More information for Splatoon 3 was shown in today's Direct, including a first free opportunity to dive in and splat.

As part of the introduction, the new presenting band "Deep Cut" - made up of a trio named Shiver, Frye, and Big Man - announced a pre-launch Splatfest demo will run on August 27 (noon - midnight ET). The new Splatfests will feature three teams and take place over two halves; the first half the traditional matches against another team, with the second half being a "Tricolor Turf War" with three teams on the map and the team leading the Splatfest at this point separated on the map to begin the match. The pre-launch demo will be the duel of Rock, Paper, and Scissors.

A new game included with Splatoon 3 will be "Tableturf Battle", an ingame children's card game with up to 150 cards. Each card contains colored ink patterns and is played out similar to a standard Turf War, with the winner determined by who has the most "ink" on the board.

The Salmon Run mode has removed the time restrictions and added a "Big Run" event in which the Salmon Run game will take place inside Splatsville proper. New "King Salmonids" will also be added, and players will have to use the Golden Eggs gathered during the map as ammo to remove it from the map under a time limit.

Friends playing online will appear in the lobby and battles can be jumped in on, either as a teammate or an opponent. A "Memory Player" to replay battles will also be available with the ability to switch perspectives or skip to an important part, and battles can also be uploaded for permanent access. In the lobby, the announcements from Deep Cut will be played on an ingame smartphone in order to allow for direct access to the game without an unskippable cutscene.

Customization items and weapons are planned to be added on a quarterly basis for at least two years via in game "catalogues". The Big Run events will take place on a similar quarterly schedule. 12 stages will be available to start and more will be added over time.

Equipment loadouts can be saved to previous Splatoon series Amiibo, which will receive reprints timed with the release of Splatoon 3. A series of Splatoon 3-specific Amiibo will be out for the holiday season. A "large scale paid DLC" (presumably similar to the Octo Expansion for Splatoon 2) was also announced, but no details were given.