Splatoon 3 followers have been handled to a pleasant shock this previous weekend when Nintendo staged a particular Splatfest occasion earlier than the sport’s official launch. This gave of us an opportunity to obtain and play a demo of the colourful shooter forward of its September 9 launch date. However, gamers daring sufficient to “fuck around and find out” definitely came upon, as it seems that Nintendo’s anti-cheat system has now begun banning the Switch consoles of Splatfest gamers who tried to get forward by modifying the sport.

According to famous Nintendo Switch dataminer OatmealDome, the sport’s anti-cheat system was certainly lively over the weekend. The Splatoon 3: Splatfest World Premier, which ran from August 27-28, provided three groups to select from—Rock, Paper, or Scissors—in addition to an assortment of drugs and weapons to experiment with. You’d suppose this might be sufficient to tide folks over whereas all of us collectively anticipate the sport’s official launch in a few weeks. But some nonetheless stepped out of bounds by downloading and utilizing a user-made patch that skipped the tutorial and granted early entry to Splatoon 3‘s testing vary, the sport’s observe foyer of kinds. The patch labored, however gamers who used it quickly began discovering their Switches getting banned.

It’s unclear if these bans represent a complete ban from the Nintendo Switch Online service—OatmealDome now means that the ban could solely stop affected gamers from taking part in extra Splatoon 3 on their console—nevertheless it definitely doesn’t appear to be one thing you’d wish to check.

“When I saw reports on Twitter about people getting banned because of that one patch, I was completely unsurprised,” OatmealDome informed Kotaku over Twitter DMs. “Patching the game’s code would [also] get you banned on Splatoon 2.

G/O Media may get a commission

Up to 90% off

Humble Bundle’s Summer Sale

Game and Save
Great news for PC gamers out there looking to save money and add more games to your backlog which you’ll eventually get to. Humble Bundle has kicked off its Summer Sale in which you can save up to 90% on games.

“Nintendo is taking cheating seriously this time around,” they stated. “[whereas] Splatoon and [Splatoon] 2 were both completely unprotected when they launched.”

However, they be aware that “a bunch of high-profile incidents” that affected Splatoon 2 triggered Nintendo to get extra severe. “This led to Splatoon 2 getting a pretty decent anti-cheat solution implemented, and it seems to be rather effective thus far,” they stated. “Nintendo wants to continue that into Splatoon 3.”

Kotaku has reached out to Nintendo for remark.

We’ve discovered so much about Splatoon 3 because of the 30-minute Direct Nintendo held on August 10. Alongside the return of fan-favorite phases like Hammerhead Bridge, the colourful shooter will allow you to barrel roll out of the ink, nonetheless refuses correct in-game voice chat, and encompasses a ton of recent weapons I’m fairly stoked for this sport. Splatoon 3 hits Nintendo Switch completely on September 9.