This article is about the video game series. For the first game in the series, see Splatoon (video game). For the manga based on the video game series, see Splatoon (manga).
Splatoon[a] is a third-person shootervideo game franchise created by Hisashi Nogami and Shintaro Sato and developed, published and owned by Nintendo. Set in the far future on a post-apocalypticEarth that has been repopulated with evolvedmarine life, the series centers around a pair of humanoid races that evolved from cephalopods known as Inklings and Octolings—based on squids and octopuses respectively—which can transform between humanoid and cephalopodic forms at will. They frequently engage in "Turf War" battles with each other and use a variety of weapons that produce and shoot ink while in their humanoid forms or swim through and hide in solid surfaces covered in their own ink while in their cephalopodic forms.
The first game in the series, Splatoon, was released for the Wii U on 28 May 2015. A sequel, Splatoon 2, was released for the Nintendo Switch on 21 July 2017,[1] followed by an expansion pack, Octo Expansion, on 13 June 2018. A third game, Splatoon 3, was released on 9 September 2022, followed by an expansion pack/DLC, Side Order, on 22 February 2024. The series has received positive reviews for its style, gameplay mechanics and soundtrack, with the first two games in the series having been nominated and awarded several year-end accolades from various gaming publications. The series has sold over 30 million copies. A spin-off game titled Splatoon Raiders was announced on 10 June 2025, as an exclusive for the Nintendo Switch 2.
Splatoon has spawned numerous collaborations with third-party companies and established its own esports tournament circuit in 2018. It has spawned a manga series as well as holographic music concerts, primarily in Japan.
Gameplay
Aerial view of an ongoing Turf War match on the stage Mincemeat Metalworks, introduced in Splatoon 3. The usage of ink to both exert map control and facilitate movement across a battle arena is a key facet of the Splatoon series' multiplayer gameplay.
The Splatoon series consists of third person shooters with a focus on competitive online multiplayer across several game modes. Players select from a range of weapons resembling water guns, oversized painting equipment, and unique adaptations of real-life objects that they use to spread their ink across the floors and walls of the gameplay area and to damage enemies. During gameplay players control characters named Inklings and Octolings, both of which can freely alternate between a weapon-wielding humanoid "kid" form and a cepholopodic "swim" form[b] with the press of a button.[3][4] While in humanoid form they can use their weapons to spread ink across surfaces and damage enemy players. While in swim form, players can submerge and tread through their own team's ink and pass under and around metal fences and meshes, as well as move vertically up ink spread over walls. Players are discouraged from standing in ink pools that are not their own team's color with harsh movement penalties. Additionally, players can only replenish their ammunition by standing or swimming in their own team's ink.[5] During matches, players can press the "up" and "down" directional pad buttons on their controllers to use communication signals directed to their team. These consist of the authoritative "This Way!"[c] and congratulatory "Booyah!"[6]
In the first Splatoon, players could pick a multitude of weapons belonging to one of six distinct weapon classes, those being Shooters, Chargers (sniper rifles), Splat Rollers, Splatlings (minature gatling guns), Inkbrushes, Blasters, and Sloshers (ink buckets).[7][8][9] With the release of Splatoon 2, the Dualie (dual-wielded pistols) and Brella classes were added to the roster,[10] while Splatoon 3 introduced the Stringer (bow and arrows) and Splatana classes, making for a total of eleven weapon types.[11][12] Each base weapon is assigned a loadout of one "sub weapon" and one "special weapon". Sub weapons usually come in the form of defensive structures or offensive projectiles, and require a considerable amount of ink to dispense, while special weapons are powerful armaments that must be charged via a player's Special Guage by inking the surrounding area.[13][14][15]
Players can equip numerous perks that passively aid their gameplay. These perks, known as Abilities, can range from speeding up respawn time, reducing the amount of ink consumed by main and sub weapons, and upgrading the damage performed by special weapons. Abilities are attached to cosmetic gear items, which are separated into three categories: headgear, clothing, and shoes.[16] Each clothing item has one main Ability slot and a maximum of three secondary subslots. The number of subslots available is dependent on the respective gear's "star power", which can increase at the end of a match in accordance with how many experience points were gained during the battle, at which point a random Ability is assigned. However, the subslots can be re-rolled or entirely removed ("scrubbed") by trading in-game currency with specific vendors. If a given subslot is empty, players can manually apply an Ability to them by speaking with said vendors and spending "Ability chunks".[17][18][19][20]
Turf War
