Splatoon Cracked, Reveals New Maps, Weapons, and Game Modes

Well, it took a little short of a month, but the data-miners and disk hackers over at NeoGeo have finally cracked the code of Splatoon—and now we can see all the hidden goodies on the disk that Nintendo didn’t want us to see.

As you know, Splatoon was marketed by Nintendo as being a game that would get constant free updates that would bring new costumes, maps and weapons to dedicated players. Perhaps, knowing that, it’s not strictly surprising (or especially outrageous) that there are maps and weapons tucked away within the code, but what might be surprising is that there are only two maps left yet undiscovered: “Camp” and “Skyscraper." If Nintendo only plans to release ten total maps, or if the others will be true, genuine DLC, well… we have yet to see.

In addition to the maps, there are two more game modes hidden on the disk—one, Tower Control, is your standard king-of-the-hill mode, except with paint and squids. The second, however, “Rainmaker," is more akin to the Special Delivery mode in Team Fortress 2: Both teams fight over a “rainmaker” and have to deliver it to the enemy team base, where it’ll explode and the delivering team will claim a victory. The task is made difficult by the fact that the deliver will be slow and won’t be able to super-jump, so they’ll need to be protected… but helped by the fact the Rainmaker can be wielded like a bazooka in the process. Fairly straightforward game modes, as it turns out, but this is Nintendo’s first attempt at a real FPS, so, cut em’ some slack.

The maps are interesting, and the game modes are cool, sure, but the real meat of the hack was the weapons: while currently there’s only a handful of available weapons, apparently hidden in the code is a whooping 33 extra, unique weapons that will someday be unlocked to add new variety and spice to the game. This includes The Luna Blaster (a specialized shooter that can unleash explosive power at close range), the Sploosh-o-matic (a wide-muzzled shotgun-like weapon specialized for close-combat) and a variety of customized, adjusted or changed versions of the standard Splatoon weaponry.

Obviously, while this hack is revealing, it doesn’t tell us anything like when we can expect Nintendo to release these new weapons or maps, or if Nintendo had any plans for extra weapons through actual DLC, or if it’s all just on the disk and their strategy was merely to slowly reveal all the content as time passed. If that were the case, that would be pretty awful of the Big N, but if it’s just to pass the time while they work on actual DLC, it would be forgivable.

Check out the whole leak here for extra pictures and descriptions!