Splatoon

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Splatoon

Splatoon

North American box art

Developer(s)	Nintendo EAD Group No. 2
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Producer(s)	Hisashi Nogami
Director(s)	Yusuke Amano Tsubasa Sakaguchi
Platform(s)	Wii U
Release	JP:28 May 2015 NA &EU:29 May 2015 AU:30 May 2015
Genre(s)	Third-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single-player,multiplayer
Media	Wii U optical disc Digital download (eShop)
Game size(s)	2.9 GB
Age rating(s)	JP: All Ages byCERO EU: 7+ byPEGI NA: Everyone 10+ byESRB AU: Parental Guidance byACB

StrategyWiki has an article about:
Splatoon

For other things the name "Splatoon" is used for, seeSplatoon (disambiguation).

“	Dive in to color, chaos, and inkin' awesome battles in this squidtastic take on the action shooter.	”
—Splatoon's official website^[1]

Splatoon is a third-person shooter developed and published byNintendo. The game features battles betweenInklings, using weaponizedink to coverterritory and "splat" opponents. The game was first revealed at the Nintendo E3 2014 Digital Event and was released for theWii U on29 May 2015.

The game was very popular for the Wii U, selling 4.95 million copies^[2] as of September 2020 and being the sixth-best selling title on the system.Splatoon won the "Best Shooter" and "Best Multiplayer" awards atThe Game Awards 2015. It was also nominated for "Best Family Game", but lost toSuper Mario Maker.

Splatoon's sequel, namedSplatoon 2, was released for theNintendo Switch on21 July 2017. It includes brand-new weapons, gear, stages, modes, and also a new story, set two years after the originalSplatoon.

Development

An early design ofSplatoon featuring blocks of tofu.

In September of 2009 one of theSplatoon developers would create concept art featuring anthropomorphic rabbits walking around a crowded city. Many of the ideas presented in the art would later be reused for Splatoon, including the implementation ofMiiverse.^[3]

Around early 2013 a group of ten employees from Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development were tasked by Kazumi Yamaguchi to make a new type of game.^[4]^[5] Among those developers wereShintaro Sato,Seita Inoue,Tsubasa Sakaguchi,Yusuke Amano, andHisashi Nogami, longtime director for theAnimal Crossing series.^[6] The team had thought of over seventy game ideas but eventually decided to focus on a game involving inking turf after playing a concept game by Shintaro Sato.^[5] At first, this concept featured black and white blocks of tofu with noses that sprayed ink.^[6] The game featured a top-down view, allowing the tofu blocks to blend in with their splattered turf.

A later design ofSplatoon featuring rabbits on an earlyUrchin Underpass. Note the almost-completeSplattershot.

However, thesecharacters presented a variety of problems, so development began on a different character that was vaguely humanoid in shape. A rabbit design similar to the one seen in the 2009 concept art was chosen because its floppy ears would indicate what direction it was traveling when viewed from above. Many EAD developers criticized this idea, so ideas such asMario,^[7] robots, and macho men were considered.^[5] On14 January 2014, after much internal struggle, Tsubasa Sakaguchi created a document to help the team decide on a character design that would match the gameplay.^[8] The rabbits were scrapped in favor of a squid because the team wanted a character that made sense in regards to the environment and gameplay mechanics. The squids at this stage appeared to be squid-human hybrids, but it was decided that instead of this design, the game would feature humanoid Inklings with the ability to transform into squids.

TheE3 2014Splatoon demo was shown in-person in Los Angeles in June 2014, with local Turf War matches available to play as part of an early version of the game. By this point in time the game was only about 10% complete as admitted by the development team.^[9]

A few weeks before release, theSplatoon Global Testfire application, a limitedSplatoon demo, was released for the Wii U. Players could download it and play on 8 and9 May 2015, at 3:00, 11:00 and 19:00 UTC, for one hour at a time. A second Testfire event happened on the23 May 2015, at 22:00 UTC. Due to complications, the event was extended to run for two hours instead of one.^[10]

There are three versions of the game: Japanese, North American, and European/Oceanian. The purpose of the three versions is to separate region-based content such asSplatfests, especially ones containing advertisements. Each version has its own translations of the games, even with several differences between the North American and European/Oceanian versions' English, French, and Spanish translations. For the European/Oceanian version, the game was also localized to German and Italian.

