled in the blanks in my head and proceeded to go insane about my own blank-filling but moving on, but in retrospect the "ooh new shiny mode" effect probably colored a lot of my enjoyment. i do still like what we got for story, but it could have been... more? it definitely feels like there was room left to build on it. and i like building on things myself but not everyone does and the average player shouldn't really Have To.

eight's palette & the eventual reconfiguring of it as The Final Challenge of Side Order is a weird thing because, like... it was anticlimactic that nothing really happened after that, i felt that even when the mode was new and i cleared it for the first time. but i also don't know what the devs could've done, even in a "fully realized" version of side order, to make that feel less anticlimactic without developing eight beyond the blank-slate player character they are. all agents, eight included, are silent protagonists with little background lore, so as to allow the player to project themselves onto them, to feel like part of the story. (or to... do whatever it is i do.) that's established at this point and i don't think it's something nintendo's willing to break away from, especially for a returning player character from a previous campaign. i guess if eight allegedly getting their memories back wasn't the only thing hinging on clearing with their palette - like, say, if only then was marina truly freed, going with your pitch for how the story was meant to be - that could dance around the issue.

aaaaah now i want to try and imagine what side order could've been, story-wise, if marina still did get freed on the tutorial climb but the early concept art vibe remained. like marina's fully there, hacks still exist, and we still get pearlina dialogue (yay), but also The Horrors are happening. but if i do that, i might incorporate it into my personal oc lore, and then i might come down with a high fever modern medicine can't explain and begin receiving visions

 

[OnePotWonder]

While I get where you’re coming from, I feel like the whole self-insert character thing has been overdone to high hell and back at this point in the series. Agent 3 took on a character of their own in Splatoon 3. I see no reason why Eight couldn’t have either, especially with them not being a true self-insert character you also play in multiplayer, but rather a returning protagonist. Even then, Eight was barely a self-insert in the first place, we already had glimpses of their memories and opinions through the mem cake poems. You remember the infamous Squid Bumper mem cake, right? Giving Eight their memories back like clearing the spire with their palette was supposed to do seems only fair to those aspects of the character.

I genuinely do not know why the devs made so little effort to color inside the lines with regard to Side Order’s lore. You’re telling me that Acht somehow got their memories back without clearing the spire, but Eight didn’t get anything from clearing the spire?

Genuinely what the hell happened with Acht, how are they just a perfectly functioning character despite being little more than a zombie in the events of Octo Expansion? Does clearing the spire only help sanitized octarians reconstruct their personality and memories, and they were all already freed of Tartar’s influence after OE? But Acht already seems to have their memories and personality, so do they just… not need to use the memverse at all, because of their special half-sanitization? But if that’s the case then why are they even there in the first place?? Why is Marina not surprised to see them there?? Did they already clear the spire before the events of the mode? But Eight was supposed to be the first tester, and Acht was injured by Jelletons. (How did Acht not naturally heal the injury, anyway? Sanitization?? A curse??) I NEED TO KNOW, NINTENDO. GIVE ME THE LORE.
The fact that Acht could be outright removed from SO and the lore would be more coherent without the story being diminished whatsoever is somewhere between disappointing and depressing. We don’t even get to see their palette. They would have been a much better candidate for the Order Blaster palette than Murch. I’m 90% sure that literally nobody cares about Murch as a character.

Lastly for this comment, I find it hilarious that there’s an in-game explanation for why the gameplay is so repetitive. Marina specifically states in the dev logs that the sanitization recovery therapy works best when the subject undergoes banal, repetitive tasks. This is the only reason I am mostly fine with the uninspired floor design plaguing the mode.

 

[sevenleaf]

While I get where you’re coming from, I feel like the whole self-insert character thing has been overdone to high hell and back at this point in the series. Agent 3 took on a character of their own in Splatoon 3. I see no reason why Eight couldn’t have either, especially with them not being a true self-insert character you also play in multiplayer, but rather a returning protagonist. Even then, Eight was barely a self-insert in the first place, we already had glimpses of their memories and opinions through the mem cake poems. You remember the infamous Squid Bumper mem cake, right? Giving Eight their memories back like clearing the spire with their palette was supposed to do seems only fair to those aspects of the character.

