Splatoon 3 fans think they've dug up a ruined in-game world map

Splatoon 3 fans think they've uncovered a full map of its in-game world, and it's a puzzling map to say the least.

As first reported earlier today by Nintendo Life, Splatoon 3 dataminers have managed to get their hands on something pretty special. It turns out there's a tiny texture resembling a map in the new Splatfest demo, which can be found by heading into the Ammo Knights store in Splatsville.

Although the texture is minute, and pretty hard to see from a distance, dataminers combing the files of Splatoon 3's upcoming Splatfest have apparently pulled out a high resolution file of the map in full, which is apparently what we're seeing in the image just below.

Glancing over the map in full, it's fair to say that it looks quite a bit different from our own planet Earth. Large parts of Canada appear to be missing, either taken out or sunk beneath the surrounding waters, and it also looks like Australia and some of China has also been wiped clean off the map.

This could potentially tie into Splatoon 3's ruined Earth vibe. Back when the sequel was first announced in February 2021's Nintendo Direct, we saw a topped Eiffel Tower amidst a ruined Earth, seemingly pointing to large-scale destruction having taken place on this version of planet Earth.

In fact, when we played the new game for our Splatoon 3 preview this past week, we noted that the sequel had new in-game lore logs. One of these new lore logs specifically mentioned that humanity was nearly wiped out by some apocalyptic event, and this could tie into why we're seeing a reduction of land mass on Splatoon 3's world map. 

Either way, there's not long to find out what the deal really is with Splatoon 3's ruined world, because it's launching for Nintendo Switch on September 9.

Check out our Splatoon 3 maps guide for a full look at all the current multiplayer stages included with the game at launch.