The wacky, inventive weapons of Splatoon, many of which take clever inspiration from household items, have always defined the series. Splatoon 3 has more weapons than ever and introduces new tool categories to splat your opponents with. To get more of them, you’ll need Sheldon Licenses.
This Splatoon 3 guide will tell you everything you need to know about getting your hands on more Sheldon Licenses than you’ll know what to do with.
Sheldon Licenses Explained
Sheldon Licenses are a currency earned by:
- Playing multiplayer and leveling up your character.
- Increasing a weapon’s Freshness level.
Leveling Up Your Character
Every level you earn in Splatoon 3’s Turf War competitive multiplayer mode will reward you with 1 Sheldon License. You can then go to Sheldon’s shop at Ammo Knights to redeem them under “Weapons” in the menu.
Increasing Weapon Freshness
You earn or lose weapon Freshness depending on your in-game performance, but when you hit a new rating, you can no longer dip below that. Similar to how ratings work in Salmon Run. Every time you hit a new Freshness rank for a weapon, you will earn a License.
Every time you level up, Sheldon will unlock more new weapons — three per level to start. This means there will always be more options than you have Licenses for. Not until you’ve spent dozens of hours playing will you have every variant of every weapon type. But Splatoon 3 does let you try weapons before you buy them, ensuring you aren’t going to waste a Sheldon License on something you hate.
How to Try New Weapons
While you must use Sheldon Licenses to purchase new weapons for use in matches, there is a way to try out weapons you haven’t yet paid for.
Once you have reached a new Level and unlocked a new weapon (and buttoned through Sheldon’s spiel) that weapon will become available in Sheldon’s testing arena. When you are in the shop, simply press Y, and you’ll be transported to an arena with dummies, where you can try out new weapons and their corresponding loadouts.
From this arena, you can press + to change your gear. This will open up a menu of all the weapons available for purchase in the shop. You can equip any of them here (primary or special) to test them out.
That’s everything you need to know about Sheldon Licenses in Splatoon 3. For more tips on the game visit our guides hub and get a few legs up on all the other Inklings out there.
