Splatoon Raiders Drops Today: Nintendo's First Spin-Off Turns Turf War Into Treasure Raids

Splatoon Raiders is out now exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2, and it is the first true spin-off in a franchise that sold more than 30 million copies by sticking to competitive Turf Wars. Nintendo EPD is not shipping another ranked ladder. You play a mechanic crash-landed on the Spirhalite Islands with Deep Cut from Splatoon 3, raiding islands for salvage, upgrading tanks and gadgets between runs, and keeping your loot even when a raid goes sideways.

From 3-Minute Matches to Roguelite Raids

Mainline Splatoon is built around short, fixed-loadout matches. Raiders throws that out. You pick a destination on a treasure map, kit a tank with modular gadgets, fight Salmonids, drill for Spirhalite, and return to a hideout ship where Shiver, Frye, and Big Man handle crafting, weapons, and intel. Nintendo confirmed the key design rule in pre-launch Directs: even if a raid fails, you keep experience, weapons, and items on solo runs. Failure is progress, not a wipe.

The mechanical pivot is the gadget system. Traditional sub-weapons are gone. You equip two gadgets on one of three tanks:

  • Speed Tank for mobility tools (Blast Boot, Dash Ball, Booyerang)

  • Power Tank for crowd control and brute force (Splatchet, Splaty, Spin Wheel)

  • Tactical Tank for battlefield control (Shotpot turrets, Bomb Blooms, Tether Whale)

Gadgets take customization parts dropped by enemies: damage, area, cooldown, knockback, and rarer high-performance mods. Over 100 weapons level up as you use them, with rare variants carrying special powers. An Exploration Bot piloted by a Deep Cut member fights beside you, drills treasure, bot-hops you into the air, and charges a Showstopper ultimate from Power Eggs.

Difficulty is Tourist, Raider, or Survivalist. You can switch anytime, and difficulty only scales enemy strength, not loot. That is the right call for a progression-first shooter: accessibility without a two-tier economy. Co-op supports up to four players local wireless or online, with automatic power scaling, plus a timed "call for help" lifeline for solo players.

From a designer's chair, this is the interesting part. Splatoon always had great gun feel and ink control. Raiders asks whether that feel survives a looter-shooter loop with build craft, repeated island runs, and permanent growth. Early critic consensus says yes on the loop, with the usual spin-off asterisk on how deep the genre reinvention really goes.

A Full Campaign Built Around Deep Cut

Splatoon Raiders - Deep Cut

While you get to choose to be an Inkling or Octoling as the mechanic, your sidekicks are Deep Cut from Splatoon 3. Together you'll explore the Spirhalite Islands in search of treasure and the gear you need to get back home. The islands mix beaches, underground ruins, locked-gadget sites, and enemy dens packed with new Salmonid types that will put your shooting and platforming skills to the test.

Between missions you'll return to the hideout, and live out the castaway fantasy Splatoon has never had before. Here you can craft gadgets, break down weapons, upgrade tank HP and damage, and eventually unlock a third gadget slot. If you're interested in fresh looks you can take advantage of the Amiibo support: Deep Cut figures unlock exclusive outfits, and existing Splatoon series amiibo grant additional looks.

Critical Reception: Strong Loop, Familiar Structure

Reviews landed ahead of launch and settled at a Metascore of 81 ("Generally Favorable") on Nintendo Switch 2, with Metacritic showing about 84% positive, 14% mixed, and 1% negative across 71 critic reviews. OpenCritic lists 83% recommend. That is not a victory-lap 90s Metascore, but it is a confident first outing for a new pillar.

Here is a sample of the critical range:

IGN: 90/100 Splatoon Raiders is an amazing action RPG with an expertly executed loop. It has fantastic new powers with crazy upgrades that are worth chasing, tough battles that force you to put care into your build, and a huge variety of fun level types. This is the best Splatoon campaign yet and one of the top games on Switch 2.

Nintendo Life: 90/100 Splatoon Raiders may be missing the series' iconic Turf War, but what we have here is possibly the most variable and exciting game the series has ever offered. It looks good, runs fantastically, and you can play practically the whole thing with friends. Nintendo is flogging it for a bargain price.

Splatoon Raiders - Inking Action

TechRadar Gaming: 100/100 A wonderful solo reinvention of the popular multiplayer series filled with smartly designed missions and endlessly engaging progression systems. It should be in every Nintendo Switch 2 owner's library.

Pocket Tactics: 100/100 Whether you go it alone or get help from other players, searching for loot and mining ore has never been so fun, thanks to the amount of weapons and gadgets you can equip. Plus, you get to hang out with Deep Cut.

GameSpot: 80/100 A great and flexible addition to the series. Hopes Raiders marks a new beginning for Splatoon that can live alongside the multiplayer games.

The skeptical lane is real too. The Guardian scored it 2/5, arguing that if you have played a modern cooperative action game, you have played this. Screen Rant and others called out a looter-shooter structure that can feel simplistic or thin once the novelty of ink-as-ammo wears off. That split is useful: Raiders wins when reviewers treat it as a Splatoon-feeling progression game; it loses when reviewers grade it as a genre innovator next to deeper ARPG looters.

Why This Launch Matters for Splatoon and Switch 2

Splatoon Raiders - Numbers go up!

Switch 2 needs software that is not only ports and remakes. Raiders is a full-price first-party exclusive built around systems Nintendo usually reserves for multiplayer live services: loadout experimentation, co-op scaling, seasonal enemy variety, and a hub crew with personality. Pricing helps the pitch. Digital is $49.99 on the Nintendo eShop (physical Standard Edition is $59.99), under what has become the usual $70 AAA line, which feels like the right move.

For franchise fans who bounced off ranked Turf War anxiety, this is the entry point. For developers watching Nintendo, it is a case study in taking a game's best verb (inking space under pressure) and rebuilding the rest of the product around PvE progression without discarding the fantasy. If the live ops and post-launch content land, Raiders could sit beside mainline Splatoon the way Mario Kart and Mario Party coexist: same ink, different reason to boot up.

Available Now

Splatoon Raiders is available now, so If you own a Switch 2 and like Splatoon's gun feel more than its ranked ladder, today is the day to raid. Stay Fresh!