Splatoon 4 Beginner's Guide: What to Expect & How to Prepare in 2026

Let's get this out of the way first, Splatoon 4 hasn't been officially announced by Nintendo yet. If you Googled "Splatoon 4 release date" and ended up here, you're in the same boat as everyone else. We're all waiting. But here's the thing: there's actually a ton you can do right now to get ready, and honestly, knowing the series inside and out before the next game drops makes the first week way more fun.

I've put somewhere around 600 hours into Splatoon 3, Turf War, Anarchy Battles, Salmon Run, the whole thing. Not bragging. Just saying I've been inked more times than I can count. And if there's one thing I learned the hard way, it's that Splatoon plays completely different from every other shooter out there.

So here's what you actually need to know.

The ink mechanic is the whole game. If you come from Call of Duty or Valorant thinking you can just aim and shoot, you're gonna have a rough time. In Splatoon, covering the ground with your team's ink isn't just for points, it's your movement, your ammo, your hiding spot, your escape route. Everything.

When you're in kid form (humanoid), you shoot ink and walk around like normal. But when you press ZL and turn into squid form, you swim through your own ink. And I mean really move. You're faster. You can climb walls. You can hide by staying still. You reload ink by swimming. You can't do any of that in the other team's ink, you'll slow to a crawl and take damage. That's why Turf War isn't just about killing people. It never was.

The first time I played Splatoon 2, I spent the whole match trying to get splats and my team lost by 40 percent. Forty. That's when it clicked. The objective isn't the enemy team. It's the floor.

About weapons. Splatoon 4 will almost certainly bring back the eleven weapon classes from Splatoon 3. Shooters are the basic assault rifle type, Splattershot, N-ZAP, that kind of thing. Reliable, nothing fancy. Chargers are sniper rifles that charge up for one-hit kills but you need aim. Good chargers on the enemy team are terrifying. Rollers literally roll paint on the ground and can flatten people with a flick. Brushes are like fast, close-range versions of rollers.

Then there's Blasters (explosive shots), Sloshers (buckets that throw ink), Splatlings (miniguns with charge mechanics), Dualies (dual-wield with dodge rolls), Brellas (shotguns with deployable shields), Stringers (bows), and Splatanas (ink swords). That's a lot of weapons. You don't need to know all of them day one.

Here's what I'd tell a friend who's never touched the series. Pick the Splattershot first. It's the Mario of weapons, middle of the road, forgiving, teaches you the fundamentals without crutch mechanics. Once you understand spacing and ink management, then branch out. Charge weapons come with a whole different playstyle that'll feel awful until it doesn't. Everyone has their weapon that just clicks. Mine was the Splatana Wiper in Splatoon 3, something about the charged slash rhythm felt right in a way no shooter ever did.

One thing I noticed after watching a bunch of new players is that they forget about the map. Not the minimap. The actual map on the gamepad screen. In Splatoon 3 you could open it with X and see exactly which areas were inked by which team. You could super jump to teammates from it. Half the players I matched with in B rank never opened it once. Don't be that person. The map is your best friend and the fastest way to stop being a liability.

Gear abilities are the other thing people sleep on. In Splatoon 3 you had headgear, clothing, and shoes, each with a main ability slot and up to three sub slots. Sub abilities roll randomly and have smaller effects but three of them roughly equal one main. The ability chunk system lets you farm and customize. It's a whole rabbit hole. Ink Saver (Main) is probably the single most impactful ability for beginners, you run out of ink way faster than you think you will in your first matches.

Special weapons are your ultimate ability. They charge as you ink turf, and each one changes how you approach the match. Trizooka fires three massive ink spirals that delete anyone in a straight line. Inkjet gives you a jetpack and an explosive launcher. Crab Tank turns you into a walking turret. Learning when to pop your special is half the game, honestly. Pop it too early and you waste it. Hold it too long and you die with a full gauge. I've done both. More times than I want to admit.

Splatoon Raiders, the spinoff coming to Switch 2 in July 2026, is actually going to be a fascinating preview of what Splatoon 4 might look like. It's an open-world treasure hunting game with Deep Cut as your crew, set in the Spirhalite Archipelago. The fact that Nintendo is putting Splatoon content on Switch 2 before announcing Splatoon 4 is... interesting. It either means 4 is further out than we think, or they're testing the waters with a spinoff first. Either way, playing Raiders will probably give you mechanical familiarity that transfers directly into the next main game.

If you're brand new and want to get into the series now, Splatoon 3 on Switch is still very much alive. The Splatfests might be done but the ranked ladder is active, Salmon Run still rotates, and the fundamentals aren't going to change dramatically in a sequel. Practice your movement tech. Learn to squid roll. Figure out which weapon class feels like yours. These skills are going to carry over.

One last thing that nobody talks about enough. Splatoon matchmaking is genuinely weird. In Turf War you'll sometimes get matched against competitive-level players and sometimes against literal children who just got the game. Don't take Turf War losses personally. It's the wild west. If you want fair games, Anarchy Series is where the matchmaking actually tries.

Anyway. That's what I wish someone had told me before I started. Don't worry about being good right away. Just focus on painting the floor and staying alive. Everything else comes with time.