"Turf War" is one of the main gameplay modes in the Splatoon franchise. Two teams of four players[d] on either side of a symmetrical map compete to spread their team's ink across as much of the floor space of the map as possible before the match ends after three minutes. While players are not awarded points for doing so, it is possible to kill enemy players, referred to as "splatting", to temporarily remove them from the game so that they cannot contest the spread of ink until they respawn. This is further encouraged by most weapons being very powerful but with extremely limited range, resulting in more frantic player versus player engagements.[21]
Ranked Battles
Another online offering present in all installments, are "Ranked Battles",[e] available only to players level 10 and above.[23] These consist of alternative modes focusing on competitive, teamwork-oriented gameplay[24] that last five minutes plus overtime if specific conditions are met. Over the course of the series, four distinct Ranked modes have been introduced, those being Splat Zones, Tower Control, Rainmaker, and Clam Blitz.[25] The availabilty of the modes at a given moment are dependent on rulesets that rotate at fixed intervals throughout the day. Ranked modes utilize skill-based matchmaking; players are grouped together based on a shared letter-based "rank" that reflects their in-game aptitude level.[26][27]
Splat Zones plays similarly to king of the hill in that players must exert control over one or two designated regions, named "splat zones", for a set amount of time. This is achieved by spraying the zone with at least 70% of their team's ink color; if there are two zones in contention, both must be controlled simultaneously by the same team to deplete their timers. If a team steals control over the zone(s) from their opponent, said opposing team is imposed the penalty of an additional timer that itself must also be depleted.[22] Overtime is initiated when the losing team remains in command of the zone(s) when the overall five minutes elapses, and ends immediately after said team either surpasses the opposing side or loses control.[28]
Tower Control has players compete to stay atop of a moving structure, the "tower", which is by default positioned in the middle of the map. If the tower is currently being ridden by a team, it moves along a preset path that ultimately leads to a final goal located in the opposition's base. Starting with Splatoon 2, the tower must first clear numerous checkpoints dotted throughout the path before it can reach the goal.[29] If a team transports the tower to the goal before the five minutes elapses, a situation known as a "knockout", the match ends early and awards them bonus points; otherwise, whichever team pushed the tower the furthest is determined the victor.[30]
Rainmaker's objective is for teams to transport a large cannon-like weapon, the titular "Rainmaker", to a pedestal on the opposing team's base; it plays similar to Tower Control and more generally capture the flag. The Rainmaker is normally situated in the middle of the map, where players must destroy its protective shield and have one teammate physically grab it. If a player is splatted whilst carrying the Rainmaker, the weapon and its shield reappears at the player's site of death, at which point it may be retrieved by either team. If the shield is destroyed but the Rainmaker is not grabbed in time, it disappears and spawns at its default location in the map's center.[23] Additionally, if the wielding player remains in possession of the Rainmaker for too long, the Rainmaker explodes, splatting said player and resetting to the center. Checkpoints were added to the mode in Splatoon 3.[31]
Clam Blitz is an invasion game that has each team, both starting with 100 points, compete to collect golden clams scattered throughout the map with the objective of hurling them into spherical baskets, found in their opponent's base, to deduct their own points counter. If a player collects eight clams,[f] the Power Clam item, shaped identically to a gridiron football, is generated, which needs to be thrown into the enemy's basket to puncture its protective barrier. In this state of vulnerability that lasts for a maximum of ten seconds, the attacking team must throw regular clams into the basket to prolong this window and deplete their points to zero, whereupon they win. If, by the end of the five minutes, neither team has scored, overtime is initiated for a maximum of three additional minutes. If after this period both teams still have yet to score, whichever team generated the most Power Clams throughout the course of the game is deemed the winner.[33]
Splatfests
"Splatfests" are special and recurring in-game festival events that also take place in-universe. During Splatfests, players are asked a question and pick a team based on the answer that they chose, with each team being backed by a particular idol. In Splatoon and Splatoon 2, players are given two choices relating to a random theme. The themes are usually in the form of preference questionnaires (e.g. cats vs. dogs,[34]mayonnaise vs. ketchup),[35] but can also cover other topics, such as paradoxes (e.g. chicken or the egg).[36] In Splatoon 3, there are instead three sides to choose from (e.g. bread vs. rice vs. pasta).[37] Players then compete in a series of Turf War matches and contribute their endgame points, accumulated in the form of the "clout" statistic, to the side they picked. Upon the Splatfest's conclusion, an overarching scoring system decides the winning team based on the overall clout of those who played across various categories.[38]
