The same image as the one from Nintendo's official v11 announcement, but the inkling is now wearing the Cthulhu mask.

Unfortunately, Nintendo will not add new content to Splatoon 3. We couldn't reach the Japanese company for comments, but after asking many players in the community we've reached the unfortunate conclusion that Splatoon 3 is dead.

"This is the last thing, for sure," said a top-level player referring to version 11.0.0, which introduced slight changes to the way battles work. "There won't be anything else, maybe some balancing patches," they added.

"Third kits? Hah!" said an influential content creator. They silently lit a cigarette and took a long draft before continuing: "I don't think they are coming, if they were not in this patch I don't see how it could possibly happen." After we pointed out that third kits have been released for half the weapons, they gave a vague explanation of why Nintendo would only release them for some weapons and not have any plans to add the rest.

“I believe,” whispered a delusional player.

"You'll see, it's just going to be balancing from now on," said another player who we didn't ask but insisted on giving their opinion. "I said it when 10.0.0 came out, and I stand by it," they added, unprompted. Their unwavering confidence is more than enough for us to believe it.

According to our research, it's been nearly three years and a half and Nintendo obviously doesn't care about the game anymore. All resources have been moved to either Splatoon Raiders or Splatoon 4, and they just don't have enough developers to work on new features or mechanics. Just occasional balancing patches.

Even though this might be painful for the playerbase, it is in the best interest for the company to leave a gap in between Splatoon 3 and whatever comes next, thus allowing people the time to put the franchise aside and explore other IPs, whether Nintendo’s or not. It is tiring for a dedicated community such as Splatoon’s to continue receiving content for the game they love the most, and gently forcing them away with a lack of support is the right decision.

At the time of writing changes to netcode are still to be announced and that pisses us off.