So there you are: a new recruit for Grizzco Industries, on a helicopter alongside three other coworkers. Your objective is simple: drop in, collect Gold Eggs, and get out. To get the Gold Eggs, you have to defeat Boss Salmonids. The first wave passes, and you meet the egg quota. So far, so good.
But then, the next wave begins, and a deluge of Boss Salmonids appear. They keep coming, and your team starts to be crushed. The timer runs out, you’re still alive, and you breathe a sigh of relief. But your relief becomes outright terror, as an impossibly large Salmonid bursts from the sea and emits a human-like scream. This is the Horrorboros, and it is Nintendo’s finest example of nightmare fuel.
In Splatoon 3, you play as Inklings or Octolings, who are cephalopod-kid hybrids. You do battle with rival groups by splatting each other with ink-projecting weapons. The most common game-mode is Turf War, with the objective being to cover the biggest area in your team’s ink. This player-vs-player mode has skyrocketed the series to E-Sports fame, but there is one mode that has kept players intrigued and speculators guessing, and that’s Salmon Run.
Boss Salmonids are the main source of Gold Eggs, and there are a wide range of different types, each with their own methods of being dispatched. There’s the Steelhead, which cannot be damaged by conventional shots but can be blown up by inking the bomb atop its head as it’s charging. There’s the infamous Flyfish, which can only be damaged when the missile pod on its side opens and bombs thrown into them. If you fail, have fun getting absolutely demolished by a barrage of green rockets.
Formidable in their own right, these foes are overshadowed by the ones at the top, named King Salmonids. There are two of these creatures: the Cohozuna and the Horrorboros. The former is an amalgamation of Salmonid power, lumbering around the battlefield, and the latter is a floating snake of death, spewing out huge bombs that can evaporate your team.
The Horrorboros itself is terrifying. The scream it emits as it appears sounds human in nature, as if it’s in pain. There’s a speaker placed in its jaws, with a wire that trails down its throat. Its pale, lifeless eyes seem to stare right into your soul as it glides slowly around the battlefield. It charges up a bomb in its mouth, which you can target to inflict massive damage on the beast, but if you don’t do enough damage to the bomb, the Horrorboros launches it and covers a large portion of the stage in ink. It’s a macabre abomination of animal and machine, and if you think that’s bad, just imagine having to deal with a Horrorboros as an unrelenting army of Boss Salmonids gang up on you and crush your team.
Nintendo’s games have a history of maintaining a level of subtle horror in their atmospheres, whether it was the SA-X hunting us down in Metroid Fusion or the endless whirlpool of hell unleashed by Giygas in Earthbound’s climax. Yet, none of these have filled me with more dread than Splatoon’s Big Run event. Here, the Salmonid army has invaded Inkopolis, and Grizzco Industries wants you to fight them. When this happens, a dreadful atmosphere envelops the city. The sky turns red, and the ambiance is filled with Boss Salmonid noises and sinister music. You can even hear the haunting scream of a Horrorboros as teams fight for their lives in the distance.
Nintendo is no stranger to inducing scary elements into kid-friendly games, and the Horrorboros has to be a prime example of that concept. Only time will tell what kind of King Salmonid is released in future updates.
Splatoon 3
- Platform(s)
- Switch
- Released
- September 9, 2022
- Developer(s)
- Nintendo
- Publisher(s)
- Nintendo
- Genre(s)
- Third-Person Shooter