Splatoon remains the most playful and stylish shooter around in third outing
Splatoon has always been something of an outlier for Nintendo. Here is a company that is infamously bad at the internet yet managed to create one of the most adventurous and singular online shooter franchises of the last decade. Even now, years after the series debuted on the ill-fated Wii U, there’s still nothing quite like the goopy mayhem of a Splatoon Turf War. Splatoon 3 for the Nintendo Switch doesn’t change the formula all that much. It’s not the kind of sequel that takes its predecessor in a brand-new direction. Instead, it builds on that solid foundation with some clever ideas — and finally adds the story-driven Splatoon campaign many of us have been waiting for.
For the uninitiated, the Splatoon games take place in a post-apocalyptic future where humanity is gone, replaced by squid creatures called inklings who act like skate punks and play a lot of paintball. Where the series differs from its contemporaries is that it’s a decidedly non-violent shooter. Instead of firing bullets and grenades, you’re hitting opponents — and the levels themselves — with colorful globs of ink. In the game’s main multiplayer mode, Turf War, the goal isn’t to kill your opponents but to cover the map with as much of your squad’s color as possible. You can still hit the opposing team with a well-placed snipe, but you can also run around the level with a giant paint roller making sure everything is the right shade of blue. It’s a structure that opens up the often intimidating world of online shooters to a whole new audience.
This is still true in Splatoon 3, and, at a glance, it doesn’t look all that different from its predecessor — which isn’t a terrible thing since Splatoon 2 was a great game. But there are some important new things
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