Due to the polarizing nature of the choices offered during Splatfests, the themes themselves tend to be the subject of media attention. Publications have reported a tendency for Splatoon players to choose one team over another not due to the substance of the question being asked but rather based on which idol was backing said team. This was especially observed in Splatoon 3; professor Derek Foster noted in an article on the phenomenon's positive and negative consequences for the game's community discourse. He commented that, at the time of writing in 2023, fans of idol character Frye of Deep Cut had exhibited aggression towards those of her co-star Shiver online after the latter held a prolonged Splatfest winstreak, with some further accusing Nintendo of deliberate favoritism.[53] In the prelude to the "Spicy vs. Sweet vs. Sour" Splatfest, in which Team Sweet was supported by Frye, fans rallied support for her in acknowledgement of her past unluckiness;[54][55][56] her ultimate victory was met with warm reception among players.[57][58]
In most Splatfests, the outcome tends to only affect the player's level of in-game reward at the end of the event[59] and typically have no impact on the overall playability of the game. However, an exception is the "final Splatfest" of each game, which has traditionally marked the end of developer support.[60][61][62][63] It was insinuated that the outcome of the last Splatfest in Splatoon, "Callie vs. Marie", affected the story mode of Splatoon 2, in which the losing protagonistCallie became an antagonist.[64][65][66][67] This was later confirmed by a developer after Splatoon 3's apocalyptic setting seemed to be based on the winner of Splatoon 2's final Splatfest, "Chaos vs. Order", that being Team Chaos.[68][69] Nintendo's promotion of Splatoon 3's "Grand Festival"—"Past vs. Present vs. Future"—in a similar fashion to previous games' final Splatfests gave way to fan speculation on whether its winner, Team Past, would influence a potential fourth mainline installment.[70][71]
Tricolor Turf War
A Splatfest-only variation of the traditional Turf War mode titled "Tricolor Turf War" was introduced in Splatoon 3. Available solely during the halftime period of the aforementioned game's Splatfests, Tricolor Turf War retains the prime objective of Turf War but instead features one team of four, named the "Defenders", who are directed to protect the rocket-like "Ultra Signal" in the middle of the map from two opposing teams of two, collectively known as the "Attackers". If a member of either Attacking team achieves control of the Ultra Signal from the Defenders, a structure called the "Sprinkler of Doom" spawns on the respective team's side of the map that indefinitely produces their colored ink for the remainder of the match.[72][73][74][75] If one of the two Attacking teams cover a majority of the map, the game awards a collective victory to them both.[76][77]
Upon its debut, players could only compete in Tricolor Turf War matches by queueing the regular Turf War mode and being selected for Tricolor at random. Additionally, whichever team was currently in the lead by halftime would always be designated the Defenders, while the other two sides were always the Attackers. These rules were altered in preparation for Splatoon 3's "Spicy vs. Sweet vs. Sour" Splatfest, during which Tricolor Turf War became a separate offering available to all players during halftime, and any side could be selected for any role.[78][79]
Salmon Run
"Salmon Run" is a co-opplayer versus environment (PvE) gamemode introduced in Splatoon 2.[80][81] Salmon Run tasks a team of four players with surviving hordes of hostile salmon enemies, named Salmonids, while collecting Golden Eggs and depositing them into a stationary egg basket to meet a designated quota. Golden Eggs are obtained by splatting large Boss Salmonids that periodically spawn. In-universe, matches are moderated by Mr. Grizz, the chief executive officer of Salmon Run's sponsor Grizzco Industries, the players being contracted employees of the company.[82] Ordinarily, there are three waves whose Golden Egg quotas must be met to complete a match, known as a "shift". If a player is splatted by a Salmonid, their teammates can revive them.[83] If all four players are splatted at once, the team loses and the shift ends prematurely.
The incarnation of Salmon Run featured in Splatoon 3, titled "Salmon Run Next Wave",[84] introduces a new enemy class called King Salmonids, which appear solely during a rare fourth wave.[85] Two other additions exclusive to Splatoon 3 is are the "Big Run" and "Eggstra Work" events, both of which occur every few months. During Big Runs, players fight against Salmonids on altered versions of usual multiplayer stages, while Eggstra Work features a predetermined shift that ends after five waves.[86][87][88] Unlike in Splatoon 2, where Salmon Run could only be accessed at particular times of the day, Salmon Run Next Wave is available to players 24/7.[89]
Setting
The Splatoon games take place in an alternate, post-apocalyptic Earth set approximately 12,000 years into the future following the eradication of the human race and nearly all other mammal life, suggested to be due to rampant climate change in the form of worldwide flooding.[90][91] Following this mass-extinction event, much of the planet's oceanic life rapidly evolved to survive on land, becoming largely terrestrial creatures.[92] This includes the humanoid Inklings and Octolings, evolved squids and octopuses respectively.
