Nintendo is bringing back its classic gun peripheral for the Nintendo Entertainment System as a special free bonus in its latest Wii U release.
Splatoon is getting a meaty update today at 7 p.m. Pacific (10 p.m. Eastern), according to the latest Nintendo Direct YouTube video. This free patch adds a new weapon and a new map. The publisher is going to rely heavily on additional content to keep Splatoon propped up. While many gamers and critics have heaped praise on the new shooter, some have complained that it is light on content. Nintendo has already promised to support it with more maps, guns, and modes, and this is just the start.
https://youtu.be/R40MgND4D7U
Let’s take a quick look at the new content.
The fresh new weapon is actually a throwback to the Zapper gun that enabled gamers to play classics like Duck Hunt on their NES. Like the original, the in-game Zapper — which the publisher is calling the N-Zap ’85 — is gray and not orange like the child-friendly revised version Nintendo released later in the NES’s life cycle. The N-Zap has a super high rate of fire, but it isn’t as powerful as some of the slower weapons. It also comes with Splat Bomb grenades.
Nintendo is also giving fans the new map Port Mackrel. This is a shipping hub with large containers stacked on top of each other throughout the map. This gives the course a lot of lanes to work with, but it also creates tons of high ground for smart players to control the flow of play.
This brings the map total in Splatoon to seven, which is still slim for an online shooter. But let’s hope that Nintendo sticks with these free updates to flesh out its most interesting new property in years.