Nintendo has added health bars to Splatoon 3 more than three years after the game’s release, prompting a mixed reaction from fans.
This week, Nintendo dropped an unexpected update to its inky shooter threequel, which originally launched for the original Switch back in September 2022. Alongside a new “Aura Flow” feature and other tweaks, the patch has notably added health bars — something which has come as a huge surprise to fans of the franchise.
In patch notes published alongside the game’s 11.0.0 update, Nintendo announced that it would now be possible “to see an opponent’s remaining health when they’ve been hit. Previously, you could only see how damaged an enemy was by looking closely at how much ink they were covered in – not so easy to do in the heat of battle!”
Apart from the surprise of such a major change being made so late in Splatoon 3’s life, it’s that latter sentence that has left fans with confusion. Splatoon has always featured a visual representation of damage without the need for health bars — how splattered in ink a character is — and health pools in general are typically quite low, with most weapons splatting foes in three or four hits.
Combat is an important part of Splatoon gameplay, of course, but only one component — as matches revolve around coating maps with ink to establish territory control.
“You’ll also be able to see the health bars of your teammates if they’ve taken damage,” Nintendo continued. “Keeping an eye on these health bars is a great way to support your allies or chase down weakened foes – even if you’ve teamed up with Inklings and Octolings you’re not familiar with.”
adding a health bar after the games update cycle finished like a year ago was certainly a choice https://t.co/glOvo4bme6 pic.twitter.com/P1ZMDIA022
— sunny 🍓 corbeau posting (@sunnydr0pdraws) January 27, 2026
“Health bars are even funnier when you consider Splatoon came up with a unique way to have health bars diegetically – by having the enemy getting covered in ink, that’s the stuff that makes the game special,” wrote one fan, EIectroDev. “Correct me if I’m wrong but it really took the Splatoon developers three games and over ten years to add visible health bars,” noted Thinginator90. “The minds of Nintendo devs never cease to amaze.”
“This health bar is so ugly im so sorry i hope we can toggle it off,” added candy_draws_o_o, one of many fans to complain about how basic the health bar looks. (And no, you can’t toggle it off.)
This week’s update also added “Aura Flow,” a gameplay feature that rewards competitive play — splatting multiple enemies in quick succession — with a burst of area-covering ink, plus a 30-second buff to speed and other stats.
“I hates this and the health bar update,” said KidaToAsobou. “It just makes Splatoon a more aggressive/competitive game. [Splatoon 3] already did that by making the maps smaller forcing players to fight more but this only further incentivizes people to attack the enemy team rather then inking.”
It’s perhaps unsurprising to see a negative reaction to such changes from fans who have become used to playing Splatoon 3 a certain way for so long. But this only further begs the question of why Nintendo is adding these features now, years after launch. By way of an answer, several fans have suggested the possibility that Nintendo is now testing ideas it is experimenting with ahead of a new iteration of Splatoon, examining feedback and using Splatoon 3 as live gameplay environment to see how player behavior is impacted. “Testing splatoon 4 features I reckon,” wrote pejic839, “like when they added online to Super Mario party as a test for Superstars.”
Next up for the Splatoon franchise will be Switch 2 single-player spin-off Splatoon Raiders, which will expand the series with a more story-orientated entry. As for Splatoon 4, while another game in the franchise feels inevitable, there’s no word on that yet.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