Approximately one century before the events of the first Splatoon, during the "Mollusc Era",[g] another flooding event struck terrestrial civilization. The dominant species of Inklings and Octarians, the overarching group of evolved octopuses of which Octolings are a part, became embroiled in warfare to compete for all remaining land, having previously shared amiable relations. Despite early decisive gains by Octarian forces, the year-long conflict, known as the "Great Turf War", concluded with an overall Inkling victory led by general Cap'n Cuttlefish. As a result, the Octarians were pushed into underground domes, while the Inklings reclaimed the land on the surface. In the time following the battles, Turf Wars become popular competitive sports and are a cultural touchstone for Inklings. Meanwhile, DJ Octavio, commander of the Octarian forces since the Great Turf War, vows revenge against the Inkling race. He twice plots to steal Inkling society's primary power source, the Great Zapfish, to both improve quality of life in Octarian society and re-energize his weapons to take back the land above. This plotline is the general focus of the first two games' single-player campaigns. While his attempts consistently fail, later entries see former Octoling soldiers assimilate into Inkling society.[93][94][95]
Inklings and Octolings
Six Inklings (including one in swim form at bottom) and two Octolings (bottom left) wielding various types of in-game weapons, as seen in promotional artwork for Splatoon 3.
Inklings are a fictional species of terrestrial squid and are the primary playable characters. When conceptualizing the Inklings the Splatoon art team centered around them being female at first, which they stated was because there were not many other female leads in Nintendo games at the time; their male counterparts were made later.[96] The Inklings were designed to be teenagers since the developers wanted to give the image of a strong, rebelling character, while having the attitude of being "cool". Their black eye masks were meant to reinforce the idea of Inklings having "a bit of a rough attitude" reminiscent of punk rock musicians, some of whom use dark makeup.[97]
Octolings are the octopus equivalent to Inklings. They debuted in Splatoon as hostile, non-player enemies encountered only in the game's single-player campaign; they retained this role in Splatoon 2's base story mode. The Octolings were positively received by players upon their reveal, to the extent that many advocated for them to become playable avatars alongside Inklings.[98] This concept was considered early in Splatoon 2's development, but was tentatively rejected, as developers thought it would feel jarring for Octolings to appear in a non-antagonistic role without explict reason.[99] During a Nintendo Direct presentation in March 2018, Nintendo announced Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion, a paid downloadable content (DLC) expansion[100] for Splatoon 2 that features a new single-player campaign starring an Octoling as its protagonist.[101][102] The ultimate reward for completing the expansion was the ability to play as an Octoling in multiplayer matches.[103][104] Later, in Splatoon 3, players could assume the role of an Octoling immediately upon starting the game.[105]
The Inklings' aesthetic design have received a positive critical reception from multiple video game publications following the release of the first Splatoon,[106][107] and have since become a popular subject for cosplay activities.[108] The integration of the Inklings' physiological characteristics into the gameplay mechanics of the Splatoon series have been praised, as it allowed players to explore a unique tactical concept.[109]Polygon staff in particular ranked two notable Inkling characters, the "Squid Sisters" Callie and Marie, among the 70 best video game characters of the 2010s decade; they were described as an example of how Nintendo elevated "anthropomorphized squids and made them into pop sensations".[110] A seemingly-intentional decision to remove gendered language from player character customization in Splatoon 3's English localization was praised by some American publications.[111]
Language
The Inklings employ a written and spoken fictional language made specially for the game. Several alphabets belonging to this language can be found scattered throughout several in-game locations and clothing.[112] While some textual elements resemble several real-world languages, the overall dialect itself is linguistically inconsistent, and its glyphs are treated more often as diegetic design elements, unintended to be fully deciphered.[113] The Octarians also speak in a distinct language separate from the Inklings'.[114] Virtually all of Splatoon's in-game vocal music is sung in this fictional language; according to series producer Hisashi Nogami, this was done to increase the songs' worldwide appeal and to emphasize their rhythm and uniqueness.[113]
Music
The music of Splatoon is composed by Toru Minegishi, Shiho Fujii, and Ryo Nagamatsu, with Toshiyuki Sudo, Yumi Takahashi and Sayako Doi also composing for the third installment.
