Splatsville and the Splatlands
The city of chaos and the desert that made it
Splatoon 3 moves the series out of Inkopolis for the first time, and the change of scenery is a change of philosophy. The Splatlands are a rough, arid region somewhere far from the coast, and Splatsville is the city that sprang up there. If Inkopolis is a polished capital, Splatsville is a frontier town: cluttered, loud, patched together, and proud of it.
A city built on the vote
Splatsville is the direct result of the Chaos vs. Order Splatfest that closed Splatoon 2. Chaos won, and the developers built the next game around a city that embodied it. The streets are stacked with mismatched buildings, hanging cables, market stalls, and murals. Nothing is planned. The Turf War lobby sits in a converted structure, the shops occupy odd corners, and the idols broadcast from a balcony. Even the Great Zapfish's perch, on top of the lobby tower, looks improvised.
The residents match. Splatsville is full of Inklings and Octolings mixed together without comment, which is itself a milestone: the Octarian exodus set off by the Calamari Inkantation has, by this point, made Octolings ordinary citizens. Fashion is more customized, gear is more battered, and the "fresh" ideal of Inkopolis has become something wilder.
Deep Cut
The city's idols are Deep Cut: Shiver, Frye, and Big Man. They host the Anarchy Splatcast, and their first appearance in the story mode is as antagonists. Deep Cut are treasure hunters, and they treat the crater outside the city as their territory. When the New Squidbeak Splatoon's new Agent 3 starts poking around, the trio show up in force, each fighting a boss battle to defend "their" loot.
Their motives are not villainous. Deep Cut steal treasure to support their hometown, and once they understand what is actually at stake beneath the crater, they switch sides without hesitation. Big Man, a gentle manta ray who speaks only in "Ay," is the group's conscience; Shiver is the cool strategist; Frye is the loud one. By the end of the game they are singing alongside the Squid Sisters and Off the Hook, and by the Grand Festival they are the hosts.
The shops and the locals
Splatsville's economy is small-business chaos. Sheldon has relocated Ammo Knights and now sells weapons through a license system. The gear shops belong to new faces: Gnarly Eddy and Nails for hats, Jel La Fleur for clothing, Mr. Coco for shoes. Murch, the sea urchin who hustled gear in Inkopolis Square, has grown up and set up shop in Splatsville, and Crusty Sean's Crust Bucket serves food again. Judd and Li'l Judd still judge.
There is also a wider cast that gives the city texture: a hotel, a general store, the Tableturf Battle card game dojo, and the lockers where players display their collections. Splatsville feels lived in because the game gives its residents hobbies.
Nobody in Splatsville asked for permission to build anything. That is the whole charm.
The Crater and Alterna
Just outside the city lies the Crater, a vast pit that Cap'n Cuttlefish had been watching. In Splatoon 3's story mode, Return of the Mammalians, the Great Zapfish is stolen, Cuttlefish goes missing, and the new Agent 3 descends into the Crater with a Smallfry sidekick. What they find is Alterna, the underground refuge where the last humans lived, now overrun by Fuzzy Ooze and by Octarians who have been turned into fuzzy, mindless creatures.
The Crater's story is the deepest lore dive the series has done, and it is examined in its own article. What matters here is what it says about Splatsville: the city of chaos was built on top of the most orderly, most doomed human project in the world. The Splatlands are not a desert by accident.
Splatsville did not replace Inkopolis. A 2023 update let players return to Inkopolis Square as a second hub, with Off the Hook still on the news desk. Later, Inkopolis Plaza returned too, with the Squid Sisters back on the air. Splatoon 3 ends its run with three cities and three idol groups sharing the world, and the Grand Festival brings them all together on a single stage.
That is the real legacy of Splatsville. It proved the world was bigger than one city. The Splatlands are strange and hot and full of Octolings who used to be soldiers and treasure hunters who used to be thieves, and it is all held together by the same thing that holds Inkopolis together: a three-minute game and a giant catfish. Chaos, it turns out, is just order that has not had time to settle.