| “ | That form... But they were said to have been destroyed so long ago. It's...HUMAN!! | ” |
— Cap'n Cuttlefish, Turf War
|
The NILS Statue (ネルス像 Nerusu-zō , lit. Nels Statue?) is a giant statue created by a human professor, 12,000 years before the events of Splatoon 2, Commander Tartar attempts to use the statue as a weapon to destroy life across the world.
History[]
Octo Expansion[]
The NILS Statue is the location of Turf War, the final mission of the Octo Expansion. Agent 8 must completely cover the statue in ink using Marina's hyperbombs to prevent it from charging a large cannon in its mouth. When they succeed, the cannon fires anyway, and Pearl uses the Princess Cannon to intercept its beam and destroy the statue, sinking it.
Final Splatfest[]
The NILS Statue appears in the background of MC.Princess Diaries, the final Shifty Station used for Chaos vs. Order. Here, it is revealed that the statue has partially sunk into the sea, where various jellyfish study it and its destroyed cannon.
Gameplay[]
The player has three minutes to shoot the hyperbombs Marina drops onto the NILS Statue and stop Commander Tartar from destroying Inkopolis. The hyperbombs are added to different locations on the statue and first appear after a certain amount of time has passed. These are as follows:
At 3:00, five hyperbombs in light blue will drop at the chest area of the statue. At 2:30, five hyperbombs in green will drop at the neck. At 2:00, five hyperbombs in yellow will drop at the back. At 1:30, five hyperbombs in pink will drop at the right arm. At 1:00, ten hyperbombs in dark blue will drop at the head.
Due to the statue's sheer size, the map of the stage is displayed on the screen during the battle, the Hyperbomb locations are marked on the map as they are dropped and can be seen through walls, and a tally of the hyperbombs that have been activated is listed so the player can keep track of how many are left.
If the player gets splatted or fails to detonate all of the hyperbombs in time, an image of Inkopolis getting destroyed by the laser is shown. Then, the option to skip the final boss battle becomes instantly available, filling the Skip Charge to 100%, where the following dialogue will be displayed if the player skips:
"Agent 8 covered the massive weaponized statue in ink...". This does not prevent the player from getting the Octo Shot Replica, playable Octolings or the Inner Agent 3 fight.
Splatoon 2's Boss demonstration[]
Trivia[]
- The cannon in the mouth of the NILS Statue includes several blenders that resemble the one created by the thangs that Agent 8 and Cap'n Craig Cuttlefish stepped inside.
- With its extremely large size and location off the coast of a major city, it may also be a reference to the Statue of Liberty. If so, it parallels the use of the Statue of Liberty as a representation of a past human civilization seen in the film Planet of the Apes.
- If one looks through the glass on the base of the weapon, an Octoball can be seen floating around inside. They can also be seen flying out of the Statue once the Princess Cannon strikes it.
- The term "nil" means zero. This is likely a reference to Tartar's goal to destroy all life.
- The statue bears a striking resemblance to the head of the statue seen on the cover of Floral Shoppe by Macintosh Plus, a composer that specializes in vaporwave music, similar to the music played in Octo Expansion stages.
- According the the Octo Expansion artbook, the NILS statue is in fact the shell of a very large Sanitized Octarian whose body made up the prior Phases of the Escape Sequence.
- The NILS Statue can also been seen in Splatoon 3, partially submerged in the sea at Hammerhead Bridge.