Splatoon's music is, like the Inkling language, largely diegetic. The game's idol groups, the Squid Sisters, Off The Hook, and Deep Cut, are fictional popstars which create and perform some of the songs as heard within the games, while other music heard in the game's singleplayer and multiplayer modes and certain idle areas are composed by other in-universe musicians. In an 'Ask the Developers' feature from Nintendo, series creator Hisashi Nogami, composer Toru Minegishi, and graphic artist Seita Inoue explained the decision to establish the music of Splatoon as being created by in-universe artists as a way to add to the depth of the game's world and depict the passage of time between each game. In the interview, Inoue described that "...the music can account for not only bands existing in this world, but also things like their history, the relationship between their members and how their approaches to life changed over time, it would add depth to the Inkling world."[115][116]
Splatoon is a 2015 third-person shooter video game developed and released for the Wii U.[119] The title was revealed at Nintendo's E3 2014Digital Event video presentation, with a playable demo available at the in-person showroom.[120] It introduces the Inklings and handful of now-series-staple weapon classes and gamemodes, including Turf War and Ranked Battles. Splatoon established the tradition of including a single-player story campaign, in the first game titled "Octo Valley", that has players combat the Octarian forces and uncover the underlying narrative of Splatoon's world.[121][122]
Octo Valley follows Agent 3, the newest member of the New Squidbeak Splatoon headed by Cap'n Cuttlefish, the now-elderly general of the Inkling military at the time of the Great Turf War. Upon learning of the surreptitious disappearance of Inkopolis' Great Zapfish, he deduces that the Octarians, more specifically his wartime arch-rival DJ Octavio, is behind the plot as revenge against the Inklings. He tasks Agent 3 with invading Octarian territory, aided occasionally by past recruits Agents 1 and 2, with the intent of reaching Octavio, having to defeat several gargantuan bosses, known as the Great Octoweapons, along the way.
Splatoon 2 is a 2017 third-person shooter game developed for the Nintendo Switch and released on 21 July.[123] It was formally unveiled in the reveal trailer for the Switch on 13 January 2017.[124] Adding new maps and weapons, Splatoon 2 includes a direct successor to Splatoon's single-player campaign, now referred to as "Octo Canyon".[125]
Octo Canyon opens with Marie of the Squid Sisters idol group informing the player that Cuttlefish, Agent 3, and the Great Zapfish have gone missing; she is particularly concerned about the contemporaneous disappearance of her cousin and co-star Callie. She presumes that Octavio is behind the Zapfish's and Callie's vanishing, as he has since escaped his imprisonment in a larger-than-life snow globe following his defeat in Splatoon. In lieu of Cuttlefish, Marie recruits the player as Agent 4 and once again has them intercept Octoling forces with the goal of finding Octavio, Callie, and the Zapfish.
Splatoon 3 is a 2022 third-person shooter video game released for the Nintendo Switch on 9 September. Its teaser trailer was unveiled at the end of a Nintendo Direct presentation on 17 February 2021, featuring a new apocalyptic setting, weapons, and stages.[126][127]Splatoon 3 features an expanded single-player mode titled "Return of the Mammalians", which was first shown off in a dedicated trailer released in September of that year.[128]
Return of the Mammalians initially follows a now-retired Cuttlefish who recruits the player character as the new Agent 3, the latter of whom is accompanied by a miniature Salmonid named Smallfry. The party seeks to investigate the thrice stealing of the Great Zapfish, which Cuttlefish assumes Octavio is once again behind. They venture into Splatsville's neighboring crater, which has been overrun with hazardous Fuzzy Ooze. Splatting mammal-like enemy Octarians that had been infected by the Ooze, they reach Octavio and defeat him; however, he denies responsibility for taking the Zapfish. The four are then pulled beneath the crater by a mass of Fuzzy Ooze.
Agent 3 and Smallfry awaken in a new area named Alterna, a massive domed settlement dating to the human era. There they meet Callie, Marie, and the original Agent 3, who has since been promoted to Captain of the New Squidbeak Splatoon. Heeding a distress call from Cuttlefish, the group explore Alterna with the goal of retrieving him. However, they are consistently intercepted by Shiver, Frye, and Big Man, bandits-turned-idols of the Splatsville-based group Deep Cut, who deliberately impede their progress before ultimately becoming allies.
Following an amnesiac Octoling given the moniker Agent 8, Octo Expansion has players complete a maximum of eighty testing trials scattered throughout a subterranean subway station managed by a corporation named Kamabo Co. Alongside a cast of returning characters such as Cuttlefish and Pearl and Marina of Off the Hook, whom appear in Splatoon 2's base game, Agent 8's ultimate goal is to ascend to the surface by collecting four objects known as "thangs" at the direction of a benevolent, talking telephone, who refers to said surface world as "the promised land."
