Splatoon 3 trailer shows off crab bots, ink grappling, and hairy tentacles

The new Splatoon 3 trailer has cool new abilities, fresh fashion, and some truly chilling implications for Splatoon's post-human deep lore.

The first portion of the new trailer that debuted during the Nintendo Direct presentation today is focused on multiplayer, showing off how a bunch of new abilities will change your approach to Turf War: we get to see a new crab bot special which lets you ball up and roll around the battlefield; a big ink shield bubble which lets you lock down an area from enemy ink; and a kind of terrifying but undeniably badass grappling hook ability, which lets your Inkling (or Octoling) dwell in a half-squid, half-kid state as they haul themselves across the level by their stretchy, sticky ink arm.

Then the transmission is interrupted, and we see why this trailer is titled "Return of the Mammalians." Something has happened to our familiar Octarian foes that left them covered in bushy fur, and the same affliction (or maybe intentional modification) has been applied to whole stretches of Splatoon 3's single-player campaign levels.

While it seems you'll be able to combat this new hirsute menace with the help of your faithful smallfry pet, you'll have to be careful not to get caught up and coated in a thick layer of fur yourself. What the heck is all this hair doing in a land almost solely populated by evolved sea creatures, where mammals have seemingly been extinct for eons? We'll just have to wait until 2022 to find out, since Nintendo's still holding off on providing a more specific release window for Splatoon 3.

Nintendo also teased that an Animal Crossing Direct event is coming in October, and it will probably herald the long-awaited arrival of Brewster.