With Splatoon 3 finally out on Nintendo Switch, folks have no doubt tried their hands at a variety of the game’s eclectic weapons. There are plenty to check out, from the classic rapid-firing Splattershot Jr. to newer weapons like the quick-slashing Splatana (which has quickly become a fave of mine). However, while each has its hater, there’s almost always someone complaining about the Clash Blaster, a pencil-sharpener-looking gun that’s frequently called out by players for being annoyingly busted. And I totally agree. The Clash Blaster is cheap.
A colourful ink-painting shooter, Splatoon 3 lets you unlock various pieces of gear — such as hats and shirts, alongside guns — after levelling up either through single- or multiplayer. Each level rewards you with a new weapon to experiment with, though you still have to purchase them with Sheldon Licenses, a type of currency you acquire by playing the game. The infamous Clash Blaster is one of the weapons you can get at level 22. And people hate it so much that there have been rather threatening messages littered throughout the hub world urging folks to stop maining it. Now!
What Makes Clash Blaster So OP?
The Clash Blaster is deadly. Originally appearing in Splatoon 2 and built for use in mid-to-short range skirmishes, it can kill an opponent with two good body hits or three-to-four shots around the feet. That makes it a nuisance to deal with. On top of doing solid damage, its blast radius is wide enough to still hit combatants even when shots miss. So, get caught in the Clash Blaster’s range and you’re pretty much dead. There’s no escaping it, really.
I can attest to this. As a blind gamer with atrocious accuracy due to an eye condition called keratoconus, I still managed to get kills in the double digits with the Clash Blaster. It’s a weapon so OP I didn’t need to have the best aim to use it. As long as I could shoot around the vicinity of the opponent in front of me, they’re definitely getting murked. The same thing happened every time I went against it in PvP. Seriously, it slaps. Or splats, I guess.
Why Do Folks Hate Clash Blaster So Much?
As outlined above, the Clash Blaster is hella powerful. You don’t have to be a top-tier player to ascend the multiplayer charts when using the pencil-sharpener-looking gun. And it’s for that reason many folks can’t stand it. Just type in “Clash Blaster” into Reddit or Twitter, and you’ll see copious complaints about the gun and how it’s an unfair weapon. Some will say it’s “still busted as fuck,” while others ask why, of all the available weaponry to choose from, would anyone main the gun when it’s so OP and capable of ruining the fun and wrecking squid boys and girls alike. The hate for the Clash Blaster goes all the way back to Splatoon 2, for Christ’s sake. Talk about holding a grudge. In gaming, there may not always be a Call of Duty game on PlayStation, but you can bet there’ll always be a Splatoon player complaining about the Clash Blaster.
I mean, even before Splatoon 3 launched on September 9, the game’s official subreddit was home to frequent Cash Blaster callouts. Some begged Nintendo to remove the Clash Blaster from the threequel. And when the company revealed that the gun would make a return, some took the news very, very hard. You can always count on someone posting about how the pencil-sharpener-looking gun spoils the inky fun.
While the Clash Blaster may be an annoying gun, it isn’t the one I’d label the most aggravating to go against. There are other weapons on my shitlist — namely the incredibly swift Inkbrush and Octobrush, as well as the wide-ranging Rollers that effortlessly flatten you. But I won’t deny just how irksome the Clash Blaster can be, especially when in some capable hands.
Splatoon 3 has been a pretty big success for Nintendo despite not being on the market for a full week yet. In fact, the third-person shooter has already sold over three million copies in just three days in Japan, making it way more popular than Breath of the Wild or even Pokémon games. That’s wild.
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