Nintendo has announced a release date for the first wave of the incoming Splatoon 3 Expansion Pass DLC, and it's earlier than you might think. The first wave of the pass is bringing the nostalgic hub of Inkopolis with it, and it's arriving on February 28th, which is slightly earlier than Nintendo's promised window of spring 2023.
The release date was confirmed via Twitter, where Nintendo also shared some fun artwork of some of the characters you can expect to meet if you decide to journey to Inkopolis. You'll almost certainly recognize some of those characters if you're a long-term Splatoon fan, too, so there will be plenty of Easter eggs to spot.
Those characters include the Squid Sisters, who are "here to make Splatfests even fresher", according to Nintendo. What's more, both Inkopolis and Splatsville offer the same choice of items in their shops, so it doesn't matter where you're buying from, although there are some new shopkeepers to meet. Which hub you prefer will be a purely aesthetic choice in terms of gameplay, however.
Unfortunately, Inkopolis isn't a free update. You'll need to buy Splatoon 3's season pass if you want to enjoy wandering around the new (or, rather, old) hub. Still, if you do pick up the season pass, you can look forward to another piece of DLC in the form of Side Order, which constitutes an entirely new single-player campaign for the game. That campaign will revolve around Splatoon 2's Inkopolis Square and will arrive "by December 31st, 2024", according to Nintendo. Hopefully we don't have to wait that long for it.
You can grab Splatoon 3 right now from the Nintendo eShop, where you can also pick up the game's Expansion Pass and prepare for the first wave of content to arrive on February 28th. It's sure to be unmissable if you're a Splatoon devotee.
