---
title: "Waving Goodbye: The Start of Splatoon's ''Great Retirement''"
date: 2026-01-15
author:
   - name: YELLOW
     link: https://sendou.ink/u/great-hero-yellow
---


# **Waving Goodbye: The Start of Splatoon's "Great Retirement"**

*Riptide 2025 was just the start to a wave of top-level Competitive Splatoon players stepping back from the scene*

<img width="1200" height="620" alt="WavingGoodbye" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/f79bba05-b88c-4f04-8fec-8334c82fc58b" />

In recent months, as major tournaments have come and gone, we’ve seen a wave of Splatoon 3’s top players taking a step back from the scene, in what the community is beginning to call “the great retirement”. What causes someone who has invested so much time into the scene to decide it’s time to part ways? 

Every tier of competitive play will have players from a wide range of experience–not every top level player has been playing since 2015, and not every low-level has been playing for less than a year.

Regardless of their longevity with the series, each player needs to consider their own well-being, and sometimes the answer has to be stepping away for an indefinite amount of time. 

In the best case scenario, players are taking a step back out of a sense of fulfillment from their journey; no one wants to hear that someone is forced from something they have passion for due to health concerns.

Two events in particular have played a key part in this sendoff: Riptide 2025 and the Splatoon 3 North American League. Both took place in September 2025 (in the case of the North American League, it began in September and continued into December).

To focus on Riptide first, its significance is easy to understand: as a LAN event (and the biggest one in North America), a chance to see your friends in-person adds more sentiment and resolution to having a “one last hurrah” before going away. 

Two top-level players in the competitive scene have used Riptide 2025 as their final event in their career, for an indefinite amount of time: Hypernova’s Lexi, and FTWin’s Burstie. Following the LAN, another player used his Riptide retrospective to realize it was time to take a deeper look into his feelings about the game: ProChara.

## **1\. Lexi (Hypernova)**

Lexi was one of the players who helped bring about the revival of Hypernova, along with Synapse, Henlo, and Datkid, competing with the team in events such as Splat World Series, SendouQ Season 7 Finale, FREEDOM DiVE, Barnacle Bash, and Riptide. Riptide 2025 was her last tournament with Hypernova.

Her hiatus was not a surprise to her teammates; in a [BEEP interview with Synapse](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wgVOOMwMhFLngFOCvMc1aF_79c4F3gBCwA5yI76caWQ/edit), Hypernova’s team captain, on August 31, 2025, Synapse confirmed the fact, saying, “Before the Splat World Series happened, Lexi did tell us that she was planning to step back from Splatoon entirely after the event (although she is going to Riptide)”. 

<img width="1919" height="1079" alt="HypernovaScreenshot" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/2361a489-80ad-4115-ae82-b5129f09c987" />

*Screenshot of Hypernova from IPL’s Splat World Series: REWOUND \- Takoyaki Party vs. Hypernova video.*

We talked with Lexi about why she chose Riptide as her last event with Hypernova and the reason behind the break. 

Prior to attending Riptide, her fondness towards Splatoon 3 was dwindling, specifically calling out how “the game started feeling stale and unfun” and “there are other games out there that are just way more appealing to me” as reasons for no longer competing.

This sentiment is one that other retiring players frequently quote as their reasoning behind stepping away. As the game updates less and less, existing problems rankle, and as weeks pass by, new and exciting other prospects open up. That’s just life: out with the old, in with the new.

Despite those negative feelings, Lexi still went with Hypernova to the LAN, for two specific reasons: 

> I was already starting to be done with the game before Riptide, but LANs are super fun and Riptide is always one I wanted to go to, so I decided to play it even though I didn’t really like Splatoon. The environment made me love the game but playing it online didn’t feel good, so I stopped.

The LAN effect is palpable; if you’ve ever asked anyone who has attended a Splatoon LAN, they will spare no details about how life-changing and thrilling the event was. It’s not just about seeing your friends in-person, but also all of your opponents, and fans enthusiastic about other aspects of Splatoon besides competing. 

