In a new Famitsu interview, the Splatoon 3 development team revealed various details about Acht, Pearl, and Marina in the recent Side Order DLC. The members of the team that participated in the talk are Director and Art Director Seita Inoue, Side Order DLC Director Kenji Matsumoto, and Sound Director Toshiyuki Sudo. [Thanks, Famitsu!]
When asked about why Acht has a bandage on their left hand in the Splatoon 3 Side Order DLC, Inoue revealed that Acht had also tried to conquer the Spire of Order a little bit before Agent 8 arrived to the virtual world, but was injured due to not being as mobile as they thought.
Regarding Pearl appearing as a drone in the DLC, Matsumoto said that he wanted Pearl to offer support to the player during gameplay, as well as give players the ability to glide. By that point in development, it had been decided that Pearl would appear in the story, so it was easy for the developers to combine these two ideas.
Inoue also said that the different stages in the Side Order DLC are inspired by Marina’s childhood memories as well as other octolings’ memories. The Spire of Order is a factory that stores memory cubes to be grayscaled and eventually incinerated, and the snow-like substance falling around the Order Sector is actually ashes from the incinerated memory cubes.
Additionally, Inoue said that the training school that Marina and Acht attended specializes in training elite Octoling-Amazons. Octarian schools are also divided between schools for regular Octarians and for Octolings.
Splatoon 3 and its Side Order DLC are immediately available for the Nintendo Switch.