REVIEW: Splatoon Raiders

Splatoon Raiders is Nintendo‘s latest attempt to take the Splatoon formula somewhere new, and for the most part, it works.

Rather than another round of Turf War, this is a spin-off built around single-player and co-op play, with up to three players teaming up to explore the Spirhalite Islands.

You play as a character known as the Mechanic, working alongside the Deep Cut crew after crash-landing in unfamiliar territory.

It is a shift away from the competitive multiplayer that defines the mainline games, and that change in direction is the biggest talking point going in.

Story

The setup is simple. You wash up on the Spirhalite Islands with no clear way home, and Deep Cut are on hand to help you get your bearings.

From there, the game leans into exploration and discovery rather than a heavily plotted narrative. It is not going to win any awards for storytelling depth, but it doesn’t need to.

The cutscene work has been noticeably bumped up compared to previous entries, and the writing has enough personality to keep things moving between missions.

Anyone coming in cold, without much history with the series, should have no trouble following along, since the story is light on baggage and heavy on tone.

Gameplay

This is where Splatoon Raiders earns its keep. The core loop borrows heavily from Salmon Run, Splatoon’s co-op survival mode, and builds an entire game around it.

You are dropped into missions, fend off waves of Salmonid-style enemies with ink weapons, and come away with gear and experience that feeds into a proper progression system.

It plays out like a roguelike ARPG, with repeat runs on familiar missions netting new weapons, gadgets, and upgrades for your loadout.

The difficulty curve is worth flagging. Early missions ease you in, but there is a noticeable spike once you get a few hours deep, and the game clearly expects you to grind.

If a mission feels like it is beating you down, chances are your gear needs an update rather than your skills needing work.

That loop of replay, upgrade, and try again is well judged, and it gives the game a longer tail than a typical Splatoon campaign.

Weapon customisation gets a real boost here too. You can build out sub-weapon loadouts in ways the mainline games never allowed, and different Raids reward different tool combinations, so there is a genuine incentive to experiment rather than settle on one setup.

The trade-off for all this single-player and co-op focus is that competitive multiplayer is nowhere to be found. If Turf Wars are the reason you play Splatoon, that absence is going to sting.

For everyone else, the deeper mission variety and enemy design more than make up for it, with plenty of enemy types keeping encounters from feeling repetitive even several hours in.

Visuals

Splatoon Raiders keeps the series’ signature vibrant, cartoonish look, but roughs it up a bit to suit the island survival setting. Weapons look scrappy and improvised, built out of junk, duct tape, bottles, and scavenged parts, which gives the game a scrappier edge than the polished, toy-like designs of the mainline titles.

Enemies get the same treatment, with the Salmonids looking more weathered and primal, like they have been stranded on the islands for weeks rather than freshly spawned.

Performance holds up well. The game runs at a stable 60fps on Nintendo Switch 2 even when the screen fills up with dozens of enemies and heavy ink effects, which is no small thing given how chaotic some of the later missions get.

It is not a technical showcase in the way some Switch 2 exclusives are pushing for, but it is smooth, colourful, and consistent, which matters more in a game built around fast reactions.

Conclusion

Splatoon Raiders is a solid reworking of what Splatoon can be outside of its usual competitive shell. The Salmon Run inspired loop, paired with proper loot and progression systems, gives the game legs that a straightforward campaign would not have had. It is not without trade-offs.

The lack of any competitive multiplayer will put off a chunk of the existing fanbase, and the grind can feel steep if you are not keeping your loadout up to date.

But as a first go at this kind of Splatoon spin-off, it lands well, and it should appeal just as much to newcomers as to series veterans looking for something different.

Splatoon Raiders Pricing & Availability

Splatoon Raiders is available now on Nintendo Switch 2. The physical version costs €49.99 and is stocked at Smyths, while the digital edition is priced the same at €49.99. Both physical and digital copies can also be bought directly through the Nintendo Store.