Splatoon
is a third-person shooter video game franchise created by Hisashi Nogami and Shintaro Sato and developed, published and owned by Nintendo. It is set in the far future on a post-apocalyptic Earth that has been repopulated with evolved marine 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 morph 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, 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. A spin-off game titled Splatoon Raiders was announced on 10 June 2025, as an exclusive for the Nintendo Switch 2. 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.
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
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 other 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 with the press of a button. 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; this gives them the ability to 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 of 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. During matches, players can activate communication signals directed to their team. These signals consist of "This Way!" and "Booyah!" Players can also instantaneously launch themselves towards a fellow teammate or their team's spawn region, an action known as "super jumping", by selecting the desired target through an in-match menu.In the first Splatoon, players could pick a multitude of weapons belonging to one of six distinct weapon classes: Shooters, Chargers, Splat Rollers, Splatlings, Inkbrushes, Blasters, and Sloshers. With the release of Splatoon 2, the Dualie and Brella classes were added to the roster, while Splatoon 3 introduced the Stringer and Splatana classes, making for a total of eleven weapon types across the franchise. 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 Gauge by inking the surrounding area.
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 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. 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 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".
Turf War
"Turf War" is one of the main gameplay modes in the Splatoon franchise. Two teams of four players 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.Ranked Battles
Another online offering present in all installments is "Ranked Battles", available only to players level 10 and above. These consist of alternative modes focusing on competitive, teamwork-oriented gameplay 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. The accessibility 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.- 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 from their opponent, said opposing team is imposed the penalty of an additional timer that itself must also be depleted. Overtime is initiated when the losing team remains in command of the zone when the overall five minutes elapses, and ends immediately after said team either surpasses the opposing side or loses control.
- 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. 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.
- Rainmaker
's objective is for teams to transport a large weapon, the titular "Rainmaker", to a pedestal on the opposing team's base; it plays similar to 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. 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. - 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, 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.
Splatfests
Due to the polarizing nature of the choices offered during Splatfests, the themes themselves tend to be the subject of media attention. Professor Derek Foster noted in an article on the tendency of some Splatoon players to choose one team over another not in relation to the question being asked but rather based on which idol was backing said team. 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 in Splatoon 3, with some further accusing Nintendo of deliberate favoritism. 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; her ultimate victory was met with warm reception among players.
In most Splatfests, the outcome tends to only affect the player's level of in-game reward at the end of the event 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. 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 protagonist Callie became an antagonist. This was later confirmed by a developer after Splatoon 3