Splatoon 3’s Biggest Splatfest “The Grand Festival” Comes With New Amiibo This September

Nintendo has revealed the next big happening in the world of Splatoon 3, and this is actually worth checking out.

Nintendo has announced the Grand Festival, which they dub as the biggest Splatfest ever. This Splatfest seems to be linked to quite the deep cut (so to speak); a big interview between the three musical groups of the Splatoon games, the Squid Sisters, Off The Hook, and Deep Cut. You can read that interview on page 14 of Nintendo Magazine’s Summer 2024 issue here.

As reported by GoNintendo, the Grand Festival is running from September 13 to 16, and the theme seems to be directly connected to the three Splatoon games. The question for this Splatfest is “Which is the most important to you?”

And the answers, matched up between the three teams, are the Past, Present, and Future. And of course, the iconography of each team connects them to each title, and their respective musical group.

But that’s not all. Seemingly to commemorate this event (or maybe the event was made for this?), Nintendo is launching a new batch of amiibo, for both the Squid Sisters and Off The Hook. Of course, these amiibo show dynamic new designs, and this time, the amiibo sculptors have smartly integrated their squid ink into the toy designs. The Squid Sisters and Off The Hook seem to be bundled together, but we have seen Nintendo sell these bundled amiibo individually after the fact, so budget conscious collectors may not have to rush.

For gameplay purposes, these amiibo will unlock new special gear. But as the last survivor of the toys-to-life wars, Nintendo is now able to market these amiibo just as much based on how attractive they are as figures as much as for how they add content to the games they are made for. These new amiibo will be sold starting September 5, 2024.

Splatoon 3 released last September 9, 2022, so it’s likely that this is the last Splatfest for this title. While some fans certainly wish Nintendo handled Splatoon more like a live service game, drawing this line in the sand allows Nintendo to start over.

Some fans may have felt that it wasn’t necessary to release Splatoon 3 on the Switch when Splatoon 2 was also on the console, but now, there’s a clear case for the Splatoon team to make Splatoon 4 for the next Nintendo console. That means Splatoon 4 isn’t likely to be a launch title, but it will make a comfortable release for that platform mid-cycle.