Splatoon 3 Announces Fresh New Update (Version 8.1.0), Here Are The Full Patch Notes

Nintendo has announced a new update for Splatoon 3, following its big 8.0.0 update in May. This new update will officially bump the third entry up to Version 8.1.0.

According to Nintendo’s support page it comes loaded with changes to player controls, changes to multiplayer, some “other” changes and also multiple bug fixes. It should be live soon.

Here’s the full rundown:

Latest update: Ver. 8.1.0 (Releasing July 17, 2024)

Changes to Player Controls

• Made it so that when a player opens a brella’s canopy, the canopy opens on other players’ screens quicker than before.
  • This is to decrease the delay between the canopy opening on the user’s screen and the canopy opening on other players’ screens as much as possible.
• Made it easier to place Squid Beakons and Big Bubblers close to elevation differences.
• Made it so that the scattered weapon and gear of a defeated player vanishes quicker than before.
• Made it so that, when a swimming player returns to Inkling form and uses a weapon right away, the ink on their body vanishes quicker than before.
  • This is to alleviate the decreased visibility when the player is the same color as the ink on the ground even when in Inkling form.
• Made it so that when a player is moving at the edge of an elevation difference, the phenomenon where that player moves back and forth between the higher and lower elevations in a short period of time on other players’ screens will occur less often.
• Made it easier than before to jump while moving along the edge of terrain.
• Made it so that, when equipping the Mint Decavitator and the Charcoal Decavitator and holding the ZR Button, the sight that indicates where the attack will impact or terminate displays just like when not holding the ZR Button.

Changes to Multiplayer

• Specifications for some main weapons have changed.
  

  Weapon	Change Details
  Aerospray MG Aerospray RG	Increased the radius of the ink splatter at the point of impact by approximately 3%.
  Blaster Custom Blaster	Reduced the amount of time it takes to begin recovering ink after firing by about 1/20th of a second.
  Clash Blaster Clash Blaster Neo	Movement speed while firing is now about 4% faster.
  S-BLAST ’92 S-BLAST ’91	Reduced the continuous fire interval by about 1/12th of a second.
  Carbon Roller Carbon Roller Deco	Adjusted the damage-falloff rate based on distance for horizontal swings, allowing it to deal 50.0 damage/100 damage farther than it did before. Slightly expanded vertical swings’ collision detection with players to make it easier to hit opponents.
  Dynamo Roller Gold Dynamo Roller	Adjusted how horizontal swings fling ink to leave fewer gaps in inking or attacks than before.
  Big Swig Roller Big Swig Roller Express	Increased the damage horizontal swings deal to distant opponents from 35.0 to 40.0. There is no change to the damage at distances that deal 50.0 damage or higher.
  Inkbrush Inkbrush Nouveau	Slightly expanded the collision detection with players for the ink flung when swinging the brush to make it easier to hit opponents.
  Octobrush Octobrush Nouveau Orderbrush Replica	Slightly expanded the collision detection with players for the ink flung when swinging the brush to make it easier to hit opponents.
  Douser Dualies FF Custom Douser Dualies FF	Reduced the amount of ink consumed when firing by approximately 14%. Reduced the amount of ink consumed by Dodge Rolls from 12% of the ink tank to 10%.
  Recycled Brella 24 Mk I Recycled Brella 24 Mk II	Reduced the time required for canopies lost by being launched or broken by an opponent to recover by about 1/3rd of a second.

• Specifications for some special weapons have changed.
  

  Special Weapon	Change Details
  Reefslider	Increased the radius of the explosion area that deals 70.0 damage by about 10%. Decreased the radius of the ink splatter from an explosion by about 5%.
  Ink Vac	Made it so that when the ink shot impacts a wall, the explosion will also ink nearby ground. Made it so that when the ink shot impacts the ground, the explosion will also ink nearby walls.
  Super Chump	Reduced the time between decoys falling and exploding from about 4.0 seconds to about 3.5 seconds.
  Trizooka	Decreased the damage dealt to the Big Bubbler to about 67% of what it was before.
  Inkjet	Decreased the damage dealt to the Big Bubbler by direct shots and explosions to about 67% of what it was before.
  Kraken Royale	Increased the amount of time to finish charging up a charge attack by about 1/12th of a second.

