Splatoon Raiders spelas som ett Nintendo Looter Shooter

Splatoon Raiders reworks Nintendo's ink shooter for the first time in a decade, and a 90-minute hands-on, spotted by Polygon, shows it bending closer to a looter shooter than to the dungeon crawler its trailers implied. The game is billed as the series' first true single-player entry, pulling ideas from Splatoon 3's PVE Salmon Run into a level-based campaign. It launches July 23 as a Switch 2 exclusive.

Splatoon Raiders was announced for Switch 2 in May with a trailer framing a story-driven, exploration-focused solo adventure, a clear break from the mainline turf wars. The same insider chatter that has trailed the platform claims a remaster of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess could reach Switch 2, though that remains a rumor.

The preview corrects the picture the early trailers built. Instead of a treasure-hunting dungeon crawler, the demo ran as a straightforward, level-based solo game. The opening half-hour covered the tutorial and first few levels, and anyone who has played Splatoon will settle in fast. Inking surfaces, dropping into squid form to swim through the paint, and the familiar arsenal all carry over: Splattershots, Sloshers, Brellas, and Splat Dualies, along with the Salmonid enemies from Salmon Run.

The departure is in the progression. Raiders adds character customization and RPG systems built around your ink tank, which comes in three classes: Speed, Power, and Tactical. Each levels up through use, gaining stats on top of permanent skill upgrades bought with tokens. Every tank carries its own gadgets, secondary powers on a cooldown. The Tactical Tank fields a stationary turret and a damaging tether; the Speed tank runs a jumping slam and a boomerang attack. Two gadgets equip at once, and more can be crafted from mission materials.

Gadgets also take mods earned during runs, which sharpen those secondary attacks. One Power option, Splattelites, wraps the inkling in a ring of damaging paintballs, and tuning its duration up made a close-range Slosher build viable. On top of that sits one of three ultimate attacks tied to Deep Cut, the pop band assisting the treasure hunt. One ultimate summons a shark that tears through enemies in a straight line.

The weapon count pushes the looter-shooter framing further. Raiders carries more than 100 weapons that drop from enemies at varying levels with unique perks. Combined with the tank classes, gadgets, mods, and ultimates, the build variety is wide, and it points squarely at the four-player co-op, where teams could assemble complementary builds to clear the campaign's short levels. The weak spot is fashion: players unlock only a handful of full outfits rather than individual clothing pieces, which sits oddly against a series where assembling a look is core.

The missions play differently from Splatoon 3's solo campaign. Where Splatoon 3 leaned on puzzle platforming, Raiders leans on combat. Early levels had the player hopping between islands hunting crystals to drill with a robot companion, usually clearing a wave of enemies before cracking one open. Platforming still appears, springing off the robot, riding wind gusts over gaps, launching upward off tall vines, but the handful of missions played put action first.

The mission list varied. Some levels were linear treasure hunts. Others opened up, sending the player across a small map to gather a set number of Power Eggs. One standout worked as a weapon challenge, handing over a fixed loadout with an ink-turret gadget and running it through a gauntlet that taught the tool's uses in context. Across all of them, the player can grab random weapons, scattered lore, experience, and crafting materials.

Then there are raids, the mode most likely to be misread. They resemble both Splatoon 3's Side Order roguelite and Salmon Run without being either. Raids are timed floor-by-floor levels where you splat enough enemies and collect enough Eggs to advance. Targeting larger Salmonids like Steel Eels and Stingers yields more Eggs, but you still have to thin the Lesser Salmonid herds and ink the ground to avoid getting cornered.

I think the absence of any longer-form or procedurally generated raid is the one real gap here, because the levels on offer were too short to justify a four-player campaign that clearly wants you to grind with friends. The demo showed no grind-friendly mode in the vein of Salmon Run. A Help feature lets players drop into another person's game to assist for rewards, but that does not replace a repeatable endgame loop. With well over 100 hours logged in Splatoon 3, the appetite for reasons to squad up is exactly what the preview left unmet.

That gap may be the point rather than an oversight. Nintendo is pitching Raiders as a single-player Splatoon, not a solo mode bolted onto a live-service multiplayer game. The level-based campaign reads as a compact standalone, and for anyone put off by the sheer volume of Splatoon 3, it offers a smaller entry into the series. The buildcrafting is strong enough that it would be a surprise if Splatoon 4 left those systems on the sidelines.

The launch lands as Nintendo's hardware sits well ahead of its rivals. Switch 2 becomes the second fastest-selling console in US history, moving 5.9 million units in its first 12 months, behind only the Game Boy Advance's 6.5 million over the same window, per Circana's May 2026 report. S

Splatoon Raiders releases July 23 for Nintendo Switch 2.