Splatoon Raiders was originally a tower defense game, and honestly, once you hear the