Splatoon 3: Side Order is a 2024 DLC single-player expansion to Splatoon 3, released as part of the paid Splatoon 3 Expansion Pass on 22 February.[130]Side Order utilizes a roguelike style designed to be replayable,[131] having players unlock gameplay-enhancing perks known as "color chips", attached to loadouts called "palettes", as they ascend a procedurally-generated, thirty-floor spire.[132][133]
Side Order follows several characters previously featured in Octo Expansion, including Pearl, Marina, and Agent 8, the lattermost of whom the player once again assumes control. It is set in the featureless "Memverse", a virtual reality concocted by Marina. Agent 8 is tasked with traveling up the thirty-floor tower to defeat the mode's antagonist Order, a rogue artificial intelligence who previously pulled numerous unwilling souls from the outside into the Memverse as part of its plot to instigate a sterile world of pure orderliness.
Spin-off
Splatoon Raiders (TBA)
Splatoon Raiders was unveiled by Nintendo on 10 June 2025 as an exclusive for the Nintendo Switch 2, with no set release date.[134] The first spin-off game in the series, Raiders is set to follow Deep Cut and an unnamed mechanic as they explore the new Spirhalite Islands region.[135]
Splatoon was developed for the Wii U by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development with later assistance from Monolith Soft, who would contribute to all future installments. Its earliest conceptual stage, formulated in 2013, originally consisted of a four-versus-four ink-based territory control game set in a featureless arena.[136] This version of the game was headed by Shintaro Sato and Hisashi Nogami, both of whom previously worked on Nintendo's Animal Crossing series. The prototype was expanded to include map verticality and the mechanic of hiding in ink, but the team had difficulty trying to "filter it down" to being simple and fun, finding the experience unfocused. At this point, Shigeru Miyamoto felt the game lacked appeal.[137] The game's art director Seita Inoue[138] created preliminary concept sketches of various player characters, including "macho men", robots, and Mario,[139] the latter of which was included at Miyamoto's request as a potential last resort.[140] Eventually, the team centered on anthropomorphic rabbits with the ability to burrow through virtually any solid surface so long as it was covered in ink. This was considered due to the game's area control-centric gameplay and the fact that rabbits are naturally territorial animals. While the team liked the idea, it was objected to by others around the company, who felt that there was a clash between the characters' appearances and the ink-based gameplay.[141][142] After much internal creative struggle, the designers settled on squid-like characters that could submerge in ink as a cephalopod,[143] but could also utilize a humanoid form for the purpose of holding weaponry.[144] They were initially conceptualized as squid-human hybrids; this design was rejected out of worry such characters "wouldn't sell." They instead decided to have the squid characters, named Inklings, simply switch between a purely humanoid form and a purely cepholopodic form. This concept lended itself to more complex gameplay mechanics, such as the ability to swim through the player's own ink and sustain damage if treading through their opponent's, both of which Miyamoto approved of.[145] The Wii U's touchscreen GamePad was utilized as a means for players to see a real-time overhead view of the current battle to track their team's progress.[146]
In 2014, Splatoon was revealed during a Nintendo Direct video presentation at E3 2014, and a playable demo version featuring four-versus-four local Turf War matches was made available on the show floor. By this point, only 10% of the full game had been completed.[147] Subsequently, a time-limited multiplayer demo, the "Global Testfire", was made available on 8, 9 and 23 May 2015.[148] The game was seen as a surprising reveal as Nintendo unveiled a new intellectual property during the underperformance of the Wii U. The full game was released globally between 28 and 30 May 2015 and included a single-player story campaign mode as well as several online multiplayer modes.
