‘Splatoon 3’ hackers are getting banned before the game launches

Splatoon 3 doesn’t release until September, but Nintendo is already banning players who hack the game to gain access to the testing range earlier than intended.

This week’s demo of Splatoon 3 has seen hackers gaining access to information within the game that isn’t yet public, leading to them receiving bans which could be for the game or the whole of Nintendo Switch Online. It’s not yet clear which is applicable at the time of publication.

One particular data miner managed to uncover Splatoon 3’s anti-cheat measures, according to NintendoLife. Anti-cheat is reportedly in place for the demo as well as the full game, and a patch which gives access to the testing range earlier than Nintendo intended is the current reason for players receiving bans.

One particular patch that was being shared around lets you enter the testing range early. It appears to be the most popular ban reason.

Given how Splatoon 2 was also able to detect these patches, this is completely unsurprising. Not sure why people thought this was OK to try.

— OatmealDome (@OatmealDome) August 26, 2022

OatmealDome tweeted that “Nintendo is beginning to issue console bans (possibly total ban from NSO?) to players who modified the game,” before continuing that they “won’t be going into too much detail about how it works” seeing as the anti-cheat software relies on “security through obscurity”. They do go on to mention that Splatoon 2 was also capable of detecting the patches in question.

Nintendo has always been strict on players tampering with its games and it seems Splatoon 3 is no different. These early bans are a clear message to those planning on leaking, hacking or modding Splatoon 3 to reconsider. Anyone caught hacking in the demo will not be able to play the full game when it launches on September 9.

Anti-cheat measures have been present in Splatoon 2 since 2018, and any modifications to the game see the accounts in question flagged, usually leading to a ban.

In other news, pixel artists have joined together to recreate Pokémon’s Kanto region from the Red and Blue games in a fully interactive map online.