Splatoon 3: Side Order Preview – A tasty roguelike snack

thesixthaxis.com:

Something hella strange is going on in Splatoon 3: Side Order, and that’s saying something for a game series that has some of the weirdest lore in video games. Heading back to Inkopolis Square, digital disruption scatters across the screen, and you wake up in a world that’s been mysteriously drained of all its colour – an absolute travesty considering how vibrantly colourful Splatoon has been for all this time.

Ahead of its release on 22nd February, we’ve been hands on with Splatoon 3: Side Order, a fun new single player twist on the classic Splatoon series action.

Instead of playing as Agent 3 from the main game, you will once again create a new character to represent the newly numbered Agent 8. Once again, they suddenly find themselves embroiled in a mission to save the Inkling world without having an inkling of what’s going on. All they know is that Pearl is there in floating robot form, and… well we can’t say what the dish is with Marina just yet, but that’s part of the whole mystery for this DLC.

At the heart of this story is the tower, an imposing obelisk in the more monochromatic Inkopolis skyline where you have to head to figure out what’s going on. Within you’ll find randomised level after level, building up to big boss battles, and if you run out of lives you get sent right back to the ground floor. If you hadn’t put it all together yet, then this is a very Splatoon take on a roguelike.

The first run through this takes the form of a prescribed sequence of ten entry level missions, building up to the first boss battle and narrative revelations. Along the way you get to grips with the various tweaks and mechanics that Nintendo has brought together. Similar to other Splatoon single player stories, there’s a bitesized nature to going through the levels here, and those levels combine a little bit of Salmon Run, a little bit of multiplayer with the roguelike progression for something that feels just a little bit new and distinct.

You’ll start each run by picking a