Nintendo recently announced Splatoon 3’s second post-launch Splatfest—and it’s a doozy.
To coincide with the upcoming launch of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, the event will have players choosing between the three first partner Pokémon for their team. Squid kids everywhere can choose to be part of team Grass-type, team Water-type, or team Fire-type to splat their friends and get hyped for the Pokémon launch.
In conjunction with the Splatfest, Nintendo is releasing several real-life T-shirts modeled after the event’s gear. There’s one for each team—green for Grass, blue for Water, and red for Fire—and each one features an outline of the relevant first partner Pokémon from Scarlet and Violet on the back. The Splatfest doesn’t start until Nov. 11, which is a good thing: these shirts are going to be tricky to find.
Here’s how to buy the Splatoon 3 x Pokémon Splatfest shirts.
High-effort fashion
Nintendo isn’t making these shirts available for just anyone. If you live in Japan, you’ll need to enter a lottery just to get the chance to pre-order one of the shirts. Japanese residents have until Oct. 11 to enter the lottery, after which those who are drawn will be contacted and will be able to pre-purchase a shirt. There is as yet no release date for the shirts in Japan.
The shirts won’t be much easier to get in the U.S. Nintendo has announced that all three designs will be exclusive to Nintendo NYC, the company’s brick-and-mortar U.S. store. At this time, it does not appear that the shirts will be available on the Pokémon Center or Nintendo online stores, so your only way to snag one will be to visit the NYC shop and buy one for yourself or try to get one secondhand through online retailers like eBay.
Because these shirts are so hard to obtain, they will likely be extremely expensive once they hit the resell market, so if you have to have one, ask a friend to visit the NYC store for you or try to make a trip yourself. At time of writing, it’s the only way to get your hands on one of these exclusive shirts.
