Salmon Run

Shrines | Gardens | The House

"You've got a Boss Salmonid incoming. DO YOUR JOB!"

Eggsecutive VP 180
896 Shifts Worked
51383 Golden Eggs Collected

What is Salmon Run?

Salmon Run is a co-op mode in Splatoon 3 and it's my favorite game mode!

In Salmon Run, a team of four must last through three waves and meet quota to pass each wave. Quota is met by collecting Golden Eggs, which can only be obtained by defeating Boss Salmonid, and deposting the eggs in the Egg Basket.

Quota is determined by the number of players and their ranks. If someone drops or disconnects during a wave, the quota also drops.
The difficulty of each wave is based on the Hazard Level, which is determined by using the combined rank of each player on the shift. Hazard Level dictates how many Boss Salmonid spawn and determins the odds of getting Gold or Silver Scales during an Xtrawave.
Xtrawaves are a chance at defeating a rare King Salmonid! The King Salmonid is guaranteed to occur when the Salmometer is filled and players clear Wave 3.

The weapons provided during Salmon Run are a predetermined set and randomly rotate between players with each wave. Sometimes there are special events where one weapon is a mystery, or every weapon is a mystery!
Grizzco (the company who players work for when collecting Golden Eggs) also provides its own specialty weapons once in a while. These rare Grizzco weapons are souped up powerhosues, but also come with significant drawbacks that adds more fun and challange to Salmon Runs.

But the main event of Salmon Run are the Big Runs! During Big Run, the Salmonid invade the city itself, so instead of fighting them on a typical Salmon Run map, players duke it out on a Turf War map instead! Big Runs are an opportunity to earn special rewards and often times mean getting to play with those sweet, sweet Grizzco weapons!

The Salmonid

Salmonid are a kind of amphibious salmon from the Splatoon series. We don't have a lot of lore on them, unfortunately, and there's a lot of back and forth in the community about their culture.

The environment a Salmonid is raised in determines its appearence. The harsher the environment, the more likely they are to become Boss Salmonid like Steelheads or Scrappers.
Some Boss Salmonid are actually Lesser Salmonid that have had specific training to become Flyfish or Fish Sticks.

Types of Salmonid

Chum

Lesser Salmonid

Most common form of Salmonid. Use a frying pan to attack.

Smallfry

Lesser Salmonid

Young Salmonid that use spoons to attack.

Cohock

Lesser Salmonid

Larger and slower moving than Chum, but hit harder.

Snatcher

Lesser Salmonid

Steals any Golden Eggs left on the ground too long. They do not attack.

Steelhead

Boss Salmonid

Inflates a bomb on its head and throws it. Covered in armor. Can only be damaged by shooting the bomb before it launches.

Steel Eel

Boss Salmonid

A machine made of ink-spewing jerrycans, piloted by a Salmonid in the tail.

Scrapper

Boss Salmonid

The driver is invulnerable behind its shielded vehicle. Breaking the car will stall it out.

Stinger

Boss Salmonid

Sniper that attacks with a jet of ink that can pass through walls.

Maws

Boss Salmonid

Swims beneath ink and uses sonar to hunt, then leaps up and swallows them whole.

Drizzler

Boss Salmonid

Fires a projectile that creates an ink storm. Invulnurable under its umbrella, but exposed when floating or once it fires.

Flyfish

Boss Salmonid

Covered in armor, launches missiles at players from afar. Pain in the ass.

Fish Stick

Boss Salmonid

Flying smallfry mounted on a pillar that sing and cover the area with ink.

Flipper-Flopper

Boss Salmonid

Creates a ring of ink to dive into. Painting over the ink will cause it to crash into the ground instead.

Slammin' Lid

Boss Salmonid

Floats in the air and makes a barrier while deploying Lesser Salmonid. Will slam into the ground to crush players.

Big Shot

Boss Salmonid

Uses its launcher to fire cannonballs that generate waves of ink.

Goldie

Event-Only Salmonid

Appear during Glowflies, Goldie-Seeking, and Fog. Primary targets for many Golden Eggs.

Griller

Event-Only Salmonid

Giant, armored grills that flood ink and relentlessly target a single player.

Mudmouth

Event-Only Salmonid

Appear from Gushers and spawn Lesser Salmonid. Throw bombs into their gaping mouths to make them explode.

Chinook

Event-Only Salmonid

Drop coolers that spawn Lesser Salmonid during Mothership waves. Destroying the coolers drops Golden Eggs.

Mothership

Event-Only Salmonid

Spawns Chinooks. Will latch onto the egg basket to steal eggs back.

Cohozuna

King Salmonid

A gigantic Salmonid that can crush anything in her path.

Horrorboros

King Salmonid

Circles the area, generating a massive bomb to launch at players. Destroy the bomb to damage her.

Megalodontia

King Salmonid

The largest King Salmonid, big enough to swallow a ship. She lurks beneath the surface like a Maws.

Triumvirate

King Salmonids

A special event where all three King Salmonid attack at once. A true challenge.

Salmonid and Inkfish

Let me open this section by saying that i LOVE playing Salmon Run. It's my favorite game mode, I'm better at it than Turf War, and I have a lot more fun with it than any other part of the game. I love playing it with my friends.

But I am also fascinated by the Salmonid. I love these guys! They're just funky lil' fish dudes trying to live their best lives! I wish I could know more about them.

The Splatoon series has an overarching theme of having the player character be a part of a profiting and well-off society that preys upon or smothers anyone that isn't like them.

Racsim. One of the themes of the Splatoon series is racism.

While the conflict with the Octolings has been (mostly) resolved, inkfish society still leads a life of constant conflict, promotes a lifestyle of combat tactics and warfare, and promoting inkfish as superior being.

Even after the end of Mr. Grizz in Splatoon 3, Grizzco is STILL operating and stealing eggs from the Salmonid. (There are theories that Lil' Judd is now the one in charge of Grizzco and I am inclined to agree with these theories. They have good evidence.)

The Salmonid have been shown to be a sentient species with a culture, society, and lifestyle. The ONLY reason Big Runs happen at all is because the inkfish attack the Salmonids first. The Salmonids don't instigate the conflict, the inkfish do. As far as we know, the Salmonid are just trying to get to their spawning grounds, the same way real world salmon do. The Salmonid fight back because the inkfish are LITERALLY STEALING THEIR BABIES.

We know very little about the Salmonid in the games. What sparse information we do have is smothered in propaganda from Grizzco and inkfish society as a whole. The Salmonid are demonized by inkfish society and potrayed as violent, mean, and disgusting. You can't trust much, if any, information about the Salmonid that the games tell you.

We've had some developer interviews state that Salmonid fight to the death and are not afraid of dying, because they view death as a natural cycle of life. They fight for the honor of their clan and view death as a way of becoming one with the world. This makes it sound as if the Salmonid have a great deal of respect for life as a whole, even moreso when you take into account how precious their Golden Eggs are to them.
If Golden Eggs are the Salmonid's babies, then of course they're precious! Not just as offspring, but as a part of the cycle of life and death. And the inkfish regularly STEAL them! That's fucked up bro!

Salmonid have a culture and society. They make music. They make sculptures. They create art and have a language. They built Bonerattle arena (my fave Salmon Run map). They are an intelligent species that have been attacked over and over again, their name smeared by propaganda and lies so they're treated like beasts.

Of course they're angry. And they have every right to fight back.