{"id":823330,"date":"2026-07-25T17:23:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T17:23:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/823330\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T17:23:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T17:23:18","slug":"splatoon-raiders-launches-on-switch-2-with-9-10-scores-from-nintendo-life-ign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/823330\/","title":{"rendered":"Splatoon Raiders Launches on Switch 2 With 9\/10 Scores From Nintendo Life, IGN"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nintendo<\/a>\u2019s first-ever single-player Splatoon spin-off is now in players\u2019 hands, and the review verdicts are largely glowing. Splatoon Raiders launched exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2<\/a> on July 23, 2026, and has settled into an aggregate score in the low-to-mid 80s on Metacritic and OpenCritic, putting it within a few points of every numbered game in the series.<\/p>\n

Nintendo Life\u2019s Alex Olney handed the game a 9\/10, writing that \u201cSplatoon Raiders may be missing the series\u2019 iconic Turf War, but what we have here is possibly the most variable and exciting game the series has ever offered.\u201d<\/a> The review also notes it \u201clooks good, runs fantastically, and you can play practically the whole thing with friends if you wish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ditching Turf War for a Solo Loot Chase on the Spirhalite Islands<\/p>\n

Unlike every mainline entry since 2015, Splatoon Raiders is built around a single-player campaign rather than competitive PvP. According to Wikipedia\u2019s entry on the game, sourced from Nintendo\u2019s own announcements, the spinoff is primarily single-player and story-focused, with players choosing to be either an Inkling or Octoling who takes on the role of a mechanic, accompanied by the members of Deep Cut as they explore a region known as the Spirhalite Islands. It also carries a cooperative option, since the game features a cooperative mode that allows up to four players, either locally or online, with difficulty adjusted depending on how many players are present.<\/p>\n

The concept traces back over a year. Nintendo first teased the project on the Nintendo Today! app in mid-2025, before confirming the July 23 release date in an April 2026 trailer, per the same Wikipedia sourcing. OpenCritic\u2019s own recap of the launch window adds that players assume the role of a Mechanic and assist the Deep Cut trio from Splatoon 3 on a new adventure, arriving nearly four years after Splatoon 3, having first been revealed via the Nintendo Today app in June 2025.<\/p>\n

Nintendo Life and IGN Both Land on 9\/10, Pocket Tactics Goes Higher<\/p>\n

Nintendo Life wasn\u2019t alone in its enthusiasm. In its review round-up, the outlet quoted IGN\u2019s take that \u201cSplatoon Raiders is an amazing action RPG with an expertly executed loop. It has fantastic new powers with crazy upgrades that are worth chasing, tough battles\u201d that also landed at 9\/10. Pocket Tactics went a full point higher, awarding a 10\/10 and writing that \u201cSplatoon Raiders of-fish-ally earns our seal of approval as a fantastic game in the franchise,\u201d praising the amount of weapons and gadgets available to \u201cblast enemies out of existence\u201d alongside time spent with Deep Cut.<\/p>\n

Not every outlet was as taken with the format shift. Games industry site TheGamer, tracking the aggregate scores two days before launch, reported the game sitting at an 80 on OpenCritic and 81 on Metacritic, adding that Splatoon has some of the most consistent review scores out there, with the first Splatoon scoring an 81, its sequel an 83, and Splatoon 3 another 83, putting Raiders in that same ballpark. On the more critical end, Metro GameCentral and Stevivor both scored the game 6\/10 over the loss of Turf War, while Giant Bomb landed at 3.5\/5, and The Guardian gave it two stars out of five.<\/p>\n

OpenCritic Tally: 89th Percentile Despite the Mixed Reception<\/p>\n

Aggregator OpenCritic\u2019s own critic-reviews page shows the split clearly. Alongside praise calling it \u201can addictive, looter-shooter loop packed with bite-sized raids, deep crafting, and thrilling co-op,\u201d with \u201ctop-tier movement, gorgeous Switch 2 visuals, and rock-solid 60 fps performance,\u201d and a \u201cphenomenal spin-off that no Splatoon fan should miss\u201d, other reviewers flagged fatigue by the end of the campaign. One review noted that after rolling credits there is still a good amount of post-game content to check out, but \u201cI just don\u2019t feel much of a drive to play more\u2026 I had fun drowning all of those salmonids in ink. But just like them, I\u2019ve had my fill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite that split, OpenCritic\u2019s tracking page places Splatoon Raiders in the 89th percentile of games scored on the platform, a strong showing for a franchise reinventing its core loop for the first time since 2015.<\/p>\n

Pricing, Amiibo and the Ticking Switch 2 Price Clock<\/p>\n

Splatoon Raiders is priced at $49.99 for the digital edition and $59.99 physical in the US, a touch cheaper than several other Switch 2 first-party releases. Launch day also brought three Deep Cut amiibo \u2014 Shiver, Frye and Big Man in Raiders-specific designs \u2014 plus a matching blue-and-yellow Joy-Con 2 controller pair priced at $99.99, according to Forbes contributor Brian Mazique\u2019s coverage of the launch window.<\/p>\n

Mazique\u2019s report also flagged a hardware deadline for anyone still weighing up a console purchase: \u201cOne more number matters if you don\u2019t own the console yet. The Switch 2 sits at $449.99 and Nintendo has confirmed a U.S. increase\u201d to $499.99 that takes effect on September 1, giving newcomers roughly six weeks before the entry price rises by $50.<\/p>\n

Read also: Splatoon Raiders Beginner Tips: Picking a Tank, Gadgets and Difficulty Explained<\/a><\/p>\n

For a franchise that has built its identity almost entirely around competitive Turf War since 2015, landing a spin-off in the same review range as the numbered trilogy is no small feat. Whether Nintendo turns Raiders into an ongoing sub-series will likely hinge less on critic scores and more on how the sales figures stack up against Splatoon 2 and 3, both of which comfortably passed ten million units sold worldwide.<\/p>\n

Sources<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nintendo\u2019s first-ever single-player Splatoon spin-off is now in players\u2019 hands, and the review verdicts are largely glowing. Splatoon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":823331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,7777,10844,127,157065,397321,301331,105],"class_list":["post-823330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-empty","tag-nintendo","tag-nintendo-switch-2","tag-review-roundup","tag-splatoon","tag-splatoon-raiders","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}