It also removes many of the least-liked aspects of Splatoon’s online gameplay: lacking communication options, random teammates with questionable motivations, wait times, unreliable internet, unfair matchmaking… 

Once Riptide concluded, it was unclear how long Lexi’s hiatus would last; as Synapse put it in his BEEP interview, at the time it seemed like it would be “for the foreseeable future”. 

However, we happened to reach out to Lexi at a coincidental time, as she hinted that she may pick up Splatoon again to prepare for the next LAN major, MomoCon, which will be taking place in late May 2026\.

In case the note isn’t clear enough: if you have the opportunity to go to a LAN, take it\!

## **2\. Burstie (FTWin)**

Burstie has played on and off with FTWin since 2018, participating in numerous major events such as The Squid House, Splatoon 2 Inkopolis Showdown \#4, Splatoon 3 Enter the Splatlands Invitational 2022, Splat World Series, a handful of SendouQ Season Finales, and Riptide. 

Like Lexi, Burstie’s last event with FTWin for the foreseeable future was Riptide 2025\. FTWin’s socials announced that Burstie was on hiatus but did not mention why.

This was not Burstie’s first break from competition; we reached out to him to get more about his decision to step away again, and why Riptide 2025 was his last tournament. In his words: “Yeah my last event was going to be Riptide 2025 whether we won or lost. At that point I was too burned out with the game so even if we won it wouldn’t really have changed my decision.”

Burnout is perhaps the most common cause for players to take time away from Splatoon–feeling too stressed, overworked, and not enjoying the time playing the game are things that happen to players of all skill levels. Taking a break is one of the easiest and most effective ways of resolving burnout. 

But burnout isn’t the full story for Burstie’s reasoning behind his leave.

<img width="506" height="675" alt="FTWinBanner" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/c0f65505-ab53-448b-ad60-8530a25bfe58" />

*FTWin’s team portrait, from left to right, top to bottom: sam, 200N, Shak, Hexen, \[K\]yo, Biscuit, and Burstie, created by [@azaleaspl.bsky.social](https://bsky.app/profile/azaleaspl.bsky.social).*

Another hurdle of competitive gameplay is mentality. As Burstie said to us, “I decided to take a break from the game for a bunch of different reasons, all sort of related to my mentality.” He elaborated: 

> I’ve always been too hard on myself and try to take a lot of the blame for losses. \[...\] The pressure to improve more individually made every loss feel a lot more personal and I ended up getting more frustrated than usual. All of these things together created a really bad cycle \[...\] 

> This mentality is really bad to have and the only way it could be avoided was to win. So once I realized that I knew that even if we won Riptide, the cycle would just repeat the next time we lost, and so I decided to take a break.

As an audience, we may find ourselves looking at top level players and believing that because they are among the best, they have to have everything “figured out”. We can’t forget that every one of us is human, and no one is above burnout, frustration, or stress, even over a silly, colorful game that we all have a great deal of passion for. 

Being able to identify the cause of such unhappiness and take action to resolve it is not easy, but in order to put oneself in a better, healthier state, it’s necessary, and commendable. 

## **ProChara (Moonlight \[Coach\], Last Resort)**

Best known as the coach for top-level team Moonlight and member of former teams Last Resort and Prophecy, and YouTube channel of the same name, ProChara committed to a break from content creation and competition following Riptide 2025\. 

Some big events he has participated in include numerous In The Zone and Area Cup tournaments, The Big House, The Squid House, LUTI Season 16 Div X, and the one he considers his greatest achievement, the Splatoon 2 North America Inkling Open 2019 at PAX EAST.

Upon returning from hiatus, he uploaded a video titled, “[I'm Back (And Retiring From Competitive Splatoon)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNHtNuld3jg)”, where he detailed his competitive journey since 2016, leading up to his decision. He doesn’t like calling it a “retirement”–it’s not guaranteed that he’ll stop competing altogether, though the likelihood of returning is very low. 