I genuinely do not know why the devs made so little effort to color inside the lines with regard to Side Order’s lore. You’re telling me that Acht somehow got their memories back without clearing the spire, but Eight didn’t get anything from clearing the spire?

Genuinely what the hell happened with Acht, how are they just a perfectly functioning character despite being little more than a zombie in the events of Octo Expansion? Does clearing the spire only help sanitized octarians reconstruct their personality and memories, and they were all already freed of Tartar’s influence after OE? But Acht already seems to have their memories and personality, so do they just… not need to use the memverse at all, because of their special half-sanitization? But if that’s the case then why are they even there in the first place?? Why is Marina not surprised to see them there?? Did they already clear the spire before the events of the mode? But Eight was supposed to be the first tester, and Acht was injured by Jelletons. (How did Acht not naturally heal the injury, anyway? Sanitization?? A curse??) I NEED TO KNOW, NINTENDO. GIVE ME THE LORE.
The fact that Acht could be outright removed from SO and the lore would be more coherent without the story being diminished whatsoever is somewhere between disappointing and depressing. We don’t even get to see their palette. They would have been a much better candidate for the Order Blaster palette than Murch. I’m 90% sure that literally nobody cares about Murch as a character.

Lastly for this comment, I find it hilarious that there’s an in-game explanation for why the gameplay is so repetitive. Marina specifically states in the dev logs that the sanitization recovery therapy works best when the subject undergoes banal, repetitive tasks. This is the only reason I am mostly fine with the uninspired floor design plaguing the mode.

mem cakes were like... just vague enough to allow eight to keep that blank-slate status, imo. it does feel like splatoon's writers weren't willing to commit to one or the other with them, which ultimately gave us... the non-ending of clearing eight's palette in SO. i don't see them dropping the blank-slate player character thing in mainline splatoon games any time soon, tbh - you make a good point about it being unnecessary with specifically splat3's eight but the overlap with the player's multiplayer avatar will always be a barrier in front of shifting away from that model. maybe if we got spinoffs, though...

agreed on acht though. they really are just standing there. i still don't even have an "okay so this is what works in my personal lore, i have no idea what the actual developer intention was but it sure wasn't this" answer to any of the (very valid!) questions you're posing here. it's been a minute since i've played through SO myself (though i still have to finish my in-character side profile playthrough of the mode) but i don't even really remember any hints towards answers in the game proper, any scraps of answers we can extrapolate on. ... there's another artbook coming out, isn't there? bankara walker, i believe? maybe the acht lore will be in there, never to be translated to english. lol

 

[Algae]

I don't think a "roguelike not roguelite" has to be constrained to the Berlin Interpretation, though I know about the debate over what separates the two.

To me, traits that play into the archetype's replayability are high-ramped difficulty, a lengthy win condition (a run's like playing though a somewhat short game, like Undertale or Survivor's route in Rain World), and lack of dependence on macrogame upgrades (such as Marina's hacks). Gameplay elements that ensure you don't have to win to enjoy yourself compensate well for high difficulty, but I don't find repeats of Side Order engaging, to the point I am more willing to call it "bad".

That said, some games I played have a designated "true final boss" for those who meet certain conditions, adding depth to a kind of game that's normally light on story.

 

[OnePotWonder]

Classic, Dedf1sh lore only being available in the artbooks. I guess something would be better than nothing, but I’m struggling to imagine any satisfying answers to this loose end of the lore. The whole situation is inexplicable. And the weirdest part is that it can’t be chalked up to any potential storyline changes. In the second trailer, six months before the release of the DLC, we see Acht waiting in the elevator in the lobby.

IIRC, the limited info we have is that Acht was attacked by the introductory Jelletons, injured, and then took shelter in the elevator until Eight came to finish the fishbones off. They were completely unfamiliar with the spire outside of the information they gleaned from the elevator’s “console” while they were waiting. Without Pearl, they had no tools to run the spire with.

New headcanon; Acht’s injury was never real, and just served as an excuse for them to not have to do any challenges. Hence it just magically disappearing during the climactic final fight, coincidentally the exact second a DJ booth appears. It’s fairly justified too, since it seems like they never needed to run through the spire in the first place.
Wait, why does this fit so well?

