Diving into Splatoon lore is an eye-opening experience. As far as I can tell, the series features a history of human extinction, accelerated evolution,🦂 warfare, and far more death than you’d ever imagined after seeing the bright colours and zany ink-based turf wars. This rich storytelling provides a strong base for Side Order, a roguelike DLC that manages to introduce its new mechanics naturally while weaving a narrative that begs your attention.

Boil Side Ord🐟er down to its bare bones, and you have a roguelite. The main loop concerns a massive tower, each floor containing a random arena and a r꧙andom objective. Your objective is to progress as far as you can up the tower, selecting your objectives from a group of three on each floor, obtaining temporary upgrades that get slotted into a stylish palette as you go and accruing a currency that allows you to purchase permanent upgrades when you (inevitably) fail.

A New Campaign

Side Order feels far removed from Splatoon’s usual fare. While 3’s solo campaign has you facing similar levels with a range of objectives, the roguelite mechanics at work in Side Order make it feel like an entirely different game. Heck, roguelite mechanics aside, you get a drone helper here that functions as an auxiliary weapon and a glider, helping you traverse the often vertically challenging arenas. This affects gameplay significantly, giving you more movement options and, crucially, more tools to e𝔉scape dangerous situations, which is vital when you consider a run is strictly limited by how many lives you have.

Thanks to the tower’s random nature, it’s innately replayable, something only accentuated by how keenly you’re encouraged to experiment with weapons. While your ℱmain goal is to reach the top of the tower, you’re also on the hunt for locker keys, rewarded for reaching certain milestones with a weapon. With each weapon having multiple keys to acquire, a completionist must learn how to use every tool at their disposal, contributing to how variable the DLC feels.

During my time with Side Order at Nintendo HQ last week, I managed three runs (four if you count the one where I d⛄ied on the first floor) at the tower. I made it to the twentieth level on my final run, where I was unceremoniously destroyed by a revolving tower of ink turrets. The boss featured iඣn the image up top, however, was far more forgiving.

Getting Stronger

This complements how you gain power while attempting to climb the tower. Each new floor you climb rewards you with a chip to insert into your palette, granting a boost to a stat or unlocking a new ability. Some are basic, such as increasing your firepower at range, while others can greatly affect how you play, such as adding a damaging aura to your dodge rolls. This naturally leads you to think about the builds you create as you play and might force you to take risks to obtain the right chips for your playstyle, for example, if a particularly crucial chip is hidden be🧸hind🌌 a ‘Rigorous’ difficulty level. This high-risk-high-reward gameplay is a classic hallmark of roguelites, and it’s executed excellently here.

Preventing the tower runs from getting stale is the meta-progression. Permanent upgrades ensure that you make steady progress with each new run, with the currency you obtain from a run being based on how far you get through the tower. These upgrades are vital, from increasing how many lives you can lose before being kicked out of the tower to giving you a launch ability that boosts you into the air whenever your armour breaks, letting you escape a horde of enemies with a quick glide to the side. The upgrades feel substantial and don’t take long to acquire, which is something I appreciat𒊎e - roguelites, in general, are time-consuming experiences and frustratingly chance-based, so the fact that you can stack the odds in your favour in a relatively short amount of time is a massive boon.

Inkredible Looking

While Side Order impresses most with its gameplay loop and new mechanics, the aesthetics presented and the narrative teased during the preview session were equally impressive. I can’t help 🎶but compare it to Nier: Automata, with the new hub being gloriously reminisc🔥ent of the Copied City, the story dealing with themes of artificial intelligence and order, and you being given an attack drone that you can hang from. This is a favourable comparison, with Splatoon excelling in how it diverges from the Nier-like influences; the environments are still clean and sterile but with vibrant pops of colour in the forms of the protagonists, and while the drone is remarkably similar to Nier’s pods, it has a loud, comforting personality.

This comparison extends to the very ink you use, which has gained a go꧋rgeous glitter effect and stands out even more than ink usually does in the Splatlands. As you add m🌼ore colourful chips to your palette, your ink will change colour to match. The attention to detail here is astounding, showing the significance of the DLC’s aesthetic identity.

Battle arenas are similarly rather sparse to begin with but grow more complex the further you progress in the tower, signifying ne🐟w challenges and serving as a warning to be on your guard, which makes the tower feel more like a living, changing construction rather than generic hunting grounds. Overall, Side Order has a cohesive aesthetic that aligns with its narrative themes and contributes to a solid foundation for the compelling gameplay it introduces to the series.

Splatoon 3: Side Order is part of the Wave 2 Expansion Pass and will be added to the game on February 22.