Two teams of four spray colored ink all over an arena, and whoever covers more floor in three minutes wins, so painting matters more than shooting people. Press a button and your character turns into a squid that swims fast through your own ink, hides in it, and refills the tank. Nobody gets hurt in a gory way, the music and style are fantastic, and there is a co-op mode where four players fend off waves of fish monsters.
Gameplay video
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Screenshots & review notes
The short version
This sequel refined rather than reinvented, and while some missed the novelty of the original, the core turf war concept remains uniquely satisfying.
In the hands
Swimming through your own ink to reload and reposition is still one of the smartest movement systems in any shooter, rewarding map awareness over pure aim.
Look and sound
The neon-soaked art direction and thumping J-pop soundtrack give it a personality shooters rarely bother with, and it runs cleanly in short online bursts.
The long haul
Salmon Run and ranked modes give it real depth for dedicated players, though the population has thinned with its sequel's arrival, limiting matchmaking somewhat.
Frames captured from the gameplay video above; notes are our own take on the game.
What it's like to play
Two teams of four are dropped into a small arena and given guns that shoot colored ink instead of bullets. You have three minutes, and the team that has covered more of the floor in their color wins. Splatting opponents helps because they respawn away from the action, but painting is what actually wins, so a player who quietly rolls ink over the back half of the map contributes as much as the one picking fights in the middle.
The clever part is that pressing one button turns you into a squid. As a squid you swim through your own ink fast, climb up inked walls, hide almost invisibly waiting to ambush someone, and refill your tank. Enemy ink slows you to a crawl and hurts, so the map is constantly shifting between highways and swamps depending on who painted what. Aiming is done by tilting the console or controller, which feels odd for about twenty minutes and then becomes far more precise than a stick.
Beyond the main mode there are four ranked variants with objectives like carrying a ball or escorting a tower, a solo adventure with platforming levels, and a co-op mode where four players fend off waves of fish monsters and grab their eggs under pressure. There is also a paid add-on campaign with eighty tough puzzle levels that is well loved. Everything is cartoonish and bloodless, with a great soundtrack and a distinct street-fashion style. Worth knowing, Splatoon 3 exists now and has the bigger online population, so pick this one up for its campaign or if you find it cheap.