Splatoon is noteworthy for being Nintendo’s most successful new franchise created in the 21st century. The original title was released on the doomed Wii U console back in 2015 and, despite this, went on to spawn two sequels and star a character in Smash Bros. Ultimate. Now, in Splatoon Raiders, it has its first single-player-focused spin-off.
Splatoon Raiders for the Switch 2 blends the core tenets of Splatoon, shooting ink to defeat enemies and cover the ground in traversable paint, with all the conventions of a looter-shooter. The idol pop group from Splatoon 3, Deep Cut, are stranded on the Spirhalite Islands after their helicopter crashes in a storm. You play as their pilot, called simply “The Mechanic”, and your mission is to embark on raids to various islands, clearing out the monstrous Salmonids, collecting Spirhalite Shards, weapons, gadgets, and treasure, and slowly uncovering the mysteries at the eye of the storm.
Splatoon Raiders quickly establishes an addictive loop, familiar to anyone who has played the likes of Borderlands or Destiny 2. Embarking on raids, you will gain different weapons and resources, which can be scrapped or spent to develop new gadgets and upgrade your Hideout Ship home base. Your character levels up through combat, but over time so do your special abilities and even your ink tank.
There are three types of ink tanks: Speed, Power, and Tactical. Each of these has its own selection of gadgets, which are essentially special abilities with cooldowns. Speed Tank gadgets prioritise mobility and evasion, whereas the Power Tank offers gadgets that deal huge defensive and often close-quarters damage. Finally, the Tactical Tank allows you to play the game like a tower defence lite, deploying turrets and other positional gadgets.
This game is just fun, plain and simple. Sure, you can boil the core conceit down to being about the joys of watching various numbers go up, but the distinct vibe and personality of Splatoon, with all its colour, wacky enemy designs and borderline experimental soundtrack, kept me coming back again and again.
Indeed, I played well past the initial ending of the game. Through 100 floors of the post-game dungeon called “The Bottomless Buffet”, where I engaged fully with the online multiplayer. Throughout the main campaign there are systems to allow you to call other players for help if you’re struggling with a particular level or to help someone else out for a bonus reward. In the post-game, however, I needed more consistent assistance.
Creating a multiplayer room or joining an existing one was super easy, and despite not saying a word to a single other person online, I had a blast completing every level on the hardest difficulty, collecting everything and unlocking every outfit. Normally I would need the promise of a platinum trophy to get me to spend quite so much time playing a game post-credits, but with Splatoon Raiders I continued having fun well past that point, despite having a fully upgraded weapon and being 20+ levels beyond the soft cap, where stat increases become miniscule.
The bottom line is, whether you’ve played a bunch of online-only Splatoon in the first three games or always liked the series’ vibe but don’t like playing with other people, Splatoon Raiders inks the perfect middle ground. With super fun and unique paint-shooting gameplay, a plethora of abilities and weapons to unlock and muck around with, and a huge amount of levels and post-game content to churn through, Splatoon Raiders splattered my expectations of what a spin-off can be.
Rating: 8.5/10
Splatoon Raiders was reviewed on Switch 2 with a code provided by Nintendo.