"What Are They? Can We Stop Them?" is the fourth level of the Splatoon 3 story mode Return of the Mammalians. It focuses on teaching the player how to search for and deal with enemies.
How to Access[edit]
After exiting the previous level, continue to the large drop and get rid of the Fuzzy Ooze using Smallfry. After doing this, jump of the large drop and walk towards the smaller drop. Then there is a thin path towards the Kettle.
First Checkpoint[edit]
Immediately after staring the level, you are greeted by a number of boxes blocking the entrance forwards, with the orange box on the left containing an armor pickup. After destroying these boxes, there is one Fuzzy Octotrooper in front of you. Past the Octotrooper, there is a large, rectangular area with some more Octotroopers. After approaching the second Octotrooper three barricades lift out of the ground, acting as cover. After splatting that octotrooper, the third Octotrooper rises up on a large block, with two more barricades appearing at the side of the platform. Upon splatting the Octotrooper by climbing up the block, six more blocks appear from the ground, making it harder to battle the remaining three octotroopers. Defeating the remaining three Octotroopers, or by simply passing them, causes a platform attached to grates tilts downwards, giving you the high ground above four Octotroopers circling a block. There are two main ways to defeat all the Octotroopers, you can either throw Smallfry in the middle of them, on the block, distracting them and allowing you to shoot them, or if you have charged your Splashdown you can use it in the middle of the block to splat all of them. Either way, splatting all of them causes the block in the middle to rise up, allowing you to reach the higher up platform.
Final Checkpoint[edit]
The second checkpoint starts with a narrow pathway that leads to a square platform with 8 blocks, with two being near the edges of the platform directly in front of you, and then two rows of three behind them. There are six Fuzzy Octotroopers scattered around the stage, and can be splatted in this order: the one behind the bottom left block, the one behind the top left block, the one behind the top middle block, the one behind the top right block,the one behind the left middle block, and the one behind the bottom right block. Splatting all the Octotroopers causes each of the eight blocks to rise up to a higher platform, with four Octotroopers on them. You are not required to splat them, so if you want you can ignore them and head towards the zapfish.