Splatoon Raiders

Splatoon Raiders
Cover art
Developer	Nintendo EPD
Publisher	Nintendo
Director	Yoshihiko Ito
Producer	Seita Inoue
Designers	Kenji Matsumoto Tadanori Sakata Kotaro Nakagami
Programmers	Takuto Asaka Soichi Nakajima Toshikazu Kiuchi
Artist	Koji Sonoyama
Composers	Toshiyuki Sudo Asuka Hayazaki Chisaki Hosaka Reika Nakai Tsukasa Usui
Series	Splatoon
Platform	Nintendo Switch 2
Release	July 23, 2026
Genres	Third-person shooter, action role-playing
Modes	Single-player, multiplayer

Splatoon Raiders is a 2026 action role-playing and third-person shooter video 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 has the player take on the role of a mechanic. They are accompanied by Shiver, Frye, and Big Man of the bandit-idol group Deep Cut, who previously appeared in Splatoon 3 (2022), as they explore the islands in search of treasure and are intercepted by hostile creatures called Salmonids.

Development on Raiders began during the later period of Splatoon 3's update cycle. Inspired by the cooperative Splatoon gamemode Salmon Run, it was conceived to offer unique gameplay experiences from past Splatoon games and serve as an approachable entry point to the series for newcomers. The team wanted to give players more dynamic movement and combat options through a flexible and customizable "gadget" system. Wanting to take advantage of the Switch 2's higher processing power, they experimented with implementing expansive organic environments and larger hordes of enemies. While the Spirhalite Islands were at first designed as having a light-hearted, tropical resort-like aesthetic, the team opted to make them derelict 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 emphasis on experimentation and art direction, but criticized for a lack of innovation. In contrast, the game has been widely acclaimed by fans, achieving the highest user score for a Nintendo game on Metacritic to date.

Gameplay

Splatoon Raiders is a spinoff of the Splatoon series and is primarily single-player and story-focused, unlike the first mainline entries. Players choose to be either an Inkling or Octoling as their player character, who takes on the role of a mechanic. Accompanied by the members of Deep Cut, who previously appeared in Splatoon 3 (2022), they explore a region known as the Spirhalite Islands. Splatoon Raiders' gameplay is similar to that of Splatoon games, but in a looter shooter context in which players travel to various islands, search for treasure, defeat hordes of enemies, and attempt to escape the island.

Alongside Raiders's 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.

Plot

Deep Cut is flown via helicopter near the tropical Spirhalite Islands by the player character, the Mechanic, in search of treasure. This is due to a news article that mentions the Spirhalite Islands having resurfaced recently due to a shift in the Earth's tectonic plates. Due to a violent, hurricane-like storm, the group crash lands on the islands, and creates a makeshift home called the Hideout Ship base within a month since the crash. The four begin their quest in raiding the islands for its valuables, but are intercepted by, and must fight, antagonistic creatures known as Salmonids.

During their search, they discover a machine called the Exploration Bot that a member of Deep Cut can pilot, and devices called Gadgets used to aid the Mechanic. They also learn that the Exploration Bot and the Gadgets are built by an explorer who previously landed on the island. The team later reunite with Frye's tamed eels and Shiver's tamed shark Master Mega. After three bosses are defeated, they discover three mysterious devices that require for the members of Deep Cut to sing a tune to activate them. The devices show constellations of a mysterious golden object, the hurricane that brought them here; and a giant three-headed beast called the Salmonarch, the leader of the Salmonids.

They eventually locate the golden object, which is a giant Power Egg. After the Power Egg descends down a tunnel, the team chase after it and during their attempt to crack it open, the Salmonarch bursts out from it. After the Mechanic fights the Salmonarch, Deep Cut rescues them, but the Hideout Ship is wrecked in the process. The team destroy the monster's heads, but a large crystal drill forms in the place of its heads. With the help of the Exploration Bot, Frye's eels, and Master Mega, the group destroy the Salmonarch for good.

In the secret ending, after the Mechanic defeats a secret boss: King Saltimatum, the team return home on the rebuilt Hideout Ship. Deep Cut is then shown spreading the treasure across Splatsville.

Development

Splatoon Raiders was first conceived during the later period of Splatoon 3's content update cycle. The team wanted to explore the potential of a dedicated single-player version of Salmon Run, a cooperative gamemode 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.

Core gameplay

In reworking Salmon Run's gameplay into a digestible single-player format, the team first added various traps that the player would lay around them to assist in combat, akin to a tower defense game. This approach was ultimately 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 Ito and Inoue hoped would give players satisfaction in optimizing their strategies to defeat large hordes of enemies, situations Ito described as "pleasant busyness". This complexity, 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 partly vetoed as the team wanted to place more emphasis on the dynamic gadget system instead. Wanting to still give players a reason to be mobile, they retained the Golden Eggs themselves but removed the need to deposit them. 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.

Art direction and characters

Concept art depicting lively, refreshing resorts occupied by Salmonids. This approach was ultimately rejected because the light-hearted aesthetic inadvertently made playtesters feel guilty over attacking the Salmonids.

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 those of said entries. Deeming remote islands a logical fit, they sought to capitalize on the Switch 2's improved graphics to create natural, organic landscapes to contrast the artificial environments of multiplayer stages of past games. The team initially wanted the Spirhalite Islands to feel "full of adventure" with bright, refreshing scenery backed by resort-like music. While they initially thought these environments would make for a fun experience, internal playtesters began expressing guilt in attacking the Salmonids, whom 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. 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.

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 themsleves 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 such an 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. Raiders' pixel art minigames, canonically created by the Mechanic, were developed by a group of inexperienced developers with support from series producer Hisashi Nogami.

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, 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.

Reception

Reception

Aggregate scores

Aggregator	Score
Metacritic	81/100
OpenCritic	89% recommend

Review scores

Publication	Score
Destructoid	8.5/10
Eurogamer	4/5
Game Informer	8.8/10
GameSpot	8/10
GamesRadar+	8/10
IGN	9/10
Jeuxvideo.com	17/20
Nintendo Life	9/10

Splatoon Raiders received "generally favorable" reviews according to review aggregation website Metacritic, and 89% of critics recommended the game on OpenCritic.

Raiders' gameplay was deemed enjoyably frenetic and engaging. Christian Donlan of Eurogamer personally 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 Onley 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 "great" and "flexible" addition to the series, hoping Raiders "marks a new beginning for Splatoon that can live alongside the multiplayer games".

Among the more critical reviews, The Guardian gave the game a 2 out of 5, saying: "If you’ve played one of dozens of modern cooperative action games, you’ve played this."

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's also the highest-rated user-reviewed Nintendo game on the same site. It is also the first game in the series to achieve a “Mighty” ranking on OpenCritic.

External links

• Official website