Usually when the word “mess” appears in a video game review, it’s a bad sign. Splatoon Raiders is an exception to the rule. The ink-splattered Nintendo Switch 2 shooter is a mess in the most positive sense of the word. In its most pulse-pounding moments, when I’m trying to ink my way out of a Salmonid mosh pit that overtakes the screen, I feel like a kid tossing mashed potato bombs in the center of a cafeteria food fight. The sloppier the battlefield gets, the wider my devilish grin becomes.
That experience isn’t unique to Splatoon Raiders. It’s something that has drawn me to Nintendo’s multiplayer-forward Splatoon series since its Wii U debut. The simple delight of drenching arenas in colorful ink still hasn’t failed to charm me after over a decade of shootouts. As a single-player spin-off that cranks the spirit of childhood mayhem up even further, the delightfully untidy Splatoon Raiders has finally helped me pin down the series’ lasting appeal. Sometimes it’s cathartic to make a big mess that no one can tell you to clean up. Make me, loser!
Built as a single-player adventure with co-op support, Splatoon Raiders puts you in control of an Inkling dubbed The Mechanic. After getting caught up in a freak storm with Deep Cut, the Splatoon universe’s best pop band, you’re left stranded in the Spirhalite Islands, a series of landmasses inhabited by the same angry Salmonids that terrorize Splatoon 3’s Salmon Run mode — googly-eyed fish, steel snakes, mechanical dolphins, etc. That misfortune presents an opportunity: The islands are filled with valuable treasures, so you decide to set up shop rather than look for an escape. Splatoon’s wacky lore gets put to good use in collectible scrolls that tease out an economic crisis plaguing Splatsville. (And you know what happens when an Inkling goes underwater.)
The story itself is mostly just there to motivate a fun treasure hunting campaign. As The Mechanic, you’ll fight through a series of compact levels with a bot buddy that can help you take down enemy mobs while looking for loot and crafting materials. You can see shades of various Splatoon modes from the series’ past in that structure. Some stages have you fighting through linear levels with shooting and light platforming that wouldn’t feel out of place in Splatoon 3’s solo campaign. Others toss you into arenas where you need to splat waves of Salmonids and collect Power Eggs, adapting the winning PvE structure of Salmon Run to something more solo-friendly. Other challenge levels, which give you a specific loadout or toss you into a combat gauntlet centered around one enemy type, feel right out of Splatoon 2’s excellent Octo Expansion DLC. The series’ history of experimentation pays off in a single-player game that mashes several great ideas into one splattershot collage that’s still cohesive as a standalone spin-off.
All the fundamentals of Splatoon remain intact. You’re still shooting at enemies with the inky weapons you’d use in a multiplayer turf war. The terrain gets covered in blots that you can swim in to refill your ammo and evade enemies, a clever mix of action and traversal that’s still novel after all these years. Most of it cleanly translates to a single-player adventure, though not quite everything. Some weapon classes that were built for team dynamics, like Rollers and Chargers, feel ill-equipped to manage denser packs of Salmonids on their own. What’s more, only being able to keep one weapon equipped at a time feels like a restriction born from the core series that doesn’t suit a new breed of game.
And that game is a loud-and-proud looter shooter. Splatoon Raiders’ closest parallels are, surprisingly, Borderlands and Diablo: It’s a full-on action RPG where you grab piles of weapons with increasing levels, stats, and perks. Steady progression is the name of the game, as you boost your stats alongside your weapons and gradually turn a weak Inkling with a pea shooter into a one-squid wrecking machine. That means that the early hours of Splatoon Raiders can feel a little simple as you complete light, short challenges featuring a familiar cast of enemies that have barely been tweaked for a different style of game. But the chaos and challenge creep up on you throughout the 15-hour story and beyond.
The key to that success is in Splatoon Raiders’ approach to character builds, which turns the series into a more kid-friendly Outriders with a few tweaks. The Mechanic can equip one of three ink tanks at a time, each one giving them access to an array of secondary weapons that operate on cooldowns. The Tactical Tank grants access to a turret and a wind turbine, among other gadgets, while the Power Tank gets a ground-pounding fist, a spinning top of doom, and more. The early game fun comes from crafting each gadget, testing them out, and figuring out a combination that best complements your playstyle.
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