Splatoon Raiders

Splatoon Raiders is a 2026 action role-playing third-person shooter game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch 2. It is the first spinoff of the Splatoon series and the fourth installment overall. Set on the remote Spirhalite Islands, Raiders follows a mechanic, accompanied by Shiver, Frye, and Big Man of the idol group Deep Cut, as they explore the islands in search of treasure and are intercepted by its hostile inhabitants called Salmonids.

Raiders has the player use ink as ammunition and a means of navigation to traverse various levels scattered about the Spirhalite Islands. The game features over 100 available weapons, divided amongst eleven classes, that are obtained randomly by killing enemies in a manner akin to a looter shooter. Raiders features "gadgets", secondary weapons linked to one of three types of player-worn "ink tanks" that specialize in mobile, aggressive and strategic fighting options. The player is accompanied by the Exploration Bot, a vehicle operated by either Shiver, Frye, or Big Man that assists in combat.

Development on Raiders began during the later period of Splatoon 3's update cycle. Inspired by the cooperative Splatoon game mode Salmon Run, developers wanted to offer unique gameplay experiences from past Splatoon games and create an approachable entry point to the series for newcomers. Raiders inherited the experimental design philosophy of the series' two previous downloadable content (DLC) expansions, Octo Expansion and Side Order. The customizable gadget system served to provide more dynamic movement and combat options. While the Spirhalite Islands were at first designed as having a light-hearted, tropical resort-like aesthetic, the team opted to make them dilapidated and unsettling. Deep Cut was chosen to take center stage in the story as developers felt they had been inadequately explored as characters in the single-player campaign of Splatoon 3.

Splatoon Raiders was released on July 23, 2026. It received generally positive reviews, being praised for its core gameplay, gadget system, and art direction, but criticized for a lack of innovation.

Gameplay

Splatoon Raiders is a spinoff of the Splatoon series and is primarily single-player and story-focused, unlike the multiplayer-centric mainline entries. Raiders is a third-person shooter, borrowing some gameplay elements from the looter shooter subgenre, that revolves around the usage of ink as ammunition and means of replenishing said ammunition by submerging into the liquid. Ink also serves as a method of navigation; players can swim through their own colored ink, while being slowed down when in contact with enemies' ink. Players choose to be either an Inkling or Octoling as their player character, who takes on the role of a mechanic. Their avatar's physical appearance can be manually tweaked and adorned with various outfits.

Each of the game's over 100 total weapons, differentiated in level and rarity, are divided amongst eleven classes, all of which return from past entries. Said weapons are based on paint rollers, paint brushes, water guns, and bow and arrows, among others. Players equip secondary armaments known as "gadgets", which supplant the "sub weapons" from previous Splatoon games. Gadgets typically enable specialized manuevers or powered attacks, and each is linked to one of three specific player-worn "ink tanks"—the Speed Tank, Power Tank, and Tactical Tank—with unique characteristics. The Speed Tank favors high mobility, the Power Tank centers on aggressive abilities, and the Tactical Tank enables strategic fighting options.

For instance, the Flywire is a Speed Tank gadget that acts as a grappling hook to travel large distances; the Splatchet is a Power Tank gadget which lets the player kill multiple enemies with one sweeping slash; and the Bombloons are a Tactical Tank gadget that function as ink-filled explosives physically linked to one another. Gadgets' abilities can themselves be augmented using "gadget parts" obtained from Salmonids or treasure chests at the end of levels.

Using these weapons, players fight hostile salmon-like enemies known as Salmonids. Killing Salmonids rewards the player with random weapons. Returning from Salmon Run are two categories of Salmonid, known as Lesser Salmonids and Boss Salmonids. Raiders introduces Seasoned Salmonids, stronger variations on existing Salmonids. The player is accompanied by a vehicle called the Exploration Bot that is piloted by one of three Deep Cut members. Within the Exploration Bot, said member shoots enemies, provides a powerful special ability, and allows the player to bounce upwards to gain vertical height.

The game's levels, referred to as dungeons, fall under five categories. These include linear goal-oriented levels; open-ended explorable islands that require the player to collect a specific number of "power eggs" obtained from Salmonids; multi-level dungeons whose floors must be completed within a time limit; contained arenas that constantly spawn Salmonids; and gauntlets that primarily serve as tutorials for the game's gadget system. Alongside Raiders single-player mode, it also features a cooperative mode that allows up to four players, either locally or online, to play alongside. In co-op mode, the game's difficulty is adjusted depending on how many players are present.

