What does increased gear Star Power do in Splatoon 3? Answered

There are a lot of systems and elements to Splatoon 3 that give players plenty of freedom to customize and improve their abilities and powers, with one of the most important being Star Power. But how does this new addition to the Splatoon series work? What does it do? How do you increase and upgrade it? In this guide, we’ll give you all the details on Star Power in Splatoon 3 and how it works so you can get back to your Turf Wars.

What does increasing Star Power do in Splatoon 3?

One of two things happens when increasing a piece of gear’s Star Power, and it is dependent on the current state of the gear you are improving. When an item has two ability slots or less (the slots that give gear their modifiers), raising its Star Power will unlock an additional slot in that piece of gear. This allows the gear to gain further abilities and increase in effectiveness.

Related: How Weapon Freshness works in Splatoon 3

Whereas when a piece of gear has all its ability slots, raising that gear’s Star Power will increase the rate it gains XP. This is however a rather small increase and isn’t considered as useful or resourceful as getting additional slots in your pieces of gear you may use in the future.

How to increase Star Power in Splatoon 3

There are two ways to increase Star Power, the first is to go to Murch and use your Super Sea Snails earned during Splatfests. This is also the only way to increase Star Power on gear not sold in shops, such as Amiibo gear. The second is to find duplicates of the chosen piece of gear in the stores Naut Couture for headgear, Man-o’-Wardrobe for tops and jackets, and Crush Station for shoes, and trade in your current version for the store. This can be costly, but the increase will be a big benefit for leveling up gear and gaining new slots.

There are a few more bonuses for increasing your gears Star Power across multiple items, namely the Brand badges. When players reach 30 stars and 100 stars respectively, they unlock cosmetic badges for that weapon or the gears brand, which they can use to customize their Splashtags.