Work on a sequel, titled Splatoon 2, began around October 2015.[149] It was developed by Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development for the Nintendo Switch and was announced in January 2017.[150] Its formal unveiling came following its soft-reveal in numerous clips in the console's initial announcement trailer,[151][152] where it was promoted akin to an esport.[153][154] In March 2017, a "Splatoon 2 Global Testfire" event was made available.[155] A second demo which featured the an in-game festival Splatfest was released on 15 July 2017.[156] The full game was subsequently released on 21 July 2017. It takes place approximately two years after the events of the final Splatfest in the first game, where players voted for one of the two idols part of the Squid Sisters, and fought it out by playing a series of Turf War matches. It was later revealed that the results of the Splatfest directly influenced the story mode of Splatoon 2.[64][65]Splatoon 2 features a redesigned user interface due to the lack of the Wii U GamePad's touch screen, and includes new maps, weapons and abilities.[157] The player versus environment mode "Salmon Run" was introduced along with the competitive multiplayer mode "Clam Blitz" in December 2017. SplatNet 2, a service contained within the Nintendo Switch Online mobile app was released which allows players to view their in-game statistics, earn digital wallpapers by completing challenges, and communicate with other players through voice chat.[158] The Octo Expansion DLC was made available globally on 13 June 2018. On 22 April 2022, the DLC was added as a benefit to members of the Switch Online Expansion Pass.[159]
Splatoon 3 was announced in a Nintendo Direct on 17 February 2021, now with three featured idols part of the group Deep Cut. It was released on 9 September 2022, as confirmed by a trailer on 22 April 2022 and was being developed by Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development.[160]Splatoon 3 takes place about five years[h] after Splatoon 2 ended and features an expanded story campaign.[162] The game features an apocalyptic setting based on the winner of Splatoon 2's "Chaos vs. Order" Splatfest; the developers had, in advance, planned for either outcome before the results were announced.[163][164] The sequel adds new maps, weapons, abilities, and movement options, along with a new mode based on card games, known as "Tableturf Battle".[165][166] An early-access demo titled "Splatoon 3: Splatfest World Premiere" was held on 27 August 2022 with a rock-paper-scissors Splatfest theme.[167] In addition, the Nintendo Switch Online app includes SplatNet 3 with in-game statistics, voice chat, and other features. In the 14 September 2023 Nintendo Direct, the paid DLC Splatoon 3: Side Order was announced, featuring a new single-player campaign, which was released on 22 February 2024.
An official soundtrack, Splatune, was released by Enterbrain in Japan on 21 October 2015.[168] The soundtrack to the sequel, Splatune 2, and another for the Octo Expansion, Octotune, released on 29 November 2017 and 18 July 2018 respectively.[169][170] The soundtrack for the third installment, Splatune 3, and another for Side Order, Ordertune, were released on 26 April 2023 and 11 December 2024 respectively.[171][172]
Reception
Sales and aggregate review scores As of 31 December, 2024.
Games in the Splatoon series have been generally well-received, and its unique gameplay has been credited as a successful reinvention of the third-person shooter genre.[181][182][183][184][185] The soundtrack of Splatoon has been widely acclaimed by both critics and fans alike. Ben Johnson in Pocket Tactics favorably compared the music of Splatoon to that of Gorillaz, Daft Punk, and Aphex Twin for its experimental nature, as well as to the soundtrack of Jet Set Radio, and praised the music as eclectic, avant-garde, experimental, and as "genre fusion to the max, in the strangest way possible". Johnson further praised the series' incorporation of the soundtrack with the game as a whole, saying "The games are set in dense cities, with a hyper fixation on fashion and music... As the world itself is so focused on music, it can't be mere background noise."[117] All three main games in the series have been nominated for and won numerous awards from various gaming publications and organizations.
Splatoon 2 was nominated for Best Family Game and Best Multiplayer at The Game Awards 2017,[191] as well as an award in Multiplayer at the 14th British Academy Games Awards.[192] It was nominated for Best Multiplayer Game and Nintendo Game of the Year at the 35th Golden Joystick Awards. The game received an Excellence Reward for Game Design at CEDEC 2018.[193]
Splatoon 3 won Best Multiplayer Game at The Game Awards 2022, along with a nomination for Best Family Game.[194] It also received a nomination for the Central Park Children's Zoo Award for Best Kids Game at the New York Game Awards.[195]
NPR reported on how Splatoon differed from games like it in its genre and has created a more welcoming community than other shooters, due to the flexibility of its gameplay, Nintendo's approach to player communication, and the more casual nature of the game compared to other shooters.[196] The more welcoming nature of Splatoon's playerbase, a sizeable portion of which consist of LGBTQ+ people, was analyzed in Xtra Magazine, where Jade King suggested the large queer community of Splatoon was largely a result of the series' emphasis on individuality, rebellion, self-expression and style, the lack of gender-restricted styles and customization, as well as the omission of voice chat creating a more accepting environment.[197]
Sales
The Splatoon series has seen commercial success. By September 2022, the first Splatoon sold approximately 4.95 million copies,[198] while its sequel amassed around 13.60 million sales.[199]Splatoon 3 attracted media attention when it became the fastest-selling game of all-time in Japan from September to November 2022[i] with a domestic sale count of 3.45 million copies in its first three days of launch.[201][202] Boxed copies of Splatoon 3 reportedly composed 69% of all physical games sold in Japan in September.[203] By 2024, the title had sold 11.96 million copies,[178] making for an all-time series sales figure of about 30 million.