Synopsis

Setting

The Splatoon series takes place 12,000 years into the far future on a post-apocalyptic Earth following the extinction of humans and most mammals, implied to be the result of rampant climate change. After this event, the planet is repopulated with evolved, terrestrial marine animals who in the present day reside in the regions of Inkadia and the Splatlands. Such creatures include the Inklings and Octolings, humanoid squids and octopuses respectively, whom players take control of. Within the Splatlands is the hub world of Splatoon 3, a city known as Splatsville. Shiver, Frye, and Big Man of the idol group Deep Cut host the city's news broadcasts, while the Mechanic is a Splatsville resident. Also within the Splatlands is the remote Spirhalite Islands; they are so distant from the mainland that they have their own climate and travel by helicopter is required to reach them.

The Salmonids previously appeared in Splatoon 2 (2017) and Splatoon 3 as hostile enemies in the Salmon Run game mode. The Salmonids depicted in Raiders are a "local variety" of the species native to the Spirhalite Islands. Having migrated from elsewhere, these Salmonids became so captivated by the deliciousness of Spirhalite that they have since forgotten their original homeland. Some time before the events of Raiders, a certain Salmonid discovered that a powerful creature being could be created by mixing Salmonid roe with Spirhalite; this creature became the first Salmonarch. This process was repeated over time, and the current iteration of the Salmonarch is of the seventh generation. The Salmonids of the Spirhalite Islands interpret the Milky Way in the night sky as their mother river, and have come to worship the Salmonarch, who is capable of generating a large tornado-like storm, as a benevolent, guiding figure.

Plot

The city of Splatsville accrues a debt of over $60 billion, which occurs amid reports of the fabled Spirhalite Islands resurfacing from the ocean due to a shift in the Earth's tectonic plates. Shiver, Frye, and Big Man hire the Mechanic to fly them to the archipelago via helicopter, with the goal of selling its treasure to pay off Splatsville's debt. The crew spots a golden glow from within the center of the islands, encircled by a spiralling storm. The glow abruptly pulsates and attracts the helicopter and surrounding fog into the center, forcing the Mechanic to make a crash landing.

In the month since the crash, the group constructs a makeshift base called the Hideout Ship. When the Mechanic is dispatched to the islands to acquire extra materials, they encounter hostile Salmonids that drop Power Eggs upon defeat. After ridding the site of the Salmonids, they discover a derelict machine called the Exploration Bot that, once fixed, automatically locates nearby treasure and can be piloted by a member of Deep Cut. After the team reunites with Frye's tamed eels and Shiver's tamed shark, Master Mega, they follow a trail of treasure marked by the Exploration Bot.

In their journey, the group collects ancient Salmonid relics from a fallen civilization and uncovers documents scattered across the islands authored by a past explorer, revealing themselves to be the creator of the Exploration Bot. Further documents from the explorer, who never escaped the islands, warn that "gold" in the islands' center would "drive Salmonids mad". Once defeating three Salmonid bosses, Deep Cut and the Mechanic discover three mysterious devices that require the members of Deep Cut to sing traditional tunes to activate them. The devices show constellations of a golden object, the storm that brought them to the islands, and a giant three-headed beast.

At the center of the Spirhalite Islands, the group locates the golden object: a giant levitating Power Egg. Energy from within the Power Egg bursts into light rays that pierce the sky, causing Salmonids across the world to invade cities on land. After the Power Egg descends down a tunnel, the team chase after it. In their attempt to crack it open, the prophesized three-headed monster, the Salmonarch, hatches from it. Deep Cut rescues the Mechanic using the Hideout Ship's crane before being flung onto floating islands in the sky. The team uses the crane to destroy the Salmonarch's heads. Nearing defeat, a large crystal drill forms in the heads' place. Using the Exploration Bot, Frye's eels, and Master Mega, the group destroys the Salmonarch, ends the worldwide cataclysm, and returns home.

In a secret ending, the group acquires an immensely valuable "legendary relic" on the one-hundredth floor of the Bottomless Buffet, occupied by a large, violent Salmonid named Lord Saltimatum. If the Mechanic collected every prior Salmonid relic, a post-credits illustration depicts Deep Cut spreading the spoils of their treasure hunting across Splatsville.

Development

Splatoon Raiders was first conceived during the later period of Splatoon 3's update cycle, specifically in parallel with the production of that game's Grand Festival event. The team wanted to explore the potential of a dedicated single-player version of Salmon Run, a cooperative game mode in previous Splatoon entries that involved attacking hordes of Salmonids to deposit their Golden Eggs into a container. Feeling that such gameplay adapted for single-player would be "hectic yet exhilarating", they sought to take advantage of the Switch 2's higher processing power to increase the number of Salmonids that could be present.

