Topic: Splatoon 4- Hopes, Theories and Predictions

I made this forum to talk about Splatoon 4! The developers started working on Splatoon 3 after the Splatoon 2 Final Fest, so it's likely their working on the 4th game. This is just a place to share what you want in the next game, rumors, and predictions!

Since Past won Grand Fest, I want past to be a major part of the theme of the next game. I don't want a past story mode but a past DLC. I want a old-timey theme in the hub worlds, weapon styles, main characters, and maybe clothing.

I want either 2 idols in the next game, 3 idols was fun and cool but it showed a lot of favoritism and dislike between them. Splatfest should have only 2 options; I liked 3 but it felt weird like the Friday vs. Saturday vs. Sunday Friday isn't technically the Weekend but they needed 3 options.

What do you think about idols and Splatfest in the next game??

I hope the next game has 4 idols, with then slitting into teams of 2 for Fests. Also, I really want dark blue/medium green to be the main colors for S4. Specifically, the colors of a very specific volleyball is what I have in mind. If you have seen it, you know exactly what I mean.

I hope we get a mode outside of the main story that really builds on the foundation laid by Side Order. Though it was a great DLC in my opinion, I still think there’s a lot of potential there. Side Order walked so Splatoon 4 could run.

@KidSparta That's a good idea, I think Side order has a lot of potential but needed more ideas. It would be cool to have unlimited floors then have a leader board to compare with others

@CaleBoi25 4 idols then 2 splatfest teams is a really cool idea! I like that color scheme.

I think to help Splatoon 4 be it's own game, I want Salmon Run done away with. Hear me out. I feel Splatoon 3 struggled to be it's own game because it took a lot from 2; Salmon Run, Gear, Modes, and Special Weapons. It also took the hub world too. I think Splatoon 3 was needed to be without Splatoon 2 in mind.

Like in Splatoon 2 they took all Special Weapons, and added more subs. I think Splatoon 4 should do the same.

@Potato-man I think I would like to see the number of Main Weapons reduced. My idea for this would be "merging" weapons, IE get rid of RBP and Luna, instead making those into the long- and short-range modes of SBlast, respectively. That kind of thing.

Shouldn't this be in the Switch 2 forum? To be fair, I didn't know that category already existed until recently. Anyway, I have many ideas, so prepare for a wall of text. Just for fun, I'll present them like it’s Nintendo PR.

Are you ready to ink again in a faraway land? You’ll do just that in Splatoon 4, the next installment in Nintendo’s freshest, inkiest series!

Set over two years after the fateful Grand Festival in Splatoon 3, you take control of a humble Inkling or Octoling who wanders far from the two cities of Inkopolis and Splatsville to a rural city deep within Calamari County. This city (name TBD) is a folksy place with a rich history. It seems that the trends have gotten decisively retrograde. Enjoy gear heavily inspired by the past, whether it’s ancient times, feudal days or fads from previous decades. This cultural phenomenon has inevitably affected music, too. Chirpy Chips is more active than ever, and even Hightide Era has gotten back together. The arcade has become a hot spot just like not-too-long-ago, so enjoy some classic 8-bit arcade games, old and new! Even board games are still fresh in this city, so you’ll get to enjoy Splatoon’s very own in-game board game that can be played offline or with friends with many collectible character pieces.

Not everything has gone old school, though. There’s many changes and much new to be discovered. In a first for the Splatoon series, a boy band has risen to become the newest idol sensation and is in charge of the Splatcast and Splatfest in this game. A four-person group of an Inkling, Octoling, and two fishes (species TBD) this can only mean that Splatfest has been shaken up once again with four teams! (Please don’t tell me how to explain how this works. Personally, I’d go back to two teams, but this is Nintendo, and 4 will be the magic number like 3 was.) New special weapons will be ready to take the splattlefield by storm, including a line inspired by the number four like the Quadzooka and Quadruple Inkstrike. Judd has gone back to judging by himself, because Li’l Judd now openly runs the former Grizzco Industries, which has undergone some kind of cat theme. Who knew cats like salmon? Prepare to face new Boss Salmonids, new King Salmonids, and fly off to new stages as well as returning ones like Lost Outpost and Ruins of Ark Polaris.

Go to a Salon to customize your Inkling or Octoling more than ever. Speaking of customization, you can now own your very own apartment to decorate however you please! Splattle Royale brings the battle royale style to the Splatoon series. New Ranked Modes will also make their debut. Tired of disconnections? Online bots can pop up to give your team a fighting chance or save the battle from getting cancelled. Hey, we’re not going back to old tech here! Further tweaks have been implemented to make online play go more smoothly than in Splatoon 3.

But there’s trouble underneath the surface. You’ll be recruited by Agents 1 and 2 (the Squid Sisters) as Agent 5 in A Splat in Time, Splatoon 4’s story mode that’s a straight-up time-travel adventure! A mysterious time machine made by the Professor has been discovered. With the past proven to still be relevant after all and feeling overshadowed by Judd and neglected by the squids and octos, this inspires Mr. Grizz’s protégé Li’l Judd to change the world by altering time in another attempt to return Mammalians as well as make himself the true Judd. Agent 5 must go back in time to the Great Turf War and even farther back to the human era, where we see THE Professor for the first time! Apparently, more lore will be learned than ever before.

