What are the Splatoon game modes and how many players does each mode support

splatoon

I am considering buying Splatoon but I can't find how many players it supports locally.

I've been able to find some articles that talk about a one-on-one local multiplayer mode, but nothing official or complete.

Then I've found some stuff about 4-on-4 "Turf Wars" but nothing that explicitly says how many local players can play at the same time.

What are the local multiplayer game modes for Splatoon and how many players does each game mode support?

What are the online multiplayer game modes for Splatoon and how many players does each game mode support?

As a side note, I almost always have difficulty finding this information. After some fruitless Google searches, I check IGN.com and Gamespot.com and find nothing.

Why is it so hard to get quantitative information about video games?

  • "Does it offer online coop?"
  • "If so, how many players?"
  • "Does it offer offine coop?"
  • "If so, how many players?"
  • "Does it offer other online modes of play?"
  • "If so, how many players?"
  • "Does it offer other offline modes of play?"
  • "If so, how many players?"

It seems way too hard to get the answers to these questions…

Best Answer

What are the local multiplayer game modes for Splatoon and how many players does each game mode support?

There's only one local mode, Battle Dojo. it's a 1v1 mode between two players as one player uses the entire TV for their screen, and the other is limited to the WiiU Pad for their own screen.

This battle mode has two players trying to shoot stationary targets (Balloons) for points, but splating your opponent will deplete their points as well. It's implied from the devs that this mode is ment to be more like a practice in comparison to the online modes. The main points to take from these battles are that:

  1. Territory Control is important. (more ink means more movement for you, and less for your enemy.)
  2. Fighting for the objective is how you win the game. (In here, you pop the ballons, in the other modes, it's keeping things inked your color.)

I suggest looking at the Wiki link for more info on the limitations of the Battle Dojo, but to the best of our current knowledge, there's no other plans at the moment on expanding the offline game.

What are the online multiplayer game modes for Splatoon and how many players does each game mode support?

As of right now (begin of July 2015), we have the following options for online Multiplayer:

  • (Non-ranked) Turf War - The side that has the most ground covered in their own ink after 3 minutes wins.

  • (Ranked) Splat Zones - King-of-the-Hill mode with one or two small zones that needs to be completely covered with your team's ink. Capture and hold the point untill you win!

  • (Ranked) Tower Control - King-of-the-Hill mode on a moving platform. Control the tower by standing on top of it to make it move towards the enemy base. Reach the endpoint to win!

As it is right now, these two modes can only be played with a single user and requires a WiiU pad. Both of these modes require eight players in total to start, and are limited to eight players per session. In the event a player is dropped from the session, the match will continue until it's over, and then fill back up again to 8. If not enough people join a lobby (pre-match room), then the group is disbanded and needs to re-queue again.

While limited, these are just the few modes out of many others planned for release/unlocking. The Splatoon Direct video showed two other modes, (Tower Control and Rainmaker), but there's no word on when their release date will be. Our current information is that these are also 4v4 modes based on the video clues provided. Besides that, there's no known plans to update the game to allow more then one person per Wii U console to play online. If you have NNID friends setup, they can currently join a session in progress, and there's new modes coming in the future as well to make personal/custom rooms with friends.