Since Splatoon launched in May, Nintendo has promised to keep the game fresh with frequent updates throughout the summer. Now ahead of the game’s first Splatfest event, the game is getting a new multiplayer mode.
Most multiplayer shooters have some sort of ranked mode these days, but the Ranked Battle in Splatoon works differently. In the ranked modes in most games, you play the same game types on the game maps, but you rank up or down based on your performance.
Splatoon‘s Ranked Battle, on the other hand, offers whole new game modes that aren’t available elsewhere, and later today the new Tower Control mode will be added to Ranked Battle. The new mode seems to be a mix of “king of the hill” and one-flag capture the flag modes, but since this is Splatoon we’re talking about, there’s a whole lot of ink involved.
At the start of a Tower Control match, a single floating tower is located in the center of the map. The objective is to ride this tower to your enemy’s base. Once a member of your team climbs on board the tower, it will automatically begin moving toward the base, but there’s a catch: Once you’re on the tower, every member of the opposing team is going to try to take you down, so working together with your team is key.
As Nintendo says in the press release announcing the new game mode, “using each stage’s features to gain an advantage and supporting each other are the keys to victory.”
As we’ve previously reported, today’s update will also see changes to the game balance ahead of Splatoon‘s first Splatfest event this weekend. Both the Kraken special weapon and the Ninja Squid ability have been toned down somewhat, while Inkstrikes will now be more effective.
Tower Control goes live later today at 7 p.m. PDT. Splatfest kicks off this weekend on July 4, and will be an all day event.
