Palette

A Palette, with color chips

Palettes are a feature in Side Order. They were first shown during the Nintendo Direct on 14 September 2023, specifically during the Side Order trailer.

Appearance

Palettes are large, thin, white Launchpad-like controller panels with 36 color chip inserts in place of where a Launchpad's buttons would be. They also somewhat resemble eye shadow palettes.

Palettes have a large button alongside two smaller twistable toggles in their upper left-hand corner; a logo with an infinity symbol can be seen on the large button. A thin, long black interface screen is also present. On the far right side of this surface screen, a small pixel depiction of the Palette's owner can be seen.

Functionality

A Palette is a form of skill tree which upgrades Agent 8's abilities, similar to Agent 3's Hero Gear in Return of the Mammalians. Palettes are adjustable to the player's preferred stats via placing different color chips inside them; when progressing through the Spire of Order one Floor at a time, players must choose between three Floor options which each reward different color chips. Up to 36 color chips can be placed inside a Palette, leaving the player to decide how to build their Agent 8's stats. Should the player get more than 36 color chips, the extras are converted into Prlz.

Each Palette contains an assigned main weapon, sub weapon, and special weapon, as well as primary and secondary common tone color chip affinities (affected by the Color-Chip Bias hack), with Pearl's Palette being the default. A Palette's sub and special weapons can be swapped out at vending machines, albeit limited to what that vending machine is offering. Additionally, certain color chips only appear when equipping certain Palettes.

Favored color chip rate

Color-Chip Bias	Common Tones
	Primary	Secondary
Default	1×	1×
Slight Bias	2×	1.5×
High Bias	3×	2×

Each Palette is said to be tied to their respective owner's soul, and as such, Marina fears any influence on a Palette could have real-world consequences. By completing a run with that Palette with a terminal found on 30F, Marina can sever any lasting ties to the Memverse that may have lingered, as well as create a replica of that Palette's weapon for use in multiplayer battles.

To unlock more Palettes, players must win Keys from defeating bosses at 10F, 20F, and 30F with any Palette for the first time, then use the obtained Keys to open lockers, which are always in sequential order. Locker cubbies with Palettes are noted by a pulsating ring, and always show the next two cubbies that contain Palettes. The fourth through eleventh Palettes acquired are randomized. It eventually takes more Keys to reach new Palettes, with the very last Palette, Eight's Palette, located in the very last cubby. Once the last cubby is unlocked, the Lockers transform and reconfigure themselves into Eight's Palette.

In the Order Sector square and the foyer, Palettes can be freely changed by pressing . Once Eight enters the elevator and begins a run, they are locked to their currently equipped Palette for the entirety of that run.

Palettes

Main article: List of Palettes in Side Order

Eight's Palette

Eight's Palette has a secondary effect that limits the number of color chips it can equip in relation to the number of Marina's hacks that are currently enabled. The Risky Rewards hack does not count towards the limit. Once the color chip limit is reached, floors grant Prlz like if the Palette was fully filled. Completing a run with four or fewer hacks unlocks a badge for the player's Splashtag.

Hacks	Max color chips
0	36
1	30
2	24
3	18
4	12
5 or more	6

Using Eight's Palette also adds a Skip Floor option in the Spire, which allows for non-boss floors to be skipped at the cost of  100 for floors 1F through 9F,  500 for floors 11F through 19F, and  1000 for floors 21F through 29F.

Universal chip abilities

The following color chips can be obtained using any palette:

Exclusive chip abilities

The following color chips can only be obtained when using certain palettes:

Color chip	Palette
	Pearl	Marina	Agent 4	Callie	Marie	Shiver	Frye	Big Man	Murch	Sheldon	DJ Octavio	Eight
Main Firing Speed	✓	✓	✓	✓	✗	✗	✗	✓	✓	✓	✗	✓
Horizontal-Slash Speed	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✓	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗
Splatling Barrage	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✓	✗
Knockback	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✗	✓	✓	✓
Shot-Spread Reduction	✓	✓	✓	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✓	✗	✓	✓
Quick Charge	✗	✗	✗	✗	✓	✓	✓	✗	✗	✗	✓	✗
No-Launch Brella	✗	✓	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗
Brella Cooldown	✗	✓	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗
Midfire Charge	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✓	✗
Main Piercing	✓	✓	✓	✓	✗	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Main Ink Coverage	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✗	✓	✓	✓
Rush Ink Coverage	✗	✓	✗	✓	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✓	✗	✗
Moving Ink Speed	✗	✗	✗	✓	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✓	✗	✗
Extra Dodge Roll	✓	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗
Charge Storage	✗	✗	✗	✗	✓	✓	✗	✗	✗	✗	✓	✗
Dodge Roll Attack	✓	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗
Lunge Attack	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✓	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗

Musical Easter egg

Much like real-life Launchpads and similar controllers, Palettes can be used like a musical instrument via playing samples: when highlighting an individual color chip in the Palette menu screen, pressing or tapping the Nintendo Switch's screen in Handheld Mode makes the chips perform miscellaneous sounds. The entire current assortment of inserted color chips can be used to make sounds at the player's whim. The Palette menu is available both during Floor Selection and when pausing the game during individual Floor gameplay.

