Two years after its initial release, Splatoon 2 is now nearing the end of its life cycle as the game’s final Splatfest opens today. The sides have been chosen and battle lines have been drawn, as Pearl and Marina advocating for Chaos and Order respectively for the game’s final Splatfest in this next 72 hours of festivities.
Of course, with this end of an era marked by enormous success, including over eight million copies sold worldwide, the question that remains on everyone’s minds is what comes next for Splatoon 2. Well, as it turns out, and in such an anticlimactic turn, there’s still not much according to the game’s producer, Hisashi Nogami.
Nogami says as much in this week’s issue of Famitsu, where he was interviewed about what’s coming up for the game and the series in general after Splatoon 2’s v5.0. Nogami stated that while weapon and stage additions are basically over, in addition to the monthly Splatfests, game balancing in general will still continue, as well as the Monthly League Battles.
The perceived third game in the series is where it gets murky, as Nogami didn’t have much to say except for that plans for Splatoon 3 haven’t really begun yet. This is in direct contrast to Splatoon 2 as, according to Nogami, that game started development immediately after the release of the first, which was followed by the Octo Expansion and various other updates. He added that the development team wasn’t in much of a place to start thinking about the future, following the obviously packed development for Splatoon 2.
Nogami also stated that while it’s too early to be giving promises, he wants to give back to those who have supported the game in any way, which could all be realized if they continue to receive this level of support.
To those more familiar with Nogami outside of the Splatoon series, this does not come off as a surprise at all. He’s also currently producing the upcoming and highly-anticipated Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which is set to release next year. When you think about how delayed that game is now, it’s not hard to see why we might not see another Splatoon in the near future.
Splatoon 2 is now available to play exclusively on the Nintendo Switch.