Online shutdown

An unusually long online downtime took place in 2023, with implications for the future ofSplatoon's online play. Nintendo took the online servers forSplatoon offline for emergency maintenance on3 March 2023 at04:30 UTC^[11] as they discovered theENLBufferPwn vulnerability within the game, leaving players with single-player and local co-op functionality only. The game was back online on3 August 2023 at01:00 UTC, requiring players to download version2.12.1 - the firstSplatoon update in almost seven years and the first since the release of its sequels.^[12] Nintendo soon stated: "If further issues occur which make it difficult to continue supporting online play, we may have to discontinue the online play service for the Wii U gamesSplatoon andMario Kart 8 at short notice."^[13]

Nintendo went on to end all online play services for Nintendo Network on8 April 2024 at23:00 UTC,^[14] which rendered all online functions inSplatoon permanently inaccessible. Players that had remained within games and the matchmaking lobby over the cutoff time were able to keep playing, at least until they were disconnected from the server. Anyone who attempts to receive stage data inSplatoon now will receive error 104-2210.

Story

The single-playerOcto Valley mode tells the main story of the game. Many years after the great Turf War, with the hope of invading theInklings' world, theOctarians built an underground facility known asOcto Valley. After the disappearance of theZapfish from the Inklings' world, the protagonist, wearing theHero Suit, must infiltrate the base and rescue all the Zapfish.

Gameplay

Splatoon is a third-person shooter game focused on online multiplayer battles, in which eight players are divided into two teams of four. In the game modeTurf War, teams fight to cover the arena in as muchink of their team's color as possible. InSplat Zones, they try to control certain zones for a set amount of time by covering the Splat Zone(s) in ink. Players have two main forms and may switch between the two at will: their humanoid form, in which they can use weapons to spread ink and splatter opponents, and their squid form, which they can use to swim through ink at great speed and up walls, recharge the player's ink tank faster (while in their ink) and hide in their team's ink. Players can also utilizesub weapons, such asSplat Bombs, andspecial weapons, such asInkzookas.

In the primary game mode, Turf War, players are awarded points based on the amount ofland they cover in their team's ink—the team that covers the most territory within three minutes wins the match.

Splatoon also features a single-playerOcto Valley mode, which sees the player travel toOcto Valley and traverse levels based on 3D platforming and puzzle-solving.

Since its initial launch,Splatoon received many updates to introduce new stages, weapons, and wholly new gameplay modes to the game's multiplayer mode. Also, Nintendo announced and hosted semi-regular community events calledSplatfests, where players could pick a team to side with and play Turf Wars against each other for prizes and glory. Both upcoming updates, as well as upcoming Splatfest information, can be read about on the game's official Tumblr page, namedSquid Research Lab.

Technical

Splatoon has a native resolution of720p; selecting an output resolution other than 720p in the Wii U system settings will cause the game's 720p image to bescaled to the selected display resolution.Splatoon runs at 60 frames per second, with the exception of the main hub area,Inkopolis Plaza, which runs at 30 frames per second. Performance ofSplatoon is generally very stable, with frames only being noticeably dropped in particularly hectic moments.^[15] The game features Dynamic Resolution Scaling to momentarily decrease render resolution during high GPU load to avoid frame drops. Imagery viewed through transparent surfaces such as glass or water appear blurry as they are rendered at half-resolution.

Characters

Main article:Character

Protagonists

Secondary

Antagonists

Modes

Main article:Mode

Multiplayer stages

Main article:Stage

Multiplayerstages inSplatoon

Urchin Underpass	Walleye Warehouse	Saltspray Rig	Arowana Mall

Blackbelly Skatepark	Port Mackerel	Kelp Dome	Bluefin Depot

Moray Towers	Camp Triggerfish	Flounder Heights	Hammerhead Bridge

Museum d'Alfonsino	Mahi-Mahi Resort	Piranha Pit	Ancho-V Games

Weapons

Main article:Weapon

Manga series

Main article:Splatoon (manga)

In June 2015, aSplatoon manga was released bySankichi to celebrate its release in Japan. However, this was a fan-made one-shot, and the official version was released in December 2015 as a one-shot type until April 2016.

Staff

Main article:List of Splatoon staff

Splatoon was developed by the Kyoto Software Development Department of Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development. The game was produced byHisashi Nogami and directed byYusuke Amano andTsubasa Sakaguchi.

Gallery

➤View the gallery

Unused content

Main article:Unused content in Splatoon

Trivia

*Splatoon* shown as the most requested game on Nintendo eShop.

The Inklings' squid form shares strong similarities withBloopers from theSuper Mario series.
In the single-player trailer from the November 2014Nintendo Direct, a frame of artwork consists of Bloopers from theSuper Mario series andOctoroks fromThe Legend of Zelda series.
According to an email sent by Nintendo,Splatoon was listed as the top wish-listed game in Nintendo's eShop over the summer it was released.
Despite the Nintendo Network servers shutting down on9 April 2024, Twitter user@Lcd101 was still connected and posting the ongoing rotations in a Twitter thread for 68 continuous days, albeit connected through a Wii Uemulator running on aSteam Deck, rather than on legitimate Wii U hardware.^[16]^[17] Their connection officially went offline on16 June 2024.^[18]