u/SuperMTitan

(Yes I'm back, been obsessed with splatoon raiders and busy with a buncha stuff as of late lmao)

So, I was going through the old trailers, gifs and screenshots for Rainy Mari, since I wanted to get back into the swing of things after getting done with everything else going on in my personal life, and I remembered how much focus the trailers gave to the Moon at certain points, as well as its relationship to the Sun via that cave drawing I talked about in another thread a while ago.

So, I decided to make a theory based on what we see in Rainy Mari so far, plus what was established in OMORI.

In OMORI, the Moon, more often than not, represents the spirit of Mari, or represents the truth of what had happened to her, in various locations. In the piano room when Sunny meets her spirit and she apologizes to him, the full moon is on full display through the window. In the red room, when Sunny is ascending the staircase of hands in order to beg for OMORIs help in the hikkikomori route, you can actually see a faint shot of the full moon to the right near the start of the stairs. When Basil, on one day left of the Sunny route, is being confronted by Sunny on what they had done, he is seen looking out his window, at the full moon.

With all of this in mind, the Moon in the original game is a big ass double edged sword, being able to represent a reprieve in Sunnys thoughts and trauma when he gets to hear from the ghost of his sister, while also being there whenever his and Basil's minds are at their most frayed. Its both a good and a bad omen depending on the context, and has led Sunny to some good moments and some absolutely horrifying ones... which to be honest, does describe Mari herself in a vague sense for how she was when the recital started drawing near.

Now, what could this all mean for the Moon in Rainy Mari? Well, I think that the Moon is both a representation of everything Mari hates about herself, and a catalyst for the events happening in the mod that force the gang from having fun adventures and making sandwiches, into needing to stop a catastrophe that would eclipse Mariland into perpetual darkness.

I'll step back a bit and analyze some of the other details of the world before we dive into that though.

When we look into Maris headspace in Rainy Mari, we can see that her world is (very obviously) much different than Sunnys was. Its soft and simple, realistic with some fantasy elements mixed in, and (the biggest difference by far) it is constantly daytime. The only times where we see it is night, or dark, is when the gang are exploring caves, or some weird research facility. Everywhere else seems to be in perpetual daylight, not a single hint of the sun dipping by the horizon. I've discussed this in other threads in the past, but it makes sense: Sunny is her sunshine, the light of her life. She would want that light to exist in her mind in every corner, have it shine down on every aspect of her dreamland, and never let it be neglected or forced to set below an invisible horizon. After how neglected Sunny must've felt before his death, Hikiko would make sure that none of his light and kindness would be taken for granted ever again.

So what happens when the Moon is in the equation?

Even outside of all of this context, we all know the Moon is a symbolism for night time. It's seen as the suns opposite, and in some old cultures as its sibling. Despite that, we all also know that the Moon can be seen in daytime depending on its phase, and this is even present in the trailer itself in the 2nd Pic. The Moon is clearly allowed to exist in Hikikos Mariland, and her and Sunny are even admiring it over a nice and beautiful landscape together. Yet, I think this mood over the moon will change very soon in the mod...

As I said earlier, the Moon is both a representation of Mari and the truth, and her good portions and bad portions. Her constant perfectionism is what catalyzed the arguement between her and Sunny, and what eventually caused her death as well. Beyond even that, its presence was felt in Sunny and Basil's worst moments when they confronted their demons head on. Yet it was still Mari, still someone Sunny and his friends loved. His big sister that he cherished with every fiber of his being. No matter how much pain she caused him in her final moments, and how much grief and emptiness her death had left him, he cant seem to bring himself to hate her, or the Moon.

I don't think it'll be a similar case for Hikiko.

We see in the cave drawing in the 1st pic a picture of the sun, and what looks like the moon currently eclipsing it. There's alot to be interpreted here, but I personally think that this drawing is a bad omen. It depicts the moon literally overshadowing the Sun, blocking its light from reaching Mariland, and inevitably causing darkness because of it. When Mari was alive in the main game, her incessant practicing for the recital and brute force training of Sunny had overshadowed his other aspects of his life which contributed to his low self esteem and anger. He was pulled away from spending much time with his friends, he had to work with a tutor which he disliked, and he had this constant pressure put on him to not dissapoint his sister, his parents, or his friends, all because he wanted to play in the recital specifically to BE with his sister more, ever since she started to gradually distance away from Sunny when she started preparing for her life more with cram classes, practicing on the piano, and just generally acting more like a lone wolf adult at the age of 15.

