Splatoon: hacked data causing Plaza crashes

NB: we usually try to avoid posting spoilers regarding upcoming content for Splatoon (either by putting a warning and hiding the spoilers after the break, or simply not posting them altogether), but this is a tad too important to be ignored, so we’re going to break that “rule” today! Please note that the issue described below isn’t too widespread (at the moment), but as the saying goes: “Better safe than sorry”.

A few weeks ago, it was found out via datamining that Octolings would soon be playable in some form in Splatoon. And very recently, a kernel exploit for the Wii U has been made public. Some people have been using it to alter their save file for the game, in order to be able to play as an Octoling.

However, you are not supposed to be able to play as an Octoling, and this can cause some issues. Playing with a player using an Octoling is just fine, and it’s when you come back to the plaza that trouble arises. Indeed, the plaza hasn’t been coded to “welcome” Octolings (right now), and it will simply crash while trying to load one… which is exactly what happens when that player using an Octoling is invited to your plaza after playing with them.

This crash can completely lock you out of the game, as the game loads the plaza automatically when you turn it on. If there’s an Octoling in there, it will crash right from the main menu. To avoid this issue, there’s several solutions:

• avoid playing online until Nintendo releases a patch (unfortunately, we don’t know if Nintendo is aware of the issue or not);
• back up your save data using a flash drive
• if you decide to keep playing online, and encounters a player using an Octoling, make sure to stay in the lobby until they leave and play one more game after that (so that they don’t appear on your plaza).

Unfortunately, we don’t know when Nintendo will release a patch to fix both the Wii U kernel exploit and the Splatoon crashes.

Source: Squidboards