Splatoon Raiders Shows Nintendo Can Reinvent the Looter-Shooter

Nintendo’s Ink-Soaked Answer to a Tired Genre

Splatoon Raiders is a third-person looter-shooter spin-off that blends the series’ ink-based turf combat with exploration-driven raids, randomized weapon drops, and buildcrafting systems to create a more progression-heavy, replayable shooter experience than past Splatoon titles.

Nintendo is jumping into looter-shooters at a moment when the genre looks worn out, with tentpole series tapering off and newer releases struggling to excite players. That could have been a disaster; instead, Splatoon Raiders feels like a quiet rebuke to the idea that loot games are finished. It is not an add-on to the existing Splatoon saga but a side story where you and Deep Cut investigate mysterious new islands, crash-land, and end up stranded on the Spirhalite archipelago, home to Salmonid monsters and the resources you need to escape. The result is a looter-shooter that feels confident enough to ignore trends and double down on Nintendo’s usual chaos, color, and playfulness.

Loot First, Turf Second: How Raiders Reframes Splatoon

Where mainline Splatoon treats weapons as fixed kit choices, Splatoon Raiders asks you to think in builds. Your weapon is described as “the most key part of your build,” and every category is tuned toward different playstyles, from easy-to-use Shooters to high-risk Splatlings. Unlike many loot games, there are no outright bad weapons; instead, some archetypes demand more practice, which subtly nudges players to experiment rather than chase a single meta.

The crucial shift is that weapons now drop randomly from enemies and crates as you clear levels, so finishing a run and checking your inventory becomes part of the loop instead of a menu chore. You are not grinding for one perfect gun; you are curating a toolbox that fits the chaos of each raid. In a genre that often drowns players in pointless loot, Raiders’ structure keeps the arcades-as-loot feel without turning Splatoon into spreadsheet management.

An Outrageous Arsenal That Still Feels Like Splatoon

If the genre is about loot, Splatoon Raiders answers with excess. It resurrects familiar categories—Shooters, Rollers, Chargers, Sloshers, Splatlings, Dualies, Brellas, Blasters, Brushes, Stringers, Splatanas—and then stuffs each with multiple variants built out of the junk you scavenge on the islands, from plastic-bottle Splattershots to diesel-themed Chargers. There are eighteen Shooters alone, twelve each of Rollers, Chargers, Sloshers, Splatlings, Dualies, Brellas, and Blasters, and smaller pools of Brushes, Stringers, and Splatanas, all tuned around distinct roles.

Rarity finally enters Splatoon through ‘Primo’ weapons, which layer a loot-game style hierarchy onto otherwise familiar guns. This matters because it gives ink combat long-term texture: the same weapon type can feel fresh when a drop brings new stats or perks. On top of that, Frye runs the weapon side of your ship, letting you upgrade, scrap unwanted finds, and later swap abilities around as you push deeper into the story. It is the clearest sign that Nintendo understands how to bake progression into its playful arsenal without losing the toy-like charm.

Ink, Islands, and Raids: Nintendo’s Take on Looter-Shooter Design

The best argument for Splatoon Raiders is not its loot table but its ink. Raiders combines ink-based combat, exploration, and chaotic raids into a single loop that feels unlike other shooters. You paint opponents and terrain, then swim, sneak, climb, and attack through your own ink, turning what would be conventional cover shooter arenas into flowing traversal puzzles. The Switch 2’s haptics and performance help sell the mayhem, but the real trick is how ink remains the heart of both stealth and combat, instead of becoming a nostalgic garnish.

Nintendo’s approach is unconventional but effective: it launches a new looter-shooter during a downturn for the genre, cares more about colorful chaos than live-service polish, and refuses to abandon its oddball mechanics. The raids themselves can feel punishing, especially because a lack of mid-raid checkpoints turns late failures into repetitive slogs at higher difficulties. Yet that same high-stakes structure keeps runs tense in a way many raid shooters have forgotten. Splatoon Raiders is not perfect, but it proves that if anyone can make looter-shooter raid gameplay feel lively again, it is the studio willing to ink over the rulebook.

Player Experience: Friction, Reward, and Why It Works

For ordinary players, Raiders’ design trade-offs are obvious within a few runs. On the positive side, it is one of the most energetic shooters on the Switch 2, with explosions, colors, and constant motion defining every raid. The ink systems add clarity and personality, and the constant drip of new weapons and upgrades keeps you checking your loadout after each mission, since weapon drops come from both enemies and crates.

The drawbacks are more structural than mechanical. The absence of a traditional checkpoint system inside raids means that failure late in a run forces you to replay long stretches, which becomes especially repetitive on higher difficulties. The story and character writing around Deep Cut could use more depth as well, leaving the narrative feeling lighter than the systems deserve. Yet despite these issues, Raiders has been described as the strongest Switch 2 game of the year so far and “definitely worth a try” if you own the console. Nintendo has not only learned the looter-shooter language; it has given it a new ink-soaked accent.