Splatoon 3: X Battle Explained

Those who can reach the highest ranks of games like Splatoon 3 simultaneously amaze and terrify me. I can’t even fathom being so incredibly good at this game that you reach the absolute pinnacle of the rankings. For those who have reached that treacherous mountaintop, you have the right to challenge the holy grail of ink-based warfare. Welcome… to the X Battle. Here’s an explanation of X Battle in Splatoon 3.

Splatoon 3: X Battle Explained

X Battles are a similar concept to Splatoon 2’s X Rank, but serve as an exclusive game mode rather than a tangible rank. X Battle is a special game mode reserved exclusively for the most powerful ranked players in Splatoon 3. You can’t even get in unless your ranking in Anarchy Battles is at least S+0, though you can join later on in the season if your rank is too low at the start of it.

Related: Splatoon 3 Chill Season 2022: All New Features, Challenges, Weapons, and Release Date

Speaking of which, X Battle runs on a seasonal format, kind of like a longer version of your initial Anarchy Battle placements. One X Battle season runs for three months; at the start of the season, anyone who qualifies for the X Battles can participate in five placement matches with other S+-rated players. Your performance in these matches determines your starting X Power for the season, a ranking system marking the current standing of all X Battle participants. After your placement matches, you can then play X Battle normally until you reach either three wins or three losses.

X Battle Modes and X Power Tracking

Similarly to Anarchy Battles, X Battles track your success in failures in the usual four non-Turf War game modes:

• Splat Zones
• Rainmaker
• Clam Blitz
• Tower Control

The twist is that your X Power is tracked individually for each of these modes, rather than in a single lump statistic. In this way, even if you stink at one game mode, you can make it big in another.

At the end of the season, every player who completed all of their X Battle matches will have their X Power totaled for each mode, with the top 500 players in every mode getting official recognition with a crown icon above their avatars.

One other important note: X Battles are broken up into regional divisions with different sponsors, like the regions in a Splatfest. The sponsors and their regions are:

• Takoroka Division: Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand
• Tentatek Division: North America, South America, and Europe

You can choose to play in whatever division you want at the start of the season, but once you choose, you’re locked in until the season ends. Think long and hard about who you want to go head-to-head with before you choose.

If you’ve been splatting your little Inkling (or Octoling) hearts out, then it’s time to take off the kid gloves and take on some real competition. It’ll be cutthroat, but those that reach the pinnacle of X Battle will become truly immortal. In the metaphorical sense, I mean, not the literal.