Nintendo’s new Splatoon Raiders is presented as evidence of the company’s capacity to refresh familiar game genres with distinctive ideas and style. The article argues that Splatoon transformed the competitive shooter through its ink-based territory mechanics, visual identity and fictional culture, and that the new spin-off similarly takes Nintendo into the unfamiliar looter-shooter genre. It matters because the writer believes Nintendo has recently produced too few inventive new franchises and needs to take more creative risks beyond its established series.

The original Splatoon launched on Wii U in 2015 and has become a franchise selling 30 million copies. Raiders adapts Splatoon’s mechanics for player-versus-environment play, drawing comparisons with Borderlands, Diablo and a simplified Destiny, while retaining Nintendo’s colourful, playful approach. The article calls for more projects in the spirit of Splatoon, Pikmin and WarioWare, including Nintendo interpretations of genres such as roguelikes.