How to Upgrade Hero Suit in Splatoon 3 Hero Mode

After the first boss fight against DJ Octavio in Splatoon 3’s Hero Mode, your shiny new Hero Suit and Hero Shot get completely totaled in the fall down to Alterna. That suit is an expensive piece of equipment and there’s certainly no time to get another, so you’ll just have to fix it up yourself. Here’s how to upgrade the Hero Suit in Splatoon 3 Hero Mode.

How to Upgrade Hero Suit in Splatoon 3 Hero Mode

In order to upgrade your Hero Suit and Hero Shot, you’re going to need two resources: Sardinium and Upgrade Points. Both of these can be found around Alterna, as well as obtained by simply playing through the Hero Mode campaign.

Sardinium is a special metal needed to open up the upgrade nodes on your Hero Gear grid. One locked section of the grid can hold a handful of nodes, and you’ll need to spend Sardinium to open them up. Sardinium is found primarily in buried Loot Anchors located around Alterna’s islands. Sometimes you can see their little red lights sticking up out of the ground, or otherwise, Smallfry will direct you to them when you’re near one. Just shoot one out of the ground to see what it’s hiding! You’ll also receive a few lump sums of Sardinium when you beat one of the campaign’s bosses for the first time.

Upgrade Points are, well, the points necessary to actually activate the upgrade nodes once they’ve been unlocked with Sardinium. Upgrade Points work kind of like your regular score in a Turf War: they gradually rise as you ink turf around Alterna and in the test levels. You’ll also receive additional Upgrade Points whenever you uncover buried items around Alterna, including Sardinium, Locker items, food tickets, and Sunken Scrolls. Using Smallfry to clear out Fuzzballs and their connected masses of Fuzzy Ooze will get you some Upgrade Points as well. Basically, just play the game normally and the Points will come.

A couple of things to keep in mind about upgrading: firstly, you can only activate a node that’s connected to an already-active node. The same goes for unlocking sections; the section you want to unlock with Sardinium needs to be connected to at least one active node. The larger sections connect to multiple nodes, so you can unlock and activate them in any order you like, but some smaller ones require specific nodes to be activated first.

Related: What Do You Get for Completing Hero Mode in Splatoon 3?

By the end of the campaign, assuming you’ve searched the islands thoroughly, you should have all the Sardinium and Upgrade Points you need to unlock the whole grid. Don’t worry too much about the order, but if you’re having trouble with a particular level, you can also just come back later when you’ve upgraded your Hero Suit a bit.