Nintendo Switch Online has had a bit of a shaky history over the last five years. Originally debuting as a free service, Switch Online offered a serviceable at best way to play online Nintendo games. Severe latency issues, game-breaking bugs, and more technical problems plagued Switch Online when it first dropped. At the same time, Nintendo released a Switch Online mobile app, intended to be used as a means to communicate with online friends. Paling in comparison to the competition's party systems, the Switch Online mobile app was soon forgotten about, but Splatoon 3 is trying its hardest to keep it alive.
About a week ago, Nintendo hosted a large-scale Direct for one of the year's most anticipated titles, Splatoon 3. This Direct unveiled a great deal of information about the upcoming game, ranging from some new weapons, maps, and modes, to the intricacies of Splatoon 3's faster combat flow. But hidden among the rest was the announcement that Splatoon 3 is going to be using Nintendo Switch Online's mobile app, something that even die-hard Nintendo fans had long forgotten.
The Troubled History of Switch Online's Mobile App
Launched in June 2017, Nintendo Switch Online's mobile app released right alongside Splatoon 2. The Switch Online mobile app soon rose to infamy when a diagram showing how to set up Splatoon 2's voice chat made the rounds online. The now-infamous diagram was mocked relentlessly by just about everyone, with many bewildered at the multi-step instructions, all just to plug a headset into a controller and access Splatoon 2's voice chat system.
Since then, the Switch Online mobile app has kept pretty much to the shadows, only cropping up every now and then when a big Nintendo AAA release rears its head. One of the biggest uses of the Nintendo Switch Online mobile app was for Animal Crossing: New Horizons, where players could access a dedicated messaging system known as NookLink. NookLink allowed players to send chat messages via their phone, send reactions, browse the Nook catalog, and check in for some daily Nook Points. This app was further added to when the Happy Home Paradise DLC launched, now allowing players to check the Happy Home Network from their phone and access custom designs.
Splatoon 3 Is Trying Its Best To Keep Switch Online's Mobile App Alive
While Switch Online's mobile app did have some solid functionality for a handful of Nintendo first-party games, it lacked enough features for general Nintendo Switch players to download, and as a result, the Switch Online companion app is rarely talked about today. Despite this, Splatoon 3 is about to try very hard to get players to finally give the Switch app a download.
Taking after its predecessors, Splatoon 3's companion app interface will be named SplatNet 3, and will let players review their past few online matches. From here, players will be able to find a bunch of stats relating to how well they performed, including areas that they could improve in, such as accuracy. It's likely that these stats will be available actually in Splatoon 3, but for those who just want to check-in, it's not a bad feature.
However, the real draw of Splatoon 3's mobile app functionality is that players will be able to unlock a range of cosmetics that are - supposedly - exclusive to the app. So, for the completionists out there, the Switch Online mobile app is going to be a necessary download when Splatoon 3 launches in just a few weeks' time. That being said, the jury's out on whether these exclusive skins will actually bring casual players over to Switch Online's app.
Splatoon 3 is scheduled to release on September 9 for Nintendo Switch.
