Special gamemodes in Splatoon happen for a certain amount of time, with some of them like Splatfests becoming, eventually, unavailable. There are now a variety of modes in turf war, ranked, and Salmon Run.
Splatfests, like many of the other modes, are only available for a few days, mostly during the weekend, once a few months or so. You have, in Splatoon 3, 3 teams to choose from based off of a theme. Once it starts, it turns to night and you can see the idols out of the newsroom, for once. Splatfests usually are battles of turf war, and winning or losing them will determine the amount of clout you gain for the match. In Open, you gain clout no matter what, but in pro, if you lose you get no clout. Clout is used to determine who wins categories of Splatfests, and during halftime, a new mode is unlocked. This mode, Tricolor turf war, involves three teams, 1 for each idol. 2 teams of 2 are the attackers, whose goal is to gain the ultra signals and ink as much turf as possible. The remaining team consists of the defenders, a team of 4 who must protect the ultra signals and keep the attackers in check. The team with the most points wins. If you are defending while your team is in the lead, you gain a boost if you win, same for the attackers if their team is not in the lead. Below is an image of the squid sisters, celebrating a splatfest.
Challenges occur more often than Splatfests, but only lasts for a rotation. There are many different challenges, with different goals and quirks to make gameplay more fun. For example, there was a challenge that forced you to be on a team of 2 in tower control. Different challenges are added with each season, and you will be notified by the news cast if there is a challenge available that day.Below is an image for challenges; a pink and white tent with two arrows.
Big Run is a special mode where the salmonoids invade the city, taking over a certain map used normally for turf war. Works much like Salmon Run would, of course, but this time there are prizes available for collecting a certain amount of golden eggs, usually trophies. Green if the default trophy, then its bronze for top 50%, silver for top 20% and gold for top 5%. These prizes used to be based off of the average amount of eggs collected, but recently, Nintendo added specific numbers to get the trophy, making getting a gold trophy much easier. Below is the symbol for Big run, a purple salmonoid with pink eyes.
Eggstra work is an optional alternative to Salmon Run. Instead of the traditional 3-4 waves of Salmon Run, Eggstra work includes 5 waves that start out at the easiest difficulty and getting harder with each egg collected. Getting double the amount of eggs on a wave will increase it, along with getting halfway to double. Prizes are available for this, but you need to go into Grizzco to get it. On one of the walls will be a dashboard, and pressing a while near it reveals how well you did. Has the same prize system for Big Run. Below is the symbol for eggstra work; a medal with red and blue ribbon with a salmonoid in the center.