• Points required for some special weapons have been changed.
  

  Weapon	Before	After
  Krak-On Splat Roller	180	170
  Bloblobber Deco	200	190

• In X Battles, changed the conditions for players’ current tentative rankings during a season to display on-screen from within rank 3,000 to within rank 50,000.
• In Clam Blitz mode, made it so that when a player throws a clam or power clam into the goal right before it closed on their screen, the count will progress and the goal will open up again even if at that point the goal was already closed on other players’ screens, so long as it is within a certain amount of time since the goal closed.

Other Changes

• Made it possible to continue pressing the A Button to fast-forward the animations on the screen where XP and Grizzco Points acquired are calculated after returning to the lobby or Grizzco.
• In battles, made it so that pressing Down will not send the Booyah! signal for a short period immediately after a player is defeated.
  • This change is to prevent unintended signals from being sent in the event that a player is defeated while trying to Super Jump to the spawn point.
  • When a teammate is using a Booyah Bomb, players can send a Booyah! regardless of this change.
• In Salmon Run, made it so that pressing Up will not send the This way! signal for a short period immediately after a player is revived from being in a life ring.
  • This change is to prevent unintended signals from being sent in the event that a player is helped by a teammate while trying to send a Help! signal.
• Made several changes to make it easier to use Photo Mode in Private Battles.
  • Players can now start recon even when there are only players on one of the teams.
  • During recon, This way! and Booyah! sent by players on the other team will now display too.
  • During recon, when another player repeatedly uses This way! or Booyah! in a short period of time, it will now be shown without omission.
• Shortened the time until a match is deemed no contest when another player is disconnected immediately after starting a match.
• Made adjustments to make it harder to cause camera shake due to motion controls when pressing the ZR Button to zoom the screen in Splatsville, Inkopolis Plaza, Inkopolis Square, and Order Sector.
• Adjusted the player’s position when leaving Grizzco in Splatsville to make it harder to accidentally reenter Grizzco by keeping the Left Stick tilted.
• Made it so that players you battled with in X Battles do not display in the Users You Have Played With system feature.

This update focuses on making changes to multiplayer balance and comfort of gameplay.

For brellas we have made changes to alleviate a phenomenon where, despite enough time passing since opening the canopy on the player’s screen, they would sometimes still be hit by their opponents’ shots and be defeated.

For most main-weapon attacks, including those made with brellas, whether damage is actually dealt is determined based on whether the attack hits on the screen of the player who made the attack. For that reason, whether or not the canopy is open on the other player’s screen is important when blocking opponents’ attacks with a canopy.

Due to the time it takes for communication via the internet, it takes longer for a brella’s canopy to actually open on an opponent’s screen than it does on the player’s own screen. Additionally, due to the fix in version 2.1.0 for an issue where the animation of opening a brella’s canopy to protect from attacks happened slower than the actual defensive effect began, the timing for opening the canopy appeared quicker on the player’s own screen. As a result, this made a phenomenon occur more frequently where, despite enough time appearing to have passed since opening the canopy on the player’s own screen, they would sometimes still be hit by their opponents’ shots and be defeated.

In order to resolve this problem without changing the specifications of brellas, we considered restoring the animation to how it was before version 2.1.0, but we determined that damaging the feeling of the current controls is the greater problem.

After thorough consideration, we decided to fix this by reducing the difference in timing for when the player opens their canopy by speeding up the time it takes for the canopy to appear open on the opponent’s screen.

For other main weapons, we have made changes that bring out their strengths and make them easier to use for players who regularly use them.

Among the special weapons, while we have made changes to increase the reliability of the damage-dealing effects of Reefslider, we have slightly decreased the impact of the inking due to its explosion. For that reason, this is an upgrade when used to defeat enemies, but it will make it slightly more difficult to use it to instantly ink territory again and again.

