Splatoon Raiders review: "Smartly translates Squidling vibes into a looter shooter I keep coming back to, even if some repetition grates"

Splatoon Raiders has some serious questions to answer. Can a series that became popular through an exclusively PvP experience really work as a solo game, despite dipping its toes into the ink via add-on modes previously? Moreover, can it work as an offline loot shooter of all things? Can that still feel like Splatoon? Although you'd be forgiven for betting a hundred squid against it, the answer to all of the above is "yes".

For reasons that are happily never explained, you find yourself working as a mechanic for the band Deep Cut from Splatoon 3. One injury-free crash later, you're all stranded on the Spirhalite Islands, which are littered with treasure. There are also lots and lots of Salmonids to fight while you're looking for it, and… that's all you need to know, really. The first 10 minutes or so are frustratingly stop-start, as the game constantly pushes tutorials in your face in case this is your first videogame, but once that's behind you the game flows nicely.

Raid raid don't tell me

This is a Nintendo loot shooter, with the emphasis usually on 'Nintendo' rather than 'loot shooter'. The fundamental idea of this being a solo entry in the genre is unusual in itself (and if you're confused about the game's marketing stressing the single-player nature while also cheerily pointing at multiplayer, I'll get to that in a bit). Unexpectedly perhaps, avatar customization isn't a huge aspect. You can, of course, tweak your Octoling or Inkling appearance to an extent, and there are a bunch of outfits to unlock, but you won't face a constant barrage of fashion choices.

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Most levels take the form of either a mini explorable island, or a series of small battle arenas, the latter of which must be completed within a time limit. Both follow the basic Splatoon rules. You move faster while in squid form travelling through the ink fired from your own weapon, you can swim up inked vertical surfaces, submerging yourself in your ink slowly refills your tank, and enemy ink slows you down. There are various gadgets to equip, and a member of Deep Cut will accompany you with an ultimate attack to charge up – but nothing beats using the weapon in your hands to take out your foes. The satisfying pop-pop-pop-pop noise that you can somehow feel as ink builds up on an enemy until they burst is present and correct, and somehow, never gets old.

It's just as well that combat works well, because it makes up the majority of the experience. The dungeons (such as they are) are nothing but combat, and the islands send you off to defeat waves of enemies that protect shiny blue rocks you need to mine. It's simple, but never dull. In fact, while Splatoon Raiders works great as something to play for extended sessions, it also works perfectly for a more casual dipping in and out approach. Generally speaking, a single raid can be finished in five minutes or so, and the intensity of enemy waves means that it never feels overly brief.

Weapons don't exactly rain down upon you, but they drop often enough for you to be changing fairly regularly. The selection could have been better, though; once higher-level enemies start appearing in raids, anything that isn't rapid fire quickly becomes less and less viable. I was never a fan of the vaguely dirty-sounding Slosher in the first place, for example, and it's certainly not up to the task of dealing with intense waves of enemies here.

That said, Nintendo is keen to accommodate a wide variety of players. There are three difficulty levels to choose from, and you're allowed to bounce between them however you like. I found that the middle option was pretty much perfectly weighted, but if you're after a softer or more demanding experience, Nintendo has you covered.

You can play with up to three friends locally or online, but the philosophy primarily driving the multiplayer aspect of Splatoon Raiders is to treat it as another way to mitigate the difficulty. Before choosing to start a raid, you can select 'call for help' to trigger matchmaking, and up to three other players will join. At the end of the raid – whether successful or not – your merry group is disbanded. Similarly, once you reach a certain level you can choose to 'go help', and be randomly matched with somebody looking for a hand. Good luck keeping track of other players in the pastel-colored chaos once you're there, though.

This approach to matchmaking may rub some the wrong way, but I like it. The idea of people randomly, briefly coming together to overcome a tough challenge before they each disappear like Batman is a neat one (it's not entirely altruistic of course, choosing to 'go help' has extra rewards involved for success). In practice though, it's more of a lottery than it should be. Say what you like about SBMM (and I'm sure that you do), but it would come in handy for Splatoon Raiders. I've been on both sides of a situation where the 'help' that arrives is at a level significantly lower than the person calling for it.

Some very silly embargo restrictions prevent me from adequately discussing the experience after a certain point. What I can safely say, however, is that reaching character level 40-45 represents significant disruption to the flow of the game. There's no fundamental change to the experience, but the challenge gets something of a rocket boost around the time you're likely to reach this level. That suddenly means you'll need to grind XP in previously explored areas and multiplayer to an extent that wasn't required before. Upgrading and customizing weapons and gadgets is simple and effective enough to remain enjoyable, but ultimately, just a few more islands would have kept things consistent up until the end.

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