Rainmaker, the newest kind of Ranked Battle, is coming to Splatoon tonight at 7 p.m. PST. The update is free to everyone who owns the game. Rainmaker will be kind of like football: Players race to collect the Rainmaker, a special gold weapon, and take it to the enemy’s base. If the player gets splatted by an enemy, they drop the Rainmaker and are resurrected back at their own team’s base. If neither team makes it to the enemy’s base, then the team that got the closest wins.
Ranked Battles are only accessible to players who have earned at least a level 10 in Regular Battle. Ranked Battles score players with letter grades: every time you win a match, you earn points which contribute to your overall grade. If you lose, however, your grade can go down. As of August 5, the highest letter grade possible is S+, followed by S, A+, and A. In Regular Battle, ranks are numbered from 1 to 50, and your rank can only go up the more you play.
The two other kinds of Ranked Battle are Tower Control and Splat Zones. Tower control involves protecting a moving tower as it drifts toward the enemy base. Splat Zones requires that one team maintain control of a specific square of the arena.
The Rainmaker fires off giant ink tornadoes, much like the inkzooka.
Last month, Nintendo posted about several new updates to Splatoon which came out on August 5. At that time they suggested that Rainmaker would be coming on that date, but it did not. Well, it’ll be here tonight, so hopefully these long nine days of Rainmaker-free Splatoon playing didn’t break too many hearts. Other updates from the 5th include Squad Battle and Private Battle, which allow players to play online with friends more easily and with more control.
Splatoon is a kid-friendly ink-squirting game in which players race to cover as much turf as possible in their team’s ink color. Alternatively, players can go head-to-head with the evil Octarians in single-player mode. If you want to learn more about this awesome alternative to shooter games, check out my review or watch me and Simone play through the single-player mode while cracking silly jokes.
