Splatoon Raiders review

Nintendo has done it again. Splatoon Raiders is out now, and it’s a chaotic, often overwhelming delight that strips the squid-kid franchise down to its bloody essentials.

This isn’t a full-blown sequel to Splatoon 3. Think of it as a spin-off that takes the beloved PvE Salmon Run mode and turns it into its own standalone, loot-driven rampage. You drop into a level, kill everything that moves, and haul the trinkets back to your raft. That’s the loop. And it’s surprisingly addictive.

Why This Matters

If you’ve been craving something less structured than Nintendo’s usual curated experiences, Raiders is for you. It follows a micro-trend we first spotted in Donkey Kong Bananza earlier this year: a willingness to let chaos reign. Both games are so confident in their hectic action that they don’t mind if you can’t always see what’s happening.

In Raiders, the camera frequently gets lost in the middle of a firefight as massive enemies clip through the screen and explode into gunk. Odd viewpoints ensue. But the game trusts you to figure it out, guided by sound rather than sight.

“Enemies are often chunky and taut of skin in this world, so each connecting shot lets out a kind of snare drum rat-a-tat, far faster than any sensible snare drummer would ever choose to play.”

That audio feedback is key. It tells you you’re on target even when the screen is a mess of ink and enemy limbs. You learn to trust the game, and that trust is what makes the chaos feel liberating rather than frustrating.

How Did We Get Here?

The lineage is clear. Splatoon Raiders borrows heavily from Salmon Run, the PvE mode in Splatoon 2 and 3 where you face waves of monstrous fish creatures. But where Salmon Run was a frantic survival gauntlet, Raiders adds exploration and progression. You start on a makeshift raft, pick a weapon, and set out to explore archipelagos or drill through cave networks in search of treasure.

You can play solo or with up to three friends, online or via local wireless. And the core systems remain the best in modern action games. Ink is ammo, but it also coats surfaces, letting you zip around in squid form, climb walls, and refill your tank. Enemy ink slows you down. Painting everything is still in your best interest, even without territory capture mechanics.

Key Detail: The Weapons

The weapon roster is deep and familiar. Machine guns, paint rollers, and the elegant but punishing paint brush all return. That brush has always been the rapier of the Splatoon series, but in the chaos of Raiders, I found myself sticking to twin pistols and machine gun variants. They’re reliable when the screen is a mess.

The enemies are equally memorable. Mechanical eels that come on like freight trains, tower guys with laser beams mounted on teetering piles of saucepans, and all sorts of grim, post-industrial horrors populate the islands. The world itself feels caught between a wasteland and the inside of an ash heap.

What’s the Bigger Picture?

This is Nintendo embracing a more aggressive, less hand-holdy design philosophy. Donkey Kong Bananza was about punching through levels until there was nothing left. Splatoon Raiders is about blasting through waves of enemies until the loot drops. Both games pursue absolute carnage so thoroughly that the game itself doesn’t seem to mind if the camera can’t keep up.

It’s a refreshing shift for a company known for polished, controlled experiences. And given the success of portable gaming and the ongoing demand for cooperative shooters, Raiders feels perfectly timed.

What’s Next

For now, Splatoon Raiders is available on Nintendo Switch. The campaign is meaty, and the co-op adds plenty of replayability. Whether this becomes a new sub-series or a one-off experiment remains to be seen. But if you’ve ever wanted a Splatoon game that’s all killer, no filler, this is it.