This is what caused everything bad to happen in their lives, and what caused Mari to die by Sunnys hands, though if you're a believer of the "Sunny dies via suicide" theory for Rainy Mari like I am, then you'll assume that Mari has even more of an obligation to devote herself to Sunny in her dreams, like how I discussed earlier with what the sun and sunlight represents. And the moon is a direct enemy in this.

The moon, Mari, is the thing that took Sunny away from herself in the real world. Mari doesnt see any goodness and positive traits in such a vile object. It was the thing that eclipsed her Sunny from the world, beating him over the head over and over again just for a stupid recital, a recital that he took just to be together with her, until it pushed him past the breaking point. The only obligations Mari could have in the real world, such as college and careers, is only done for the sake of what is left of her family, her mom and dad. She doesnt do it out of the desire to prove to the world who she is anymore, its all just going through the motions. Shes truly dead inside, and the only lively part of herself to exist, is Hikiko, when she gets to be by her little brothers side.

This next part is going to lead into more unverified evidence and pure speculation, though I think it would make for an interesting plot.

I think, instead of a "Basil disappears and the gang has to find him" plot, the gang in Rainy Mari, in their quest for Sunnys perfect sandwich, and dealing with increasingly and highly unusual aggression in the local wildlife (possibly evident by the dog "Kiba" in the trailer growling at Hikiko in the 2025 trailer), the gang find buttermilk, and after finding her lost and frightened Mr. Chives, she tries to get to the bottom of why most of the creatures of the land are starting to become scared and aggressive.

She then explores the cave with the gang as they help her reach deeper and deeper inside, until they find the cave drawing. Buttermilk possibly sees some kind of prophecy written next to it about a world ending event regarding a terrifying, never ending solar eclipse. It would block the suns beautiful and warm light from ever reaching anyone again, and the world would be thrust into chaos as everyone is overcome with rage and terror. The only ones that seem to be capable of stopping it (as graciously taken up by Hikiko) are Hikiko and her friends. That will begin their journey across Mariland in hopes of finding the cause behind the solar eclipse, and either stopping it from happening, or even (in a pure Hikiko route) getting rid of the wretched moon entirely, so it could never hurt the sun again.

It would also tie in with the plant in Hikikos bright room. Other theories had been made by other great users here, and the one I'm subscribed to is the theory that it represents Maris care for the real world. Hikiko does not want it to grow, since her "care" is what caused her to hurt her brother and their friends beyond forgiveness. Its a vanta black plant, and grows in an "opposite" way: it thrives in the darkness, and cant grow in constant sunlight. Hikiko keeps it in a place suspended above the clouds, in direct, constant sunlight, so that its growth is suspended as much as possible.

In a more direct way, Mari is suspending her love for her real life friends, by having her headspace substitute for that love instead. If Mari starts reconnecting with her friends in the real world, her real life self gets some of her energy and life back, the Moon in Mariland grows stronger, and her love for her real life friends would literally have to "overshadow" her love for her fake brother in her dreams, since you can't live in two realities at once like that, and Hikiko wouldnt let anything at all happen to her Sunny, no matter what it cost at the end of it all...

These Spirhalite salmonids seem to worship salt and cover their bodies with it, but it begs the question: are they in constant agony cause of it?

Salt dries things by displacing water, plus it irritates flesh when its placed on open wounds. Salmonids aren't Inkfish creatures so they're not made of ink, they're made of flesh and bones like you and I, and with all of this salt, they're covering their faces and limbs with it, head to toe.

We see how they behave completely differently in their walking animations and idol animations too. They twitch alot, their eyes are wildly dilating and looking around, and they all around just seem to act alot less composed and more animalistic. I think this has less to do with their intelligence (because let's be real, if they were some primitive uncontacted tribe who only used pans and tongs, they wouldnt have developed similar technology to our more well known inkadian salmonids like steel eels and slammin lids), and more to do with how much the salt seems to be causing them pain, or at the bare minimum, irritance and discomfort.

I mean look at the Seasoned salmonids, they have spikes of salt protruding out of their bodies. I don't wanna make the theory that tge salt is acting like some kind of pathogen and is literally growing out of them, but even if they just stuck them there by themselves, that cant POSSIBLY be comfortable.

What do you guys think? Is this pain they're enduring from the salt part of their presumably new culture and rituals that differ from the other salmonid clan?

This single screencap proves the existence of duplicate weapons, and weapons seem to be based on a rarity system and are found in the world (the treehouse showed the guys playing the tutorial and a grey glowing splattershot dropped, while in the release date trailer, we see a similar drop for the octobrush, only its purple).

