Splatoon Raiders for Switch 2: Nintendo reinvents Splatoon in single player

An adventure among mysterious islands

The story takes the player to the enigmatic Spirhalite Islands together with the Triglio Triglio. A violent vortex of water overwhelms the group’s helicopter, forcing it to crash land on an archipelago that has just re-emerged from the ocean. From here begins the search for precious treasures and a way back home.

The plot certainly doesn’t aim to amaze with big twists, but it does its job perfectly: providing a credible context to a gameplay that quickly becomes engaging. The heart of the experience remains unmistakably that of the series. Coloring the ground continues to be the main mechanic, allowing you to quickly swim through the ink, avoid enemy attacks and reach new areas of the map.

This simple idea continues to work perfectly, both during battles and in the platform sections, where speed and fluidity of movements come together naturally. Diving into the paint and re-emerging a few meters ahead remains extremely satisfying and makes each fight dynamic and spectacular.

The missions alternate more linear levels with open maps where you have to collect crystals to activate larger objectives. In these sections, elements such as water courses, wind tunnels and increasingly intense fights against hordes of enemies come into play. Furthermore, it is possible to tackle numerous missions together with a friend in cooperative or with other players online.

Increasingly challenging combat

As the adventure progresses the difficulty increases significantly. Some missions pit the player against waves of enemies within a time limit, forcing you to carefully manage your equipment, skills and positioning.

Each creature requires a different approach: some opponents force you to constantly change position, others expose weak points only for a few moments, while still others cover the ground with dangerous substances that force you to move incessantly.

However, Nintendo manages to keep the game accessible thanks to the possibility of changing the difficulty or simply tackling other activities to enhance your character before trying the more demanding challenges again. The great news of Splatoon Raiders is represented by the strong RPG and looter shooter component.

In fact, each completed mission allows you to obtain materials, resources and new weapons to use to improve practically every aspect of the adventure. The tanks available profoundly modify the play style: there is the one oriented towards high damage, the fast one, ideal for increasing mobility and speed, and finally the tactical one, designed for those who prefer turrets, bombs and tactical support.

Each configuration can be further customized via gadgets and modifiers, creating completely different builds. Added to this is a huge arsenal made up of over one hundred weapon variants, characterized by different rarities, statistics and bonuses. Finding your ideal equipment and progressively upgrading it represents one of the most rewarding aspects of the entire experience.

Build your own strategy

Customization is one of the game’s biggest strengths. When a mission proves too difficult, simply return to base, adjust your build, switch Tanks, or experiment with new skill combinations before trying again.

Nintendo manages to find an excellent balance between depth and simplicity: the system offers numerous possibilities without ever being excessively complicated, allowing you to dedicate most of your time to the action rather than to the menus.

Splatoon Raiders is also fully convincing on an artistic level. The islands appear alive and well connected to each other, while the colored ink quickly transforms the natural scenarios into authentic explosions of color. Enemies are animated with great care and each area has a strong visual personality.

The sound sector is also excellent, capable of perfectly accompanying every moment of the adventure with energetic songs during exploration and more tense music during more challenging fights.

Splatoon Raiders proves that the series can work perfectly well outside of competitive multiplayer. Nintendo takes the solid foundations of the single player content already seen in the main chapters and expands them with a rich progression system, well-integrated looter shooter mechanics and fun co-op that adds further longevity.

Some missions tend to repeat themselves and some objectives are reused more than necessary, but the fun remains constant thanks to extremely fluid gameplay and a surprisingly deep customization system.

For those who hoped to see Splatoon evolve without losing its identity, Raiders probably represents the step in the right direction: a colorful adventure, rich in content and capable of demonstrating that the universe created by Nintendo still has a lot to offer.

The game was reviewed thanks to a digital copy provided by the publisher; is only available on Switch 2. It is developed and published by Nintendo.