When asked why the team created a single-player spin-off following Splatoon 3 as opposed to a fourth mainline installment, producer Seita Inoue stated that Raiders was envisioned as an entry point to the series for newcomers, leveraging the strengths of Splatoon's non-competitive features. Raiders inherited the experimental design philosophy shared by both downloadable content (DLC) single-player campaigns of past installments, Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion (2018) and Splatoon 3: Side Order (2024).

Gameplay

In reworking Salmon Run's gameplay into a digestible single-player format, the team needed to make it feasible "for one person to do what was done with four people". Their first approach was to add equippable traps that the player would lay around them to assist in combat, akin to tower defense gameplay. This approach was rejected because developers thought that building fortified defenses and "watching it play out" was too disparate from Splatoon's more active gameplay structure. This prompted them to instead design secondary armaments that would augment the player's regular capabilities, granting more dynamic movement and combat options. These armaments evolved into Raiders' gadget system, which Inoue and director Yoshihiko Ito Ito hoped would give players satisfaction in optimizing their strategies to defeat large hordes of enemies.

The three tank classes came about as a way to help players narrow down which of fifteen gadgets they wanted to choose. Ito stated that the team replayed the game numerous times in order to balance the various gadget combinations.

The number of enemies onscreen, which could overwhelm players, proved challenging to work around for sound director Shu Tamura, who felt it was necessary to "[make] it possible for players to understand what's going on through sound". Raiders' gameplay was initially going to also involve depositing Golden Eggs, with one scrapped gadget acting as a Golden Egg conveyor belt. This was partially vetoed as the team wanted to place more emphasis on the gadget system. Wanting to still give players a reason to be mobile, they retained the Golden Eggs themselves but removed the need to deposit them. Without needing to consider multiplayer balance or unfair level geometry, the team added more options for vertical mobility, by way of the Exploration Bot, as a distinct selling point.

To make the game more accessible for Splatoon newcomers, they added difficulty settings and online functionality to allow troubled players to ask for assistance during levels. When playing online, the strength of Salmonids is balanced to each player's level. For example, if a level 10 player and a level 50 player are together, the former will fight Salmonids who, from their perspective, are also at level 10, while the latter fight Salmonids who are at level 50. This was achieved by calculating the damage taken against Salmonids as a proportion of their health rather than a fixed number.

The arcade minigames were not planned initially, but instead implemented after three passionate staff members created and proposed their own prototypes. Meant to be a relaxing distraction, the minigames intentionally do not yield valuable rare or useful rewards. All of their pixel art illustrations were designed by series producer Hisashi Nogami, who took regular suggestions from other staff.

Art direction and characters

As Raiders was set to have unique gameplay from previous Splatoon entries, the developers wanted the game's setting to be located far away from that of said entries. Deeming remote islands a logical fit, they wanted to capitalize on the Switch 2's improved graphics to create natural, organic landscapes, contrasting the artificial environments of multiplayer stages in past games. The team designed the Spirhalite Islands as "full of adventure" with bright, refreshing scenery backed by resort-like music. While they initially thought these environments made for a fun experience, internal playtesters began expressing guilt in attacking the Salmonids, whom art director Koji Sonoyama felt "were simply going about their lives happily on the island, and it became a bit difficult to accept emotionally".

At this point in development, neither the Salmonids nor fundamental level design could be altered much, so they chose to rework the setting from the ground up to resemble an "outlandish environment". To this end, the islands' geology was built to evoke a sense of discomfort, with "the eeriness of landscapes shaped by geological shifts, where elements from the sea and mountains coexist" amid derelict and rusted structures. The Salmonids were also designed to appear unpredictable and unsettling.

Shiver, Frye, and Big Man of Deep Cut had previously appeared in the single-player campaign of Splatoon 3 as antagonists, but developers felt they had not been adequately explored as characters. Wanting to have them take center stage, they served the role of both guides to the player and agents to move the story forward. Feeling that Deep Cut themselves were not fit to use gadgets, the team decided to create a "somewhat reserved, craftsman-like character who could create anything, even in harsh conditions", who became the Mechanic. Their design was directly influenced by their deserted island surroundings. The team felt that in this environment, the Mechanic's hair would naturally grow out, but in such a way that would allow them to style it regardless using objects washed ashore.

The developers envisioned the Mechanic being an avatar of the player, and thus did not give them a defined personality. Despite this, Sonoyama described them as being distinct from past Splatoon protagonists. As opposed to "the popular kids who are at the center of the excitement in school", he equated the Mechanic to "a hobbyist who quietly pursues their passions in the corner of the classroom".

