While the colourful explosions and ink blasting spectacle are instantly recognisable, Splatoon Raiders marks a significant diversion from the shooter series’ competitive multiplayer roots. Instead of firing ink at each other, you’ll undergo repeatable raids across a mysterious group of islands in a spin-off which blends exploration, long-term progression, and single player action into a swashbuckling adventure that still feels unmistakably Splatoon. Whether you’re a longtime fan looking for a change of pace or a newcomer looking to jump right in, here are fifteen things you need to know before buying Splatoon Raiders.
A Single-Player Focused Splatoon Spin-Off
Rather than retintroducing the series’ multiplayer-centric carnage, Splatoon Raiders brings a story-driven adventure to the fore, building on the single-player expansions of earlier titles by offering more equipment and fresh gameplay tweaks. In Splatoon Raiders, you’ll embark on repeatable expeditions centred around exploration, combat, and recovering valuable loot, marking a noticeably different spin on Nintendo’s colourful shooter series.
Set in the Spirhalite Islands
Splatoon Raiders whisks you to the previously unseen Spirhalite Islands, an enigmatic archipelago made of bio-diverse environments and vertically-explorable terrain, both into the air and underground. Perhaps not as vivid overall as the Splatlands, the Spirhalites still showcase a raft of environments, from tropical shorelines and fog-strewn hills, to jagged islets surrounded by lava. Home to the returning Salmonids, you’ll blast through their aggressive swarm across each location, all while platforming, solving environmental puzzles, and scouring the land for treasure.
Raid-Based Gameplay
While some early previews have compared Splatoon Raiders to roguelikes and extraction shooters, Nintendo instead stands firm that this is a single-player-focused action shooter. See, each trip across the Spirhalite Islands revolves around battling enemies, gathering resources, and scavenging valuable loot before returning to base for crafting, upgrades, and next-run preparation. It’s a familiar structure which borrows ideas from both genres without fitting neatly into either.
You Play as a Mechanic
Rather than donning the tank of a familiar Inkling, you’ll assume command of a mechanic hired by musical trio Deep Cut. After a mysterious light forces your journey into an emergency landing, your skills as an expert tinkerer become key to making your forced stay on the archipelago more comfortable. At the behest of your employers, you’ll hunt for treasure, relics, and other goodies, all while uncovering the islands’ secrets and ultimately finding a way home.
Playable Solo or Co-op
While Splatoon Raiders’ story-driven missions have been designed to accommodate solo players, raids can also be tackled with up to three friends in four-player co-op. You can even recruit teammates through online matchmaking before beginning an expedition, unlocking valuable extra loot if you’re the one who opts to help another. However, when in solo, a member of Deep Cut pilots the Exploration Bot, a micro-mech-of-sorts that’ll shoot alongside you, ensuring that even in single player you aren’t alone.
Three Difficulty Options
Splatoon Raiders offers three difficulty settings: Tourist, Raider, and Survivalist, covering you if you’re a newcomer, you’re simply looking to experience the story, or if you crave a sterner test of your skills. Crucially, as per Splatoon Raiders’ direct presentation, the available loot will remain the same regardless of which difficulty option you choose, with the primary difference being increasingly dangerous Salmonid encounters.
Splatoon’s Classic Ink Mechanics Return
Despite the all-new location, if you’re already a fan of the series you’ll feel right at home thanks to the return of Splatoon’s signature movement mechanics. Moving through ink in swim form, rapidly scaling ink-covered walls, and refilling tanks with spent ink all remain just as important as keeping your trigger finger pressed.
Over One-Hundred Weapon Variations
Splatoon Raiders features more than one-hundred weapon variations to choose from, each coming with ascending rarities and levels. Some Salmonids will drop a collectable weapon on defeat, while the rarest finds can possess unique special abilities that offer more than shot power or blast radius improvements. Interestingly, weapon designs appear cobbled together from washed up detritus, adding to the sense you’re marooned on some far-off islands.
Tanks are Customisable
Tanks aren’t just ink-filled backpacks but wearable armouries that can be customised with gadgets, relic powers, and other enhancements, allowing you to tailor its capabilities to suit your preferred playstyle. Gadgets, specifically, are devices trained to deal with Salmonid hordes, and two can be fitted at a time. Their abilities range from ink exploding dashes and homing spinwheel attacks, to ink-firing defensive turrets, and more. Relics are equip-able passive powers, and like gadgets are exclusive to the three distinct tank-types: Speed, Power, and Tactical.
Weapons and Salvage Kept in Defeat
Even unsuccessful expeditions prove themselves worthwhile as salvage and other spoils collected during raids are still retained after defeat. Downing Salmonids is how you’ll gain experience points for leveling up, while collected resources can be invested at the Mechanic’s Shack back at base to upgrade your tank’s attack power, gadget damage, overall HP, and more.
Tanks Get Stronger as You Use Them
Your tanks also develop passively over time, with the number of Power Eggs recovered in battle feeding directly into a meter that boosts your tank’s capability, and unlocks additional upgrades once certain thresholds are passed. Because this sits alongside the game’s semi-risk-free design, where even items and progress recovered by digging deep into unfathomable sub-levels are kept, there’s a real sense of long-term progression and planning. Progression extends beyond simply collecting stronger weapons; investing in your preferred loadout is encouraged.
Cosmetics Unlocked Through Challenges and Amiibo
If you’re looking to personalise the appearance of the mechanic and the rest of the Deep Cut trio, you won’t be short of options. Exploring the islands unlocks all sorts of outfits through regular play, while compatible Splatoon Amiibo, including the new Splatoon Raiders figures, give you access to matching outfits and additional cosmetics.
An Accessible Entry Point
Even if you’ve never dabbled in Splatoon before, Raiders marks an accessible place to start. Its standalone premise means you don’t need prior knowledge of previous entries, while its simple controls, raid-based focus on exploration, and co-operative play offers a unique experience away from the competitive multiplayer loop of the series’ mainline titles.
Early Previews Suggest Co-Op Is Where Splatoon Raiders Shines
Despite Splatoon Raiders being moulded around a single-player experience, early hands-on impressions suggest that the game’s co-operative modes are where it truly shines. Several outlets are praising the shared experience’s core gameplay loop, with Nintendo Life in particular highlighting the refreshing change of pace for all your party to be working together toward a unified goal instead of blasting ink at each other. Overall, it seems, tackling objectives as a team creates the game’s most memorable moments, but a few twists and turns throughout the solo campaign’s runtime can’t be ruled out either.
Release Date and Price
Splatoon Raiders is launching exclusively to Nintendo Switch 2 on July 23rd. Price-wise, a digital copy will set you back $49.99, while physical editions retail for $59.99. It’s worth shopping around if you want the game on a cartridge as certain retailers are currently matching physical sales to the digital price. Either way, Splatoon Raiders supports solo play as well as up-to-four player local wireless and online co-op, with an estimated download size of around 20GB.