Is destiny x splatoon real? Will grizzco weapons be our brand new exotics here??

As you can see, the 2nd worst piece of garbage to ever grace this planet is present in Raiders, as its base, presumably unchanged vanilla form.

However, in the 2nd picture, you can actually see that there's a new varient of it, being much taller and actually having other pots be able to fire its stingray beam instead of just its head. I think this ties into the "salmonid level" status we see in the map when the player is choosing a level to complete. The lower the level, you only get the basic bosses. The higher, you get their upgraded, more flavorful variants.

I do not wanna know what this means for the other bosses present. Maybe jaws gets a bigger radius, steelhead gets a booyah bomb effect instead of a regular splash effect, fishsticks spit ink faster and buff salmonids more (even other bosses), etc.

All I know is I do not wanna see a flyfish with 4 rocket containers instead of 2.

We know that there will definitely be bosses in the new game, if the end of the release date trailer is anything to go by, but I've been wondering if our big boys will be making a return for the game?

They're pretty well done bosses for what they are, and their presences are always intimidating when they appear in normal salmon run in Sploon 3, but if they do make a return here for Raiders, I'm not sure they'll fit in their current forms. They're meant to be killed quick and fast, and they usually only have 1 means of attacking you. The engagement comes from how they interact with their brethren as you try to kill them to chuck golden eggs at the kings, and since we don't get golden eggs (at least, from how it looks in the trailer) from regular boss salmonids in Raiders, coupled with how there might not even be a time limit for bosses like these, the chaos and rush from trying to take one down would be diminished greatly, and it could make the kings feel weaker as a result.

If they were to be reworked for Raiders though, such as giving each of them new attacks, new weaknesses, and new designs to match the rest of the tribe of salmon in Raiders, I could definitely see them becoming very fun bosses here. Borris could get some kind of charge attack in between charging bombs, Coho could probably get weapons strapped onto himself, and Joe could do something such as swallow his brethren and then spit them out towards you

What are you guy's thoughts on this, though?

So, we all know that this new game is going to be, first and foremost, a single player offline experience. This is the first in the game series to ever do something like this, which leaves alot to be excited for and alot to be desired.

And one of those desires is how replayable the game is gonna be.

This game will be $50 USD digital, and $60 USD physical (and while yes, some sellers are matching the digital prices out of panic, I doubt it'll stay like that once the games been out for a few months at least), the same price as the regular online splatoon games. While those games came with single player campaign experiences, everyone knows that once you beat the main campaign, unlocked all collectibles and unlockables there is, and then beat the super omega hard level/boss at the end, there's quite literally nothing else to do. All you can do at the end is spend the rest of your accumulated credits to buy things that only relate to the online portion of the game, basically the game telling you: "Hey bub, there's nothing left for you here. Go play online and go grind to A+ in ranked."

So, now with a completely single player driven splatoon game, how will they fix this problem?

There's no online for them to fall back on, save for co-op modes, and there's seemingly no added bonus or benefit for owning this game that carries onto Splatoon 3. Single player is no longer a sort of after thought to give people without NSO a reason to buy their game, so we will see first hand how the splatoon devs handle making enough content for people to spend hopefully 50 to 100 hours on the game before moving on.

From what we can see from the trailers and screenshots, they're reusing one of their greatest PvE modes as the baseline, and pairing it with what looks like looter-shooter mechanics (leveling system, treasure system, material collection systems, at-base crafting systems), so this looks like this will be the main pull of the game. However, it also looks like there's a general campaign to follow here with stages that can be (presumably) permanently cleared of treasure and story.

Though, it seems like there's also multiple islands that exist for the game, some look directly tied to the story while others might be regulated for optional challenges and repeatable missions. If they're following the looter-shooter and raid mechanics, then it would make sense they would give players this kind of grind to do whilst and after completing the story mode.

Personally, if it does end up being something like I described above, it will be such a joy to play lol. I've played games like Fortnite STW and Marathon, each with looter-shooter and raid mechanics respectively, and while the former has gotten exhausting for me to play (I've got around 1000 hrs clocked into that game since 2018) and the latter is too damn sweaty due to the PvP, if this game hits that new and fresh sweet spot, I can see myself sinking in hundreds of hours in the span of a few months lol, especially since its offline and doesn't need any of that stupid ass subscription services to run.

But I digress, what are yalls predictions on this games longevity and replayability, considering this is the splatoon devs first actual single player splatoon game? Is there anything yall are predicting will appear, or any expectations for a game like this?