Splatoon 4’s Expansion Pass will be eventually announced for release a year later. Return to the Splatlands as the returning Agent 4 to save Deep Cut and their home from a new threat! Even though they tried to be positive in spite of Team Future’s crushing loss in Grand Festival, Deep Cut’s alliance is sadly being tested when Frye and Big Man go missing. As Deep Cut’s leader, Shiver seeks out and recruits Agent 4 of the New Squidbeak Splatoon. Shiver will be 4’s guide just as Marie was. This second story mode features the introduction of 3D platforming levels in which 4 can freely explore stages (akin to Kirby and the Forgotten Land) unlike Splatoon’s usual island-like structure for story mode stages. With running around and swimming in ink not enough to traverse these large stages, vehicles are introduced to make getting around faster, such as bikes, scooters, go-karts and Master Mega! Off the Hook and Agent 8 also get caught up in the mix, so there may even be times when you split between 4 and 8. All hubs from previous games will return to keep all those precious memories fresh and make Splatfest that much more epic.

Splatoon 4 inks its path to the next Nintendo system in the second half of 2026!

My main hope is to have less disconnect issues. I wanted really badly to go all in on Splatoon 3, and the biggest thing that prevented me from wanting to put triple digit hours into the game was how often games would fail to complete because some issue would come up. It's better now but still not good enough.

what i really want is offline turf war

@Dev1024 Wow, thanks for writing all that!! I love those ideas, the Story Mode!! The board game idea sounds really cool, and bots sound amazing. Salmon Run with Lil' Judd sounds cool but I hope the mode goes away.

@SlamDunk22 it should have been in Splatoon 2 so hopefully it come in 4

@kkslider5552000 hopefully with the Playtest, Nintendo Switch 2 has better servers!

@SlamDunk22 while we’re at it, we need a good 1v1 / small group couch co-op battle mode. Tableturf is way better than it has any business being, but it would be nice to have something that resembles the standard Turf War and Anarchy Matches for smaller groups. Salmon Run is an excellent offline option too if you have a group of exactly four, but if you’re in the mood for PvP or if there’s only two of you, too bad!

They kind of fumbled making an interesting 1v1 offline mode in Splatoon 1, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t give it another shot!

@Dev1024 I really love your idea to set it in a rural, more traditional city to capture that Past theme. Great Turf War as DLC or even as the base story mode somehow could be interesting, but I feel like the entire game literally taking place in the past is not the angle they’ll ultimately go for. So I think a city like you describe is also a realistic option.

I should note that most of my ideas are things I would like to see, not that I expect.

Things I expect are that the next game will have:
1. New idols
2. Overhauled Splatfest
3. Li'l Judd is the next villain
4. New modes
5. New hairstyles (still disappointed we never got new ones in 3 and Octolings had far fewer ones than Inklings...)
6. New weapons
7. New hub
8. Returning hubs
9. An expansion pass
10. Salmon Run

A boy band for the next idol group is probably unlikely considering female characters are prominent in Splatoon but I believe it'd be something different and fresh. Big Man should've just been a big taste of what's to come!

Another thing I want is for posting to be overhauled, and I don't just mean more art tools. It's good that there's a few good artists who still bother, but I got so fed up with the trash posts that I leave posts off anymore. There needs to be a much better system to moderate trash posts than just making the players the moderators in 2 and 3, which I always hated, or just let us block certain posters.

The Grand Festival venue supports my theory of Li'l Judd being the next villain. It contained cameos to Splatoon villains, whether it was ex-villain Octavio at the stand with Cuttlefish, a dropped mint ice cream cone in front of a crying Jellyfish wearing a Team Present tee that vaguely recalls Commander Tartar, and Mr. Grizz's rocket sticking out of the desert. Along with those were a couple of Grizzco posters with inky pawprints on them...

@CaleBoi25 yooo adding the picture changes everything. I’m all for this color combo

I just want Splatoon 4 to be open world (or at least have larger maps) and a Splattle Royale mode. That just feels like the natural evolution for the series, especially seeing 3 and the open looking wastelands that are just begging to be explored.

@Dev1024 Yo that writing was really good lol! However, I (personally) don't want the whole "You can visit the old hubs and here are the old characters" like you suggested. I am not against having them be a part, but what I want is a far-separated place where the old games have little influence. They could have returning maps the same way they always have (what with flying Spawner Drones existing it would be totally fair so say the Turflings just travel to these distant battlefields or something), but I want the story to revolve around a new threat with new characters rising up to face the challenge. The "past" can be a part of the "new"!

This is really specific, but I think if they continue to use 3’s spawner system (which I prefer), I would love to see a stage with a gimmick that really capitalizes on you being able to control where you land. There could be two routes to mid with water separating them, and they only meet up in the middle (sort of like Triggerfish). Or there could be two separate high routes on the left and right and a low route in the middle (sort of like Brinewater’s right side but extending farther). Either of these scenarios could be interesting because certain areas would be temporarily accessible/inaccessible to you depending on where you choose to land from the spawner.

Here I am with such cool ideas and yet I still can't shake off my inner pessimist who expects Splatoon 4 to be a letdown in some major way, whether it's a prequel that makes Octolings nonplayable bad guys again or Deep Cut not getting any story DLC and becoming neglected characters. Keeping my expectations low is obviously bad for hype but it keeps me from getting too carried away.

Then again, I was terrified that a chaos theme would ruin Splatoon 3, only for it to bring about my favorite Splatoon character and even a story mode about order, so...