As the video detailed, his main motivation throughout his journey has been because he “enjoyed the spirit of improving” and wanted to make it back to the highest stage of Splatoon gaming. 

Experiencing decreasing levels of investment in the game, he expected Riptide to fix that–being a large, exciting LAN surrounded by friends. What happened instead, after trying to play the game following Riptide, he “felt nothing”. 

<img width="651" height="675" alt="CharaRetirementBsky" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/4195f3cf-7172-482f-8784-a28b49ab29f6" />

*A Bluesky post from [@prochara.bsky.social](https://bsky.app/profile/prochara.bsky.social/post/3m65r4rwzvk2c) dated November 21, 2025, where he announced his return to content creation and hiatus from competitive play.*

His video had an excellent retrospective about the situation he found himself in: 

> And I started to understand what I was feeling. It wasn’t a problem with the game–I’m not saying the game is perfect; I’ve dealt with Stingray era, this is nothing. I started to notice, I had the feeling of satisfaction. What once used to be a result that I felt the need to get back to, to get back to NA championships, to get back to Worlds, I instead just felt proud of myself. \[...\]

> And then I was similarly proud of my results, y’know, earlier this year. I had fallen off, I had struggled, I pulled myself out of it, and I proved to myself that I could succeed. But as soon as I did that, that was the last thing I felt I needed to prove to myself. 

> I no longer had something that I really cared to strive for as much; instead I am simply happy and content with the accomplishments that I already have. Which isn’t a bad thing; I think it’s a really great mental spot that I’m at, but that mental spot also killed my drive to seek for anything more.

Increasing concerns about wrist pains and wanting to do other things also contributed to him no longer competing. He still plans to keep up with his YouTube channel, stay involved with the Splatoon community, and coach Moonlight. 

His video concluded with his hopes that fans will engage with different players, teams, and community members. Splatoon fans are numerous, and there is no better time to start creating or engaging with different content than the present\! 

## **Rumors of More to Come…**

Riptide 2025 took place between September 5 \- 7, and two weeks after that began the Splatoon 3 North American League, running from September 20 to December 14\. The official Nintendo event promised hours of runtime, open to *anybody* who registered with a team on Battlefy, and easily accessible to viewers to watch live on YouTube.

But what it promised was perhaps… *too* many hours.

Halfway through the NA League, \[K\]yo, captain of one of the longest-running and highest-achieving Competitive Splatoon teams in the West, FTWin, remarked on social media that, “The great retirement is soon upon us”, in response to others hinting that once the NA League ended, there would be a wave of players retiring. 

<img width="439" height="605" alt="KyoRetirementTwitter" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/526b6f87-fad4-4023-9faa-97469d772744" />

*A Twitter post from [@KyochaNDxD](https://x.com/KyochaNDxD/status/1984823442391052794) with an image of a hare pointing at a pocket watch with the caption, “The great retirement is soon upon us”, from November 1, 2025\.*

This post lit a spark in the community, with folks calling what would soon come, “the great retirement”, as Riptide 2025 would only be the beginning. 

A healthy mentality is critical when competing, and when paired with excessive strain on the body, drives players closer to burnout and physical pain. Those causes are among the highest calls for hiatus from players, prioritizing themselves over competing. Second is finding the game is no longer fun or engaging, feeling stale or chore-like.

Another major reason that players tend to take a break is due to life changes, whether it be a new job, entering or graduating school, moving, or more. 

As the Splatoon 3 North American League closed, as \[K\]yo predicted, we have seen a wave of players announcing their hiatus. We’ve reached out to a handful to get their story behind their decision to take a break. Keep an eye out for the follow up\!


Original Posting Date: January 15, 2026 at [BEEP News](https://www.splatoonstronghold.com/beep-news/waving-goodbye-the-start-of-splatoons-great-retirement)

Published by: [Broadcasting Esports, Every Play](https://bsky.app/profile/broadcastbeep.com).

Written and formatted for publication by [YELLOW](https://bsky.app/profile/great-hero-yellow.bsky.social).
