Splatoon Is Way Too Good For Nintendo

thegamer.com:

I was planning to gush about Tableturf Battle, the collectible card game coming alongside Splatoon 3 next month which somehow looks like it was made specifically for me (and perhaps only for me) but watching this week’s Splatoon 3 Direct just bummed me out. Don’t get me wrong, it's fantastic and I can’t wait to jump into Splatsville and start making a mess of the place, but it also reminded me of how badly Splatoon is being wasted on the Switch. There is way too much potential in this series for it to be throttled by poor network features, archaic monetization, and a total lack of long-term support. Splatoon deserves better than Nintendo.

When I talk about live service games, I typically find myself in a defensive position. The industry shift towards games-as-a-service models has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, understandably, and too many games have failed to live up to all their promises. Opponents of live service like to say not every game has to go on forever, and while I completely agree with that sentiment, Splatoon is the game that does. It’s the quintessential competitive live service game of the modern era, built in every way for a seasonal model and long-term support, but somehow it’s not.

Related: Splatoon Is Secretly Nintendo's Darkest Series

I’ve seen a lot of reactions to the Splatoon 3 Direct that boil down to “it looks like more Splatoon'' and, while I think that's an oversimplification (did I mention the card game?) I can see where people are coming from. New maps, weapons, game modes, and even big new features like match replay and pre-match lobbies don’t feel like they justify a full-price sequel because that’s not how games tend to work in 2022. If Splatoon were made by any company besides