Splatoon Raiders' Secret Boss Is a Marathon You Can Pause

Lord Saltimatum doesn’t care about your commute. Splatoon Raiders’ secret boss sits on the 100th floor of the Bottomless Buffet, and reaching him can push your playtime past 40 hours. For Switch 2 owners, though, the real win is that the fight has no time limit. That quirk turns what could be a stressful, hour-long endurance test into something you can stretch across a lunch break, a flight delay, or a late-night session in bed — and Switch 2’s suspend/resume means you can drop the console mid-tornado and pick up right where you left off.

We’ve been grinding through the Bottomless Buffet on Switch 2 — as our review called it, a portable shooter masterpiece — and the strategies for Lord Saltimatum are refreshingly handheld-friendly. The Speed Tank and an upgraded Jump Bomb give you the mobility to leap over his lasers and tornadoes, and his telegraphed explosion attack gives you more than enough time to scramble to the stage edge. No time limit means you can play defensively, which is exactly how you want to play when you’re managing battery life.

No Time Limit, No Panic: The Boss Fight That Respects Your Battery

The official guide notes that each attempt takes a while — normally a red flag for portable play. But because there’s no clock, you’re never punished for backing off, studying patterns, and waiting for the Jump Bomb’s second charge to come back. On Switch 2, the suspend feature becomes your real checkpoint: you can close the lid mid-fight and resume even if the dog needs a walk. The explosion attack at half health is the only move that demands a sprint to the edge, and the game’s trio of hosts — Shiver, Frye, or Big Man — will warn you with time to spare. That warning is a handheld player’s best friend, because it gives you a chance to interrupt a session cleanly rather than fumbling the console while Salmonids swarm.

The 100-Floor Grind: Why the Marathon Is the Real Portable Challenge

Let’s be honest: Lord Saltimatum isn’t the hardest part of Splatoon Raiders — the Pudyin Den boss fight already pushed the Switch handheld — and the 99 floors before him are the true test, packed with powerful Salmonids that demand high damage output and real commitment. For handheld players, that means the grind is a session-planning problem, not an execution problem. Switch 2’s suspend feature lets you close the lid after clearing a floor and pick up exactly where you left off, so you can chew through the Buffet in 15-minute chunks rather than a single, 20-hour sitting. And if the lure of multiplayer is strong, remember the source’s warning: co-op inflates Saltimatum’s health significantly. A longer fight is a real battery risk on the go, so our advice is to solo the boss in handheld mode and save the co-op runs for when you’re docked and plugged in. The Speed Tank and a Ferment-boosted Torqscrew are your best bets for melting both the floors and the boss’s HP — invest in those upgrades early.