For a series built on multiplayer, Splatoon Raiders is a decidedly single-player experience.
Yes, you can play through levels with friends or dive in to assist random players who ask for help but, at its core, this is a game built for lone wolves.
I’ve been a fan of Splatoon since Nintendo’s Wii U days. I’ve played through every campaign and expansion; and while many levels and bosses rival the quality of the Super Mario Galaxy games, the campaigns often felt like a “nice to have” rather than a must play.
I sat down to play a few hours of the game at Nintendo’s headquarters in Melbourne last week and while I really liked what I played, I didn’t get enough of a sense of how its story progresses to be convinced it’s a home run.
Everything is customisable
The “hook” to Splatoon Raiders is customisation and modification.
Without the need to balance every weapon for competitive matches, the creators have gone nuts with ways to modify your stats, perks, weapons, specials, ink tanks, home base and companions. There are more than 100 weapon variations alone and swapping between Power, Speed and Tactical ink tanks drastically changes your special and the way you should approach battles.
Combat has never looked this colourful, fast or overwhelming in a Splatoon before. It’s incredible.
It’s also a lot to wrap your head around but Raiders did a solid job of drip feeding me new ideas to start.
I got to play the opening 45 minutes, some later levels for another 45 minutes and had the chance to tackle some raids co-operatively with other media at the session.
Splatoon 3.5?
At first blush, it looks a lot like Splatoon 3. This isn’t some generational leap in the graphics department.
The game is certainly sharper and smoother (I think it’s getting close to 4K with upscaling) but textures like the wood at your home base or the leaves of trees can appear bland and flat when the camera pushes in, which is a disappointing debut on Nintendo’s much more powerful Switch 2.
Similarly, the campaign falls back on a classic mission structure. I wasn’t expecting this “budget” title to go full open world (it has an RRP of $99.95 AUD compared to $119.95 for the upcoming Fire Emblem Fortune’s Weave) but I was hoping for something a little more involved than selecting a mission on a map and being ‘yeeted’ to smaller, self-contained levels by a giant crane (charming as it is).
You play as the mechanic; who was hired to pilot a plane full of music stars on a treasure hunt.
You crash, set up base and agree to help Deep Cut (who fans will recognise from Splatoon 3) track down as much treasure as possible before returning home.
Familiar foes
The islands are crawling with Salmonids, a species of enemy that until now had been contained to Splatoon’s horde modes. Many of the standard and boss enemies from Salmon Run feature, but there are new enemy types, including tougher “Seasoned Salmonids” who are literally covered in salt. The salty they are, the tougher they are to take down.
Their designs are great, as is the moment-to-moment gameplay which feels as good as ever.
On top of Splatoon’s pristine shooting and swimming mechanics, Raiders adds surfboards to ride between islands, plants to extend your jumps and a robot companion who can shoot you sky high if you call it over to jump off its head.
We were told to play on normal difficulty (Raider) but there’s an easy (Tourist) and hard mode (Survivalist) for those looking to tweak the challenge. It’s the first time Splatoon has offered options to change difficulty settings, which speaks to how customisable Raiders is compared to its counterparts.
Play solo or with friends!
If you play with friends, enemies get tougher too. How much harder is a little ambiguous. Your team shares a pool of lives though and when that hits zero it’s an instant game over. I was genuinely confused when we all got booted out of a challenge because one of my companions got splatted. If you have a little sibling or an inexperienced friend playing with you, they alone could tank your entire run. Personally, I would have preferred fewer lives if each player got to continue fighting until they were overwhelmed.
I didn’t get to try GameChat (not that there appears to be any camera tricks like in the recently excellent Star Fox) or get to respond to another player’s call for help. I’m told there are special rewards waiting for those who jump in to help random players overcome obstacles which is neat.
Ultimately, single player games live and die by story, variety and mechanics. From the little I played, Nintendo appears to have nailed the mechanics of a fleshed out RPG system in Splatoon Raiders but I’d need to play more before recommending the game over Splatoon 3.
Splatoon Raiders arrives on the Nintendo Switch 2 on July 23.
