Game Modes

There are two game modes available for online matches: Turf War and Splat Zones. In Turf War, it’s all about covering the stage with as much ink as possible. But in ranked Splat Zones matches, both teams vie for control of one or two zones on the map, leading to some intense back-and-forth battles.

Turf War

When selecting a regular battle in the lobby, you’re connected to a Turf War battle. In Turf War, each team struggles to ink as much of the stage as possible in their team’s ink—only horizontal surfaces count. Whichever team has the most coverage at the end of the match wins, and BP is awarded based on two factors: the amount of ground you’ve covered and a 300 BP bonus if your team wins.

Ranked Battles

In ranked battles, your wins and losses are tracked across your career, determining your rank. All players begin with a rank of C-. But with continued wins, and accrued rank experience, you can climb the ranks, going up through C, C+, B-, B, B+, A-, A, and A+ ranks. You earn rank experience when you win a match. But if you lose a match, you lose rank experience, leading to a potential demotion in rank. You need 100 rank experience to advance to the next rank. Upon achieving a new rank, you’re rewarded 30 rank experience, serving as a buffer, preventing you from getting demoted immediately if you suffer a loss. But if your rank experience dips below zero, you will fall down to the previous rank—you can’t fall below a rank of C-.

Splat Zones

When selecting a ranked battle, you’re connected to a Splat Zones match. The goal of Splat Zones is to control all Splat Zones (marked with yellow lines) by covering them in your team’s ink. If your team covers a significant majority of the zone in their ink, the Splat Zone will become captured. If your team controls all Splat Zones (some stages have one Splat Zone and some stages have two Splat Zones), your team’s score will begin counting down from 100 to 0. Splat Zone ownership is shown in between each team’s score, under the Team Status. The objective of Splat Zones is to have your timer reach 0.

If the trailing team captures all Splat Zones, the leading team incurs a time penalty based on how much further ahead they were—the further ahead, the harsher the penalty. This penalty is not taken into account in the final score. If neither team reaches 0, whichever team got the closest to 0 is the winner. However, if the trailing team controls all Splat Zones when time runs out, the game goes into overtime until either the trailing team no longer controls all Splat Zones or the trailing team’s score surpasses the leading team’s score. At this point, the trailing team takes the lead and wins the match.