Our Verdict
A spin-off that’s both substantial and slight, Splatoon Raiders is a novel experiment that will please both fans and newcomers hoping for this colourful shooter to cater better to solo players, even if at times it feels like it’s been cobbled together from last season's washed-out fashions.
For
Splatoon in bite-sized looter shooter formA lot of customisation for different builds in tandem with growing baseChaotic gadgets and showstoppers are a visual treatNot a major visual upgrade from Switch 1-era SplatoonEnemies largely familiar if you've played Salmon RunLess personality from mainline gamesPick and mix Switch 2 shooter
If it sounds like Splatoon Raiders is made up of a lot of recycled parts, while on the surface it looks like it could also have been a cross-gen title rather than a Switch 2 exclusive, in practice it works wonderfully, repurposing existing elements into an essentially looter shooter. Although there are no new weapon types, and sub-weapons like the aforementioned bombs are absent, it's more than made up for by your ability to equip ink tanks that give you three sets of playstyles: speed, power or tactical.
Depending on the tank you choose, you can develop and equip a wide variety of gadgets. These are basically cooldown-based abilities that replace sub-weapons but with the added bonus that you can eventually equip up to three of them. There are incentives to switch between tanks for each mission too, but I really took to the speed tank, where I can leap away from danger and land with an explosion of ink around me or shoot out a zipwire to reach higher ground, including airborne Salmonids.
