With the highly-anticipated release of Splatoon 3 only a few months away, Nintendo has not been shy about teasing fans with plenty of new tidbits of information about the upcoming sequel. Last week saw Nintendo reveal a new weapon coming to the game in the Ink Vac allowing players to steal incoming ink and turn it around against their opponent, while other recent updates have unveiled details like the game's set release date and file size. Now, Nintendo's newest reveal for the upcoming third Splatoon will see several fan-favorite weapons returning.Since its reveal early last year, Splatoon 3 has already confirmed a plethora of popular features from older games will be returning to the shooter franchise's newest entry. Splatoon 3 will feature the return of the popular co-op Salmon Run game mode with new bosses and twists based on Splatoon 3's new mechanics, as well as new special weapons like the Killer Wail and Big Bubbler based on older weapons. As Splatoon continues to see more content teased, Nintendo revealed Monday morning that all of the franchise's past basic weapons would be making an appearance in Splatoon 3.The announcement was first made via Nintendo's official Twitter account showing off Inklings wielding several of the returning weapons. While no official confirmation of the full weapon list was made alongside the tweet, the return of all basic weapons suggests that not only will all of Splatoon 2's weapons be fully featured in Splatoon 3 but also that weapon variants featured in the first Splatoon that did not appear in Splatoon 2, like the E-Liter 3K and Dual Squelchers, may see a re-appearance.
The return of all of the franchise's past basic weapons will join a growing roster of new special weapons revealed for Splatoon 3 like the previously mentioned Ink Vac and Killer Wail. Splatoon 3's release date trailer showed off a plethora of new weapons players will be able to try out once Splatoon 3 releases in September, like the Crab Tank that lets players mount a crab mecha and utilize mounted cannons to dispatch opponents and the Zipcaster that acts as a grappling hook similar to Apex Legends' Pathfinder.
Splatoon 3's early announcements already look to see the game taking bold new directions from its predecessor in several different aspects. Splatoon 3's character creation was previously confirmed to feature no hard-set gender option allowing players to freely customize their character with no restrictions based on gender, and the recently revealed nameplate customization lends itself to more ways for players to individualize their own character and appearance within Splatoon 3. Alongside the game's Salmonids getting a similarly heightened focus to Splatoon 2's Octolings, Splatoon 3 looks to have plenty to excite the franchise's fans on its release this September.
Splatoon 3 releases September 9 for Nintendo Switch.