For the Ink Vac, we have made it easier to use by alleviating a phenomenon where the ground or walls were not inked depending on the impact position for the ink shot.

For Super Chump, we have made it easier to combine with follow-up attacks using main weapons by shortening the time for opponents to deal with the decoys.

For Kraken Royale, by slightly extending the time required to charge, we have created differentiation between the use of charge attacks and jump attacks.

For the Trizooka and Inkjet, we made changes to get the damage efficiency toward the Big Bubbler closer to that of other special weapons.

Beyond that, we have made other changes to improve gameplay comfort, including changes to prevent unintended signals from being sent in certain situations, changes to alleviate the issue of scattered weapons and gear blocking sight, and changes to stabilize the display when an opponent is at the edge of a height difference.

We plan on releasing the next update at the end of the current season. In that update, we will make changes to multiplayer balance, including lowering the abilities of select weapons.

Bug Fixes

• Fixes to Player Controls
  • Fixed an issue that sometimes caused a brella’s canopy to not break if it took damage equal to its remaining durability and was closed at the same time.
  • Fixed an issue where players would be slowed down when performing a dualie Dodge Roll or a splatana charge-swipe lunge into their team’s Splash Wall.
  • Fixed an issue in which, when performing a dualie Dodge Roll or a splatana charge-swipe lunge immediately after coming into contact with an opponent’s Splash Wall or other object and being bounced off, the action of being bounced off sometimes would not be displayed when viewed by other players.
  • Fixed an issue in which, when equipping a splatana and holding down the ZR Button, then tilting the Left Stick forward while jumping and releasing the ZR Button at the same time, the activation of the charge swipe would be delayed as if you were lunging, even though you don’t actually lunge forward.
  • Fixed an issue where, when performing a charge swipe with a splatana, the reticle would switch to the crosshairs for a horizontal slash before the charge swipe was actually initiated.
  • Fixed an issue where sometimes slopes were not inked when using Reefslider and extending a rail toward certain slopes.

• Fixes to Multiplayer
  • Fixed an issue in Clam Blitz mode in poor wireless environments where, when the power clam is created as the goal closes, the power clam would sometimes appear on top of the goal.
  • Fixed an issue in Museum d’Alfonsino that prevented players from swimming at certain locations even when the locations were inked.
  • Fixed an issue in Flounder Heights in Tower Control mode and Clam Blitz mode that sometimes caused players to clip into terrain after the effect for the Zipcaster finishes when used at certain locations.
  • Fixed an issue in Robo ROM-en in Rainmaker mode where there were places where “DON’T RETREAT!” did not display even when a player lingered while holding the Rainmaker in places that are difficult for opponent players to get into.
  • Fixed an issue in Lemuria Hub where, when performing a Super Jump to specific points near moving terrain, players sometimes went through the terrain and fell off the stage.
  • Fixed an issue where, when you Squid Spawn in Lemuria Hub, players could select the edge of the stage.
  • Fixed an issue in Lemuria Hub in Tower Control mode where players who used Triple Splashdown in certain spots were sometimes able to clip into into terrain.
  • For Turf War in Scorch Gorge, adjusted part of the terrain to fix an issue where using Squid Surge on certain terrain could allow players to climb onto the grate near the center of the stage in an unintended way.

• Fixes to Salmon Run
  • Fixed a rare issue that sometimes caused the game to crash when repeatedly throwing Golden Eggs or firing them from a launcher while the connection was unstable.

• Fixes to Story Mode
  • Fixed an issue where players would not make any sounds when clearing a stage using a specific player appearance.

• Fixes to Side Order
  • Fixed an issue that sometimes caused the viewpoint to become fixed and no longer follow the player when the cinematic that occurs before fighting certain bosses was skipped at a specific timing.

• Fixes to Splatfests
  • Fixed an issue in which, when taking photos while riding the Splatfest Float at the Pledge Box, using the controls with specific timing would sometimes cause the player to enter Photo Mode with different members than intended.

• Other Fixes
  • Fixed an issue that sometimes caused the screen where the Challenge Power changes after a Challenge to temporarily display a value that was slightly different from the actual Challenge Power value.