Review: Splatoon Raiders

Splatoon always sold the fantasy that shooters could be stylish without being mean. Raiders sells a harder pitch: that the franchise can ditch the ranked ladder, the Turf War clock, and the social theater of painting percentages against strangers — and still feel like Splatoon in your hands. Spoiler: your wrists will still hurt. Just not from Tower Control overtime.

This is Nintendo’s first Splatoon built as a single-player-first adventure: a looter-shooter with ink in its veins, Salmonids in the doorway, and Deep Cut riding shotgun. It launches exclusively on Switch 2. It does not apologize for skipping the lobby. It should not.

You play a mechanic who crash-lands on the Spirhalite Islands with Shiver, Frye, and Big Man. The job is sticky in the best way — raid for treasure, splat walls of fish that want you dead, rebuild a way home, and keep upgrading the kit until the next island laughs at yesterday’s build. Solo if you want. Four-player co-op if your friends answer. Online help calls if they don’t. No Ranked. No Turf War. All ink. All loot.

The island fantasy (and why the premise works)

The Spirhalite Islands are not a hub world dressed as a map. They are a chain of raid stages with personality: crystal mines, Salmonid dens, locked facilities that only certain kit can open, dungeons that dig until the floor feels optional. Treasure is the excuse. Survival is the curriculum.

Salmonids are the curriculum’s teachers. Lesser types are nothing alone and everything in a flood. Boss Salmonids force you to learn hitboxes and drop Mega Power Eggs that feed the bot’s big moments. Seasoned Salmonids are the salt-crusted endgame of the food chain — tougher, meaner, the reason you actually read your gadget tooltips. The fantasy is Salmon Run DNA stretched into an adventure spine: you are not defending a basket for three minutes of panic. You are living on an archipelago that wants you for dinner and paying rent in Power Eggs.

Deep Cut sells the tone. They are not silent quest-givers. They are the band that crashed your treasure hunt, restored a four-legged Exploration Bot that looks like it swam out of a scrapyard, and somehow made “mechanic and idols vs. fish apocalypse” feel like the most natural Splatoon sentence ever written. The hideout ship is the soft hub — craft, upgrade, change difficulty, swap tanks, breathe — before the next crane toss into the ink.

The loop: raid → loot → tinker → raid harder

This is where Raiders stops being a spin-off pitch and becomes a game you lose evenings to.

Weapons still spray from a refillable ink tank, but the fantasy is collection and craft: more than a hundred variations in the wild, rares with weird rules, drops you keep even when a raid goes sideways. Failure does not wipe the homework. That single design choice — keep the spoils, learn the lesson — is why the difficulty curve can stay honest without feeling punitive.

Tanks are the real class system. Speed is mobility crime: Blast Boot leaps, Dash Bomb detonations, Booyarang throws that hang in the air like a bad idea that works. Power is the brawler’s sermon: Splatchet arcs that crack shields, orbiting Splatellites, Spinwheels that shove crowds and lock Bosses. Tactical is the chess set: Shot Pot turrets, chainable Bombloons, Tether Wail lasers that turn the floor into a diagram. You start with two gadget slots; tanks earn a third as you invest. Gadget parts — damage, fire rate, duration, ink explosions, knockback gas — are the spreadsheet that never feels like a spreadsheet because you feel the difference mid-raid.

Shiver’s Gadget Workshop, Frye’s Weapon Stash, Big Man’s cataloguing — the ship facilities turn loot into identity. You are not grinding for a number. You are grinding for a build: the Speed freak who lives in the air, the Power brick who walks through Seasoned packs, the Tactical sadist who turns a narrow canyon into a killbox.

The Exploration Bot and the Showstopper

Solo Raiders is never alone. One Deep Cut member pilots the Exploration Bot: ink fire support, treasure sniffing, a trampoline when you need height, a drill when the island hides the good stuff underground. Jump off the bot. Bounce into a better angle. Spend Mega Power Eggs on Showstoppers that feel like the band dropped a festival set on a Boss Salmonid’s head.

That partnership is the emotional glue. Splatoon’s multiplayer always had teammates. Raiders gives you a permanent co-star with personality and a mechanical job. When the bot’s Showstopper lands and the screen becomes pure carnival violence, you remember why this franchise’s spectacle always outran its genre labels.