Each chip, even those within the same tone, creates a different sound. There are 18 possible sounds available during regular climbs. Power-tone, Mobility-tone and Drone-tone chips make percussion sounds, while Range-tone, Support-tone and Lucky-tone chips make synth sounds. Some of these chips have samples from songs featured in the Octo Expansion, such as the chanting from Nasty Majesty, and the synth from the station clear jingle.

During the final phase of the first Overlorder boss fight, Agent 8's palette configuration is replaced with Spectrum chips which uniquely mimic Ebb & Flow when played in a certain order, regardless of the order in which the player obtains the chips.

• Demonstration of all 18 possible chip sounds (link to file)

• Demonstration of the special Spectrum chips' unique notes available only during the first Overlorder battle mimicking Ebb & Flow (link to file)

Quotes

“	Here (wherever "here" is in Side Order) you can see a color chip being placed into a Palette device to give Agent 8 an edge in combat. Color chips can do all kinds of things for you, like boosting your damage, widening your area of effect, quickening your steps, and more. The SRL Color Guard recommends factoring in which color chip is on offer before selecting a floor layout. It's up to each player to decide the best way to develop your Palette over time. The Color Guard likes green, but you do you.	”
— @SplatoonNA on Twitter

View the quotation page.

Gallery

• 

  Render

• 

  Render, with color chips

• 

  Pearl's Palette

• 

  Agent 8 using a Palette, holding a color chip

• 

  Agent 8 using a Palette

• 

  Pearl's icon highlighted on her Palette

• 

  Obtaining Eight's Palette

Promotional videos

• Agent 8 approaching a locker leading to a weapon equip screen in the Square (link to file)

Trivia

• The trailer for Side Order shown in the Nintendo Direct on 14 September 2023 appears to show an oddity with color chips on the palette: the palette overview shows a single Run Speed Up color chip as the latest chip before the player selects a floor, though upon selecting the floor shows Agent 8 is seen re-inserting said Run Speed Up chip instead of adding a new one. The Run Speed Up color chip in the Palette menu is also not acting as a preview of the chip to be gained, as the menu appears while highlighting a floor which awards a Splash Damage chip. It is currently unknown whether this is an intended mechanic or a mistake in the trailer.
• The touchscreen functionality of the Palette's musical easter egg marks the first instance of such functionality in a Splatoon series game outside of posting since the original Splatoon.
• Agent 4 and Eight's Palettes share similarities, possibly referencing their statuses as playable Agents:
  • Their respective weapons, the Order Shot and Octo Shot, are both derivatives of the Splattershot and functionally identical.
  • The black screens on their Palettes share the same background gradient, and the pixels to the right are the same shade of green.
• The Memverse determines which weapon each Palette has based on the weapon the character uses, the weapon they would like to use, or the weapon that would suit them.

Etymology

Palette likely comes from "color palette", which is a thin board or slab on which a painter lays and mixes colors. It can also mean a range of colors available to an user of a computer or in a make-up kit. Both options reference how the color chips used on a Palette affect the coloration of Agent 8's hair and ink color.

Names in other languages

Palette

Language	Name	Meaning
Japanese	パレット Paretto	Palette
Dutch	Palet	Palette
French	Palette	-
German	Palette	-
Italian	Tavoletta	Board
Russian	Тон-бокс Ton-boks	Tone box
Spanish	Paleta	Palette
Chinese (Simplified)	调色盘 Tiáo sè pán	Palette

[Character]'s Palette

Language	Name	Meaning
Dutch	[Personage]s palet / [Personage]'s palet	[Character]'s Palette
French	Palette de [personnage] / Palette d'[personnage]	[Character]'s Palette
German	Palette von [Charakter]	[Character]'s Palette
Italian	Tavoletta di [personaggio]	[Character]'s Palette
Russian	Тон-бокс [персонажа] Ton-boks [personazha]	[Character]'s tone box
Spanish	Paleta de [Character]	[Character]'s Palette
Chinese (Simplified)	[角色名]的调色盘 [Juésè míng] de tiáosèpán	[Character]'s Palette