Splatoon proves the best idea from external video games

Splatoon celebrates its 10th anniversary today (May 28, 2025). Below, we examine how it reaches its unique blend of inspiration in the video game world.

It's easy to understand Splatoon's improvisation as a previous video game. This is a multiplayer shooting game produced in the years after the competitive shooter began dominating the online game. But it subverts the genre, providing children and families with something to adjust, not teenagers and young people. Its cartoon style and emphasis on other goals other than “kill” or “hold this position” set it apart from most other games of its kind. But Splatoon is more original. It turns out that when you're outside the regular avenues of video games like wildlife, pop music, and street fashion and borrowing from it, it's the weirdest and most exciting idea.

Nintendo did not start developing Splatoon with the goal of creating a family-friendly multiplayer shooting game. Former CEO Satoru Iwata In an interview, developers wanted to create “a new type of game without having to worry about trying to adapt to existing game types.” From the initial seeds, there were 70 ideas, and the team narrowed down to splatoon. Its unique flavor comes in part from this vast approach. To be fair, this was an interview for promotional purposes, with active interest being conducted by Nintendo employees to make the best impression possible. Who knows how much of this is a little-known truth? But it is still shocking that video game terms rarely appear, as well as intuition and common sense design questions raised.

When you look at the finished Splatoon, each part of it can be blended together, from how the squid character masks the ink and how the mechanics of its paint puzzle pair with the street art aesthetic. However, this takes a lot of careful thinking and iteration. The first design to capture the development team’s imagination is to cover the ink battlefield characters, but these characters are tofu blocks, not squids. Why do you need tofu? Well, the tofu block shape and simple colors make it disappear into the ink, turning the straightforward shooting game into a nervous cat and mouse game.

But tofu is a problem. The lack of any human function makes it stupid. How do you sell games with tofu characters? Initially, the team settled in the rabbit for many practical reasons. Their bright palette makes it easy to see when it is inked, and the ears act as simple visual markers for the direction they are looking for. There is only one problem: rabbits make no sense. Co-director Yusuke Amano said: “When people ask 'Why rabbits?' and “Why rabbits shoot ink?” “We can't give them a rational explanation.” Many characters in brainstorming need to have a lot of content (including “a theme” that makes sense, and it makes sense ink-the team settled on the squid.

Now, the game's characters feel reasonable, but the new design also creates new ideas for gameplay. The ability of squids to swim in ink makes traversing enemies on the wall. This intuitive approach extends to the rest of the game. Splatoon may get complicated, but these weapons are similar to water guns, aerosol cans, buckets, paintbrushes and rollers, and most of Splatoon’s player base have used or used in real life. How these tools make them attractive is straightforward. More intuitive shooters like Halo still rely on some prior knowledge of guns. You don't need to be in Splatoon.

Spreading ink on the walls and floors also brings graffiti and extends street fashion. The team established a connection before settling down on the Squid character. Part of what makes each of the three fragmented games great is how they draw on specific, sometimes local subcultures. In-depth research inspires the splatoon fashion will take you from the designer's monochrome runway look Yamamoto Youji To the artist's portrait style sk8thing. Scroll through this short history Tokyo Community Ura-Harajuku Its streetwear will showcase the look and location you can find in Inkopolis. Olympic squid girl idols draw inspiration from digital pop stars like hatsune miku, even if they draw from the real world American hip hop. These influences bring the game's style beyond its own boundaries. Entering Splatoon may be, for many players, this is a gateway to many other cool things.

Splatoon foresaw Fortnite in a strange way, focusing on the aesthetics of player choice, seasonal community events and cartoon-like, child-friendly resonance. But in another sense, the difference couldn't be better. Fortnite wants to be the platform for everything for everyone: music festivals, movie trailers and brand new games. It devoured everything from Star Wars and Marvel to Sabrina Carpenter and Ariana Grande. At the same time, every Splatoon game has a big, final splatfest, after which the game will no longer play. Fortnite's desire to stretch plastic has spread to every multiplayer game, and Splatoon is still its own thing, even with occasional Nintendo pairings.

But Splatoon can still crave. In Splatfest, the players team selected the sides between teams such as “Pirates and Ninjas” or “Early Birds and Night Owls” in the weekend war. The goal is to attract social media attention to the game by using common key shapes and cultural debates. But this also has the role of taking root in its own external subculture. spreadfest creates a normal and routine, each new event is both certain and disturbing. They are naked attempts to increase player count and generate free ads. But when they are at their best, Splatfest feels like a barrier party.

This puts us into the run of Splatoon on social media. As you explore Inkopolis, you can find drawings and scratches from other players. If you're walking around in Splatoon 2 or 3, you can still find posts like this. Although the system draws inspiration from the interfaces of Instagram and Twitter, there is no algorithm that tailors what you see. Town Square can only show you what people are saying now. The result is something that is direct and buzzing, but it won't get your attention for a long time.

All of these works come together, perhaps creating the deepest elements of Splatoon: the feeling of a particular time and place. Splatoon's aesthetic is not an imitation of emptiness, but a tribute. Its social media and events bring the world beyond the boundaries of the game. Splatoon feels like a real place, even though you can only visit. That's because it can only be made by that team at that time. In 2015, we were on the verge of a completely different gaming ecosystem. Fortnite Battle Royale is only two years away. Splatoon's emphasis on avatar customization and seasonal events makes it immediately talk to what is about to happen. However, it won't be more different. Splatoon's seasonal activities have a clear end. It lacks endless cross-media promotions (outside the occasional Nintendo crossover). It is not always chasing everyone at any time, but rather satisfied with the dedicated audience at that moment.

Suitable for all of this, Splatoon is not endless entertainment. Its servers have been declining for a long time. You can't play games that people played in 2015. That death strangely is Splatoon's narrative of the post-apocalyptic world, which has long disappeared. The clothes worn by the squid man are like clothes worn by humans, playing games that play like humans and making the same music. There are differences, but the same is true. Maybe that squid world will die like the human world, but isn’t it beautiful in the process of continuous progress?