Movement, missions, and the ink that still matters

The shooter’s foundation is intact: swim your color, resurface firing, panic-squid when the yellow-green goo floods the objective. Ink is still territory and still survival. The difference is purpose. You are not painting a percentage for a leaderboard. You are buying seconds — for the drill, the egg count, the crystal haul — while Seasoned packs rewrite the geometry of the stage.

Mission variety keeps that purpose from rotting. Timed Power Egg grabs. Crystal runs for the drill. Dens that want to drown you. Facilities with equipment rules that force a tank swap you were avoiding. Underground routes that feel like the map inhaled. The best raids end with that Splatoon classic: three seconds of pure “I should be dead,” then the clear fanfare, then the loot screen that makes you stay for one more.

Difficulty is Tourist / Raider / Survivalist, changeable anytime on the ship. Loot stays the same; only the fish get meaner. That is a quiet act of respect. Challenge seekers are not gated behind better drops. Casual players are not punished with worse treasure. Everyone can chase the same shiny garbage. Survivalist just asks if you earned it with dignity.

Co-op, Call for Help, and the social Splatoon instinct

Four-player local wireless or online is where Raiders becomes a weekend religion. The same stage with three friends is a brass section with trust issues — Showstoppers overlapping, gadgets colliding, someone yeeting themselves off the bot at exactly the wrong altitude. Progression shared through the story means you are not babysitting someone else’s save file. You are raiding a campaign together.

Call for Help is the solo safety net: temporary online backup, cooldown after, rewards for answering someone else’s SOS. It is Splatoon’s social instinct surviving without a ranked playlist — the franchise still believes strangers with ink can be useful.

Presentation, amiibo, and Switch 2 as the right home

This is a Switch 2 exclusive that uses the hardware for chaos readability: ink storms, bot fireworks, four players of gadget noise, and the frame still mostly telling the truth. Style remains non-negotiable — outfits from challenges, Splatoon amiibo fits, Deep Cut Raiders amiibo unlocks. Looking correct while drowning in Salmonids is still the house religion. Deep Cut Joy-Con 2 colors launching alongside the game are optional drip; the game itself already drips.

The campaign spine lands around twenty hours if you chase the story without living in every side pocket. The post-game loot chase after credits is real without being a second full-time job. Raiders wants your evenings. It does not demand your calendar forever. In 2026, that restraint is almost radical.

What scrapes

If you came for Turf War DNA, you will feel the hole. Part of what made Splatoon culturally Splatoon was the theater of covering ground against other humans — the lobby jokes, the clutch paints, the ranked tilt. Raiders replaces that with PvE density. For some players that trade will never fully clear. That is fair. This is a different game wearing the same shoes.

Late missions can lean spongey. A few bosses ask for raw DPS more than puzzle-wit — the kind of fights where your build either sings or you bounce to the ship to re-spec. The tank/gadget lock-in is depth and also a soft wall: experimentation is encouraged between raids, but mid-mission identity crises are expensive. And once credits roll, the endgame is strong candy, not a new thesis. If you only wanted the campaign story and a clean exit, you get one. If you wanted an infinite live-service treadmill, look elsewhere — intentionally.

Price sits around $50 digital / $60 physical. Fair for the hours. Still a dock tax if July 23 already filled your SSD with everything else Switch 2 wanted that Thursday.

Who it’s for

Splatoon fans who loved the feel more than the ladder. Co-op groups who want a campaign, not a playlist. Looter-shooter curious players who bounce off grimdark grind. Switch 2 owners hunting a first-party exclusive that invents instead of remasters.

Pause if you only wanted Turf War or Ranked in a new coat of paint, if you are allergic to build tinkering and loot screens, or if you expected a cutscene novel — this is adventure flavor over prestige drama.

The verdict

Raiders is Nintendo doing the smartest thing a spin-off can do: steal the feel, change the genre, refuse to apologize. It will not replace nights spent inking strangers in Splatoon 3. It does not need to. As a campaign, as a co-op weekend sink, as proof Switch 2 first-party can invent instead of remaster — this is fresh ink with a working toolbox.

The franchise just proved it can survive without a lobby. The islands are open. The bot is ready. Your tank is wrong for the next raid and that is exactly why you will launch one more.

Score: 8.4 / 10 — Nintendo store page.