 

[OnePotWonder]

Some new evidence has come to light. TIL that Eight’s Side Order outfit/costume is based off of a straitjacket. The implications are fairly straightforward and it seems like a clear remnant of a darker design for Side Order, possibly exploring deeper into concepts of mental health and memory decline. If that was the original direction, it makes sense why they chose to scrap it, since that’s a bit too existential for The Squid Paintball Game. The outfit was the one thing they clearly showed in the original teaser and had to therefore be carried through the rest of the mode’s development, the last remains of a darker Side Order concept.

 

[sevenleaf]

Some new evidence has come to light. TIL that Eight’s Side Order outfit/costume is based off of a straitjacket. The implications are fairly straightforward and it seems like a clear remnant of a darker design for Side Order, possibly exploring deeper into concepts of mental health and memory decline. If that was the original direction, it makes sense why they chose to scrap it, since that’s a bit too existential for The Squid Paintball Game. The outfit was the one thing they clearly showed in the original teaser and had to therefore be carried through the rest of the mode’s development, the last remains of a darker Side Order concept.

i’ve heard the straitjacket thing before, but only on the wiki, and i don’t think there’s a source? and i think i remember reading that the devs’ inspiration for eight’s suit was something else. might’ve been in an interview rassicas translated, i’ll have to see if i can find that (if i’m right about the source) after i get out of work

i actually did suspect that the dlc was gonna have stronger themes of mental health back when the teaser dropped, though. based on stuff like the brain-like imagery and the one concept art piece that looked like eight in a line of vague clones (i interpreted that as maybe not being literal, more like a visual representation of dissociation or struggles with self-concept or something similar). we got a little bit of that theme in the final product, i think, but not quite in the way i’d been imagining back then

 

[Smash Arena]

Side Order was very clearly scaled down during development. Considering how tumultuous Splatoon 3's development was thanks to a world event in 2020/2021, I see why the game overall feels sloppy compared to Splatoon 1 and 2, with Side Order being the crown jewel of that sloppiness. Splatoon 3 was internally delayed and released in a somewhat incomplete state, so the developers were playing catchup during the whole 2 year content cycle. Now add an entire DLC expansion to that catchup, and it makes sense why Side Order came out as a half-baked mem cake.

Nintendo should have delayed Splatoon 3 further in the first place, and Side Order should have been delayed as well. Never forget that we were told it was coming in Spring 2024, but then came "early" in February 2024, which according to all my calendars, isn't Spring. I have a feeling that Nintendo decided to cut their losses and release whatever they had done of Side Order earlier than intended so that they could free up the development staff to work on other projects.

 

[sevenleaf]

i think i remember reading that the devs’ inspiration for eight’s suit was something else. might’ve been in an interview rassicas translated, i’ll have to see if i can find that (if i’m right about the source) after i get out of work

AHA. I FOUND IT. according to this interview the suit is based on... diving gear, because eight's 'diving into' the memverse. which... is not terribly interesting, but sometimes word of god is not terribly interesting, i suppose

it's very possible for creators to have influences they don't reveal or even really realize they have, though.

 

[Smash Arena]

Playing more of Side Order, I think Nintendo could have avoided the negative reception by players had they marketed it differently. The way they portrayed it was as if it was the Octo Expansion 2, which is what players came to expect in terms of scale and quality. When players didn't get that, they were understandably disappointed, especially with the $5 price increase.


Side Order is more of an additional single player "mode" as opposed to a "story" like Octo Expansion. If you look at it like that, it makes far more sense, as it fares much better an an "arcade" style single player mode. In fact, if you took most of the dialogue and cutscenes away from Side Order, I reckon it would provide about the same level of entertainment.

What probably happened was that Nintendo intended for Side Order to be something much grander in the planning phases, and with Splatoon 3's troubled development, had to scale it down during development. Hence why Nintendo announced it as a new single player story when what we ended up getting was more of an arcade mode.

My recommendation? Look at it as an arcade-style mode and you'll end up enjoying it more. I actually got it for my friend for his birthday recently told him it was an arcade-style mode, and he's been enjoying it quite a bit. So if you really stretch, it can be a mind over matter type deal.