Splatoon Raiders will attempt to make a splash tomorrow, 23rd July, and Nintendo is celebrating its launch on Switch 2 with a surprisingly in-depth chat with four key Nintendo EPD developers.

‘Ask the Developer Vol. 22: Splatoon Raiders – Part 1’ is a thoroughly good read, but some bits stand out. After a decently sized intro with comments on what Splatoon Raiders actually is and what players can expect from its looter shooter-inspired formula, producer Seita Inoue, director Yoshihiko Ito, art director Koji Sonoyama, and sound director Shu Tamura elaborated on its key innovations and how they first envisioned it.

“We thought it might be interesting to create something with a slightly different approach to gameplay, where you can really savor the action on your own,” Inoue said. “That said, we will continue to develop competitive gameplay going forward. That’s why we developed this game as a spin-off and not as Splatoon 4.”

Splatoon Raiders is focused on solo and co-op action, giving more importance to weapon progression and repeatable missions that task players with defeating hordes of Salmonids and bigger bosses. Initially, however, Nintendo EPD wanted to create a solo-oriented experience with base defence elements. “The first thing we tried was building gameplay around placing traps. The idea was to place traps all over the place and to fight alongside them,” Ito revealed. An early development video was also shared as part of the article to show those original tests.

The developers eventually moved away from that core idea, as they thought players were “just building a fortress with lots of traps and then watching it play out”, which led to the game losing its “Splatoon-ness”. For Inoue, at first, “the fun came from the sense of unity between the player and the character through gyro controls on the Wii U GamePad, combined with the ink-shooting mechanics”. Across competitive and non-competitive modes, the team felt there was a “strong sense of action” and dynamic encounters, and they wanted to preserve that.

“We focused instead on expanding the range of actions available to the player to be more dynamic, so they can actively take down enemies themselves,” Ito added. This led to the creation of gadgets, which give players new abilities that heavily alter how they battle the Salmonids or move across Splatoon Raiders’ levels. Similarly, the team looked for ways to better support a PvE loop that could hold up for tens of hours with more weapons, enemies, loot, and objectives. “By strengthening both their equipment and their own skill in this way, we believe players will eventually become what we call the ultimate multitasker,” Ito concluded.

Eurogamer’s four-star review of Splatoon Raiders called it “a hectic, often overwhelming delight” even if it mostly boils down to “blasting something and trying to stay alive”.