Music

In composing the music of the Spirhalite Islands, Tamura had the goal of making tunes that would be appealing to the Salmonids but unnerving to the Inklings or Octolings. The music that plays within the game's three-tiered dungeons are attributed to an in-universe Salmonid band named "DHA". The backing tracks of dens are instead attributed to "purines", said to be composed of contrarian, younger Salmonids with an edgier style than DHA. To compose these groups' songs, Tamura used the cello. In order to create a unique musical atmosphere, Tamura applied a specialized technique for cello playing that involves using two bows to strum simultaneously. He also utilized a specific kind of bow called the Bach bow whose underside is flat, using it to "add pressure to the sound". The music that plays on open-ended beach and volcano levels is not attributed to any one group, instead being "more like field recording of local Salmonids freely jamming together".

Tamura wanted to create a clear musical contrast between the tunes of the Hideout Ship and the Spirhalite Islands' dungeons, as he assumed that players would become bored otherwise. To this end, the Hideout Ship's music is light-hearted to convey the fun-loving personalities of Deep Cut and the Mechanic, while the backing tracks of dungeons represent danger. Since early in development, the team wanted Deep Cut to have a central role in the game's final battle; to create an impactful climax and dynamic narrative, the earlier portions of the game are dominated by Salmonid music while a new Deep Cut track is reserved for the ending.

Release

Splatoon Raiders was announced on the Nintendo Today app on June 10, 2025, alongside a new update for Splatoon 3. On April 21, 2026, Nintendo released a trailer on Nintendo Today and YouTube, revealing the release date of July 23, 2026.

A new gameplay trailer was unveiled in a Nintendo Direct presentation held on June 9, alongside a dedicated Raiders Direct scheduled for June 30. Two promotional tie-ins were also announced: a set of Joy-Con 2 controllers with colors themed after Deep Cut released alongside the game, and a Splatfest event for Splatoon 3 was held from July 10 to 12. Beginning from June 23 to the game's release on July 23, daily comic strips featuring the Mechanic and Deep Cut, set before the events of the game, were released exclusively on the Nintendo Today app. From July 23 to 26 during San Diego Comic-Con, playable demos of Raiders and Nintendo Switch Sports Resort (2026) were available at Nintendo-hosted booths.

Post-release

On launch day, Raiders received an update that adjusted the in-game music and fixed several bugs, and nine tracks from the game's soundtrack were added to Nintendo Music. The following August, another patch was released, fixing additional bugs and making gameplay adjustments.

Inoue stated in an interview with Japanese video-game magazine Famitsu that, because Raiders was developed "with the goal of providing a complete experience as is", there were no plans for DLC or balancing updates, unlike the main entries in the series, which received balancing adjustments and content additions. Despite this, he stated that if any critical bugs were found, they would be addressed.

Reception

Splatoon Raiders received "generally favorable" reviews according to review aggregation website Metacritic, and 88% of critics recommended the game on OpenCritic. As of July 27, 2026, Splatoon Raiders was ranked in the top 10 highest-rated user-reviewed Metacritic games of all time, with a user score of 9.3/10. It is also the highest-rated user-reviewed Nintendo game on the same site.

Raiders' core gameplay structure was deemed enjoyably frenetic and engaging. Christian Donlan of Eurogamer felt a constant sense of "forward momentum" with hectic combat he likened to both contemporary Doom titles and Donkey Kong Bananza (2025). Logan Plant from IGN hailed it as one of the best Switch 2 games thus far, praising its gameplay, experimentation mechanics, difficulty curve, and "roguelike" mission structure. Alex Olney of Nintendo Life lauded the raw power of the new variations of Salmonids, as well as the more difficult "Spicy" mode that he felt significantly heightened the game's replay value. While he found the gameplay itself excellent, he opined that Raiders did little to reinvent the core Splatoon formula. GameSpot's Steve Watts complimented the game as a flexibile addition to the series, hoping Raiders "marks a new beginning for Splatoon that can live alongside the multiplayer games".

The game's gadget mechanic elicited praise. Donlan believed that gadgets were an engaging way to tinker with various gameplay strategies that sidestepped the need for a "system of torturous intricacy".

The game's art direction was received more divisively. Donlan appreciated the "wonderfully grim" aesthetic of the Spirhalite Islands as an evolution of the offbeat style of Salmon Run. Its narrative was generally perceived as a simplistic affair that mostly served to justify its gameplay, which some critics took issue with. Reception towards Raiders' soundtrack was divisive; some hailed it as unique while others found it disappointing.

Sales

Splatoon Raiders debuted at No. 1 in Japanese sales charts maintained by Japanese magazine Famitsu, recording 474,684 copies sold in its first week, ahead of Rhythm Heaven Groove and Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream (both 2026). It also debuted at No. 1 in the UK sales charts, ahead of Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced (2026)