Great news for fans of Splatoon 3, as the Tournament Manager feature has finally arrived and players can play with up to 512 teams. Nintendo had teased this back in July of this year, and after an early version of the feature was launched last month, it is now officially available. What is even better is that it appears to be quite simplistic to organize tournaments, so there is no time-consuming setup.
So whether players choose Inkling or Octoling, private tournaments can now be created, and with Nintendo limiting the tournaments to 512 teams and 4 players in each team, this could see huge multiplayer online events with over 2000 participants. However, players can request a license number from the company directly if they are looking to expand the numbers above the community tournament guidelines.
What Do We Know About the New Splatoon 3 Tournament Manager Feature?
Announced on social media site X, the Tournament Manager can be accessed through the Splatnet 3, which is available through smart devices or a web browser link. If players don’t have the Splatnet 3 app, there is still a requirement for the game software to save data and access the Switch Online subscription.
With the tournaments themselves, players can only choose between round-robins or elimination tournaments; however, it appears that there are enough modifiers that organizers can adapt to the tournament as they see fit. Whether that be the length of the tournament itself or indeed how many chances players can get.
Looking at the Round Robin mode, which is named ‘League,‘ teams will play each other in turns. The order of which is determined by a stacked ranking, which is noted below:
Matches Won> Battles Won> Battles Lost> Head-to-Head matchup> Registration date (entry number)
There are safeguards in place to ensure that uninvited players can’t find their way into tournaments. This is highlighted by the fact that each player has to register for a specific team, and team captains will have to confirm line-ups before they can proceed, so no rogue troopers find their way onto teams, it appears.
Those players looking for instructions on how to set up a tournament can find these on Nintendo’s official website, along with a few guides. However, what remains to be seen is how the systems will stand up to the challenge of hosting these tournaments and whether there may be other modes introduced at some point in the future.
The third-person shooter game, which was first released in September 2022, has been in the top 3 most popular Switch games for some time, selling well over 10.67 million copies worldwide. This not only sees the title as the most popular instalment for the franchise but also one of the best-selling titles that the Switch has, resulting in various nominations and awards, the most recent of which was an award for excellence at the Japan Game Awards.
The launch of the Splatoon 3 Tournament Manager will understandably be welcome news for fans, given the recent announcement that the Nintendo Live 2024 Tokyo event has been cancelled. Alongside this news was the cancellation of the planned Splatoon 3 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe tournaments, so fans will be grateful for some positive news.
This chain of events all stemmed from persistent threats made against employees of Nintendo, which worryingly expanded on to staff members and employees of the Splatoon tournament due to take place between December 16 and 17. The company took the stance that the safety of visitors was paramount, canceling this event and the aforementioned Nintendo Live 2024 Tokyo event.
Despite this, it is no doubt an exciting time for Splatoon fans, and with the Tournament Manager feature officially launched, players can compete with hundreds of other fans worldwide. The most successful entry in the franchise appears to be going from strength to strength since its launch, and it is no surprise to see it as one of the best-selling titles for the Switch.
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