The most common cheat skipped to the testing range
While Nintendo is fairly lax about, well, basically everything in regards to its online system, Splatoon 3 cheaters are already facing a reckoning — before the game is out.
While Splatoon 3 is due out on September 9, this past weekend Nintendo ran a “Splatfest” event, which allowed players to download a demo, log in, choose a side (rock, paper, or scissors), and play. But according to famed Switch dataminer OatmealDome, Splatoon 3 anti-cheat was not only present during the Splatfest, but it also started issuing console bans.
This impacts folks who modify the game in any way, and apparently the most popular means of this during the Splatfest was a way to enter the testing range (the lobby system that lets you practice) immediately. Essentially, this allowed folks who shared the user-created patch to skip the tutorial segment and save some time. Well, in theory, at least. Once the game actually does come out, OatmealDome also has a running total of cycled events, including Salmon Run variants, as well as regular and anarchy battle maps.
As far as the Splatfest itself goes, I had fun up until halftime (as team scissors). Once the 4v2v2 mode started up things got a little dicey, especially for the winning team. As the current winner you’re locked out of manually queuing 4v2v2 matches, and you can “randomly play one” through chance by starting up the regular Splatfest queue. It was too chaotic for my tastes, and as-is, I’ll probably be playing up until halftime for these events before taking a break.
That said, everything else with Splatoon 3 is looking good so far — and that’s before we’ve seen the campaign, Salmon Run, and the new card game.
