Splatoon Raiders Review: Ink, Loot and a Risk That Pays Off

I'll be honest: "Splatoon does a looter-shooter" sounded like a line from a marketing deck, not a game I actually wanted to play. A week and a half with it later, I'm glad to be wrong. Mostly.

What it is

Splatoon Raiders is a spin-off developed by Nintendo EPD, released on July 23, 2026, exclusively for Switch 2, at $49.99 digital or $59.99 physical. There's no Turf War here. You play a mechanic stranded on the remote Spirhalite Islands alongside Deep Cut - Shiver, Frye and Big Man from Splatoon 3. The loop: land on an island, hunt for treasure, fight off waves of Salmonids, and get out before everything collapses around you. It's a story-focused single-player game first, with optional co-op for up to four players, locally or online, and the difficulty scales with squad size.

The highs

Movement is still the star of this series. Swimming through your own ink up walls and across ceilings translates brilliantly from arenas to open exploration - climbing a derelict lighthouse in squid form simply feels better than traversal in any other co-op shooter I've played this year. The islands themselves are the biggest surprise: derelict, quietly unsettling, with geological shifts that rearrange routes mid-run. For a series built on neon cheerfulness, Raiders is genuinely eerie, and I love that Nintendo committed to it.

The extraction tension works too. Every run ends with the same delicious question - grab one more chest or get out while you still can - and in co-op that argument happens out loud, which is where the game sings. Deep Cut, meanwhile, carry the story with more personality than this series has ever allowed itself between matches.

The lows

The loot itself is the least interesting part. Weapon and gear upgrades are serviceable, never exciting, and if you've played a dozen modern co-op shooters you'll recognize this skeleton instantly - Raiders doesn't reinvent the structure, it just decorates it better than most. Mid-game islands also start repeating their tricks before the story picks back up. And it's a Switch 2 exclusive, which in our region still means an expensive console that isn't always easy to find - that's a real barrier for a $50 spin-off.

Verdict

Raiders is the most interesting thing Splatoon has done since 2015: a familiar co-op skeleton wearing a gorgeous, unsettling new skin, with movement nobody else can match. If you own a Switch 2, this is an easy recommendation. If you don't, it's not the game that justifies buying one - but it's close.

Score: 8/10

Image: Philip Terry Graham / CC0, source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EB_Games_Expo_2015_-_Splatoon.JPG