Due to the availability of competitive game modes in Splatoon, competitive esports tournaments with sponsored prizing have been held as early as 2016 in Japan.[219]
Between January 2016 and March 2017, two webcomic series based on Splatoon appeared in Enterbrain's Weekly Famitsu magazine: Honobono Ika 4koma illustrated by Kino Takahashi, and Play Manga by various doujin writers.[227][228][229] The comics were published by Kadokawa Future Publishing on 15 June 2017.[230]
A Splatoon manga series illustrated by Sankichi Hinodeya began serialization in Shogakukan's CoroCoro Comic magazine in February 2016, following a one-shot published in CoroCoro in May 2015.[231][232] The licensing rights to publish the manga in North America was later acquired by Viz Media in 2017.[233][234][235] In July 2017, a motion comic adaptation of the manga was announced and then released on CoroCoro's YouTube channel the following month.[236][237] As of February 2018, the manga has over 800,000 copies in print and the series is currently ongoing.[231]
In April 2017, a manga series illustrated by Hideki Goto[ja] titled Splatoon: Squid Kids Comedy Show was published in Bessatsu CoroCoro Comic.[238] It was also later acquired by Viz Media, who translated and published the series in North America.[239][240][241]
Concerts
A series of real-life virtual concerts featuring holograms of the game's protagonists have been held at various locations, primarily in Japan.[242]
In 2016, a concert tour known as "Squid Sisters Live" was held commemorating the sale of 1 million copies of Splatoon.[243] The concerts have taken place at Niconico Tokaigi, Chokaigi and Niconico Cho Party in Japan, and the Japan Expo in Paris.[244][245][246] Similarly, concert tours featuring Splatoon 2's Off the Hook was held months after the game's release since 2018.[247][248][249] Recordings from the concerts have been made into albums.[250][251][252] Deep Cut, introduced in Splatoon 3, performed live for the first time in Japan on 9 October 2022, one month following the game's release.[253]
↑The Mollusc Era (ME) is named after the real-world Common Era (CE) and Before Common Era (BCE) year notations.
↑The passage of time in the Splatoon universe aligns with that of the real world.[161] In reality, Splatoon 3 released in 2022, five years after Splatoon 2 debuted in 2017. Thus, the narrative of Splatoon 3 canonically occurs five years following Splatoon 2.
↑Nonoka, Nishina (6 January 2023). "『スプラトゥーン3』第3回フェスが開催直前 トリカラマッチ仕様変更や新ブキ追加で環境が変わる？"[The third Splatoon 3 festival is about to begin. Will the environment change with changes to Tricolor match specifications and the addition of new weapons?]. Real Sound (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 20 April 2024. Retrieved 2 January 2026.
↑Sato, Kotaro (9 January 2023). "『スプラトゥーン3』最新フェス、上位者ブキ使用率は「シャープマーカー」1強に。変わりゆくトレンド"[In the latest Splatoon 3 fest, the Sharp Marker was the most used weapon by top players. Changing trends]. Automaton Media (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 19 January 2025. Retrieved 2 January 2026.
12"「Splatoon(スプラトゥーン)」のイカしたデザインのひみつ(後編)"[The Secret Behind Splatoon's Cool Design (Part 2)]. TechPlus (in Japanese). 6 August 2015. Archived from the original on 9 July 2025. Retrieved 3 January 2026.
↑"イイダのパートはイカと異なる言語、サーモンランはシャケを鼓舞する変拍子。『スプラトゥーン2』サウンドに迫る、サントラインタビュー"[Iida's part speaks a different language from the squid, and Salmon Run uses an odd time signature to inspire the salmon. A soundtrack interview delving into the sound of "Splatoon 2"]. Famitsu (in Japanese). 6 August 2015. Archived from the original on 11 December 2025. Retrieved 3 January 2026.
↑"『スプラトゥーン3』のバンカラウォーカー＆サウンドトラックCD第二弾が発売決定。本日より予約開始。"[The second edition of the Splatoon 3 soundtrack CD, and the BancalaWalker book will be released; reservation begins today]. Nintendo (in Japanese). 10 September 2024. Archived from the original on 10 September 2024. Retrieved 26 December 2024.
↑"Splatoonファンの作家が描く「プレイ漫画」と4コマ、コミッククリアで開始"["Play manga" drawn by a Splatoon fan writer and 4 frames, start with comic clear]. コミックナタリー (in Japanese). 12 January 2016. Archived from the original on 4 December 2022. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
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