Yesterday’s Nintendo Direct didn’t have the Breath of the Wild 2 or Metroid Prime 4 news that many were hoping for, but it did have one big surprise up its sleeve. At the end of the livestream, after detailing a lengthy list of games coming to the Switch, both new and old, Nintendo dropped a trailer for a game few were expecting: Splatoon 3. Nintendo’s squid-based squad shooter will return with its second Switch incarnation in 2022, five years after Splatoon 2 turbocharged the original Wii U hit into a genuine mainstream smash.
The trailer hints at a few new additions to the Splatoon mythos—new clothes options, some kind of little buddy, apparently there’s a huge desert outside the city that fortunately is still on the public transportation grid—but there’s no mistaking the ink-saturated first-person action that is the game’s calling card. And despite spending most of the trailer out in the boonies or on the subway, the trailer still gives us a jolt of the game’s hyperreal street culture—if you’ve never played a Splatoon, its gleaming pop-centric city life and devotion to street fashion is a big part of its overall vibe. It’s one of Nintendo’s most stylish games, and with a modern flourish you don’t really see from the company’s other big hits.
Check out the full trailer below, and start planning to get your squid squadron back together again sometime next year.