Splatoon 3 Ver. 11.3.0 adds a Raiders weapon and key balance shifts

Don’t rebuild your .52 Gal opener around a change that isn’t listed

The first .52 Gal duel after this patch can still get players splatted, but not for the reason a lot of early chatter suggested. Ver. 11.3.0 does not give a verified .52 Gal-specific adjustment in the gathered patch details here, so this is not the patch to panic-rewrite every safe angle, Splat Zones setup, or lane hold around a confirmed range nerf. If your team walked into practice expecting .52 Gal to suddenly lose old anchor positions, pump the brakes. The smarter adjustment is to test the weapon against the new overall pace of specials and pressure tools, not to assume its old firing lines are gone because the rumor mill got ahead of the notes.

The update is live now, and the first immediate check is special timing

Version 11.3.0 went live on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 on August 20, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. JST, and the practical effect is immediate: everybody in your group needs to be on the same version to play online, and old replay data from earlier versions no longer works after the update. That alone matters for scrims, VOD review, and set-play prep. On the balance side, one concrete timing change worth feeling out right away is Ultra Stamp. After activation, the player becomes invulnerable about 10/60 of a second sooner. That is not a dramatic rework on paper, but in close fights and panic-pop situations, tiny timing windows are the whole meal. If your team uses Stamp to force retakes or survive rush pressure, test that interaction fresh instead of trusting last week’s muscle memory.

The clearest special changes tighten dodges and weaken a few old comfort answers

Other shifts are more concrete, and they matter fast. Trizooka shots now travel about 13% faster without gaining flight distance, which means reaction dodges get meaner even if the special does not suddenly reach farther. Triple Splashdown is less generous at the point of impact, with its damaging explosion area about 9% smaller, but its ink fists travel about 9% farther, so the landing is a little less forgiving while the follow-up reach becomes more threatening. Ink Vac also loses some of its old vacuum-cleaner swagger, because the amount of enemy ink it can absorb drops by about 9%. None of those changes automatically rewrite the meta by themselves, but they do change what counts as “safe enough” when a team is trying to brute-force a retake or stall an objective push.

Points costs and weapon tuning are where comp players should start making real edits

Special economy also changes the rhythm of scrims, and this is where the patch gives you hard numbers to work with. Inkline Tri-Stringer now needs 200 points for its special instead of 190, which slows its cycle a bit. Custom Hydra Splatling moves the other direction, dropping from 200 to 190, and Splattershot Pro FRZ-N gets the biggest points break of this group, falling from 190 to 180. Those are not flavor-text adjustments; they directly affect when a comp gets to threaten a first key special and how often a team can chain pressure across a push. There are also smaller weapon-specific nudges worth clocking. Carbon Roller gains stronger long-range vertical-swing damage, which gives it more bite when it is fishing for chip and punish at distance. Glooga Dualies Deco gets roughly 10% tighter shot spread after a Dodge Roll, meaning its post-roll shots should feel a little more reliable in real duels. A few resource changes matter too: Tri-Slosher Nouveau uses about 5% less ink, while Snipewriter 5B uses about 7% more. Those are exactly the sort of tweaks that do not look flashy in a notes dump but absolutely show up over a full set.

The new Raiders reward is familiar by design

The new Plastic-Bottle Shot Replica, rendered as PET Shooter Replica in some English materials, is the content addition most players will notice first. It is tied to Splatoon Raiders and can be claimed from the lobby terminal after updating to Ver. 11.3.0, but only if the same system has Splatoon Raiders save data, the main story there has been cleared, and you launch Splatoon 3 with the same user profile tied to that save. In practice, this is a cross-title bonus rather than a normal catalog-style unlock. Just as important, it is not some mystery weapon class waiting to blindside matchmaking. Plastic-Bottle Shot Replica has the same weapon specifications as the Tentatek Splattershot, so treat it as a familiar mid-range frontline shooter with a different identity and unlock path, not a new archetype that demands brand-new matchup homework.

What to change before the next event

Before the next local, the next ranked grind, or the next block of team practice, make the edits this patch actually supports. Re-test Ultra Stamp activation timing. Check how much tighter Trizooka pressure feels when shots arrive faster. Respect the smaller Triple Splashdown blast while learning the farther fist reach. Update special timings for Inkline Tri-Stringer, Custom Hydra Splatling, and Splattershot Pro FRZ-N. If someone on the roster was ready to spend the night reinventing .52 Gal routes around a listed range nerf, save that energy for the changes that are really here. And absolutely record new footage once you are settled in, because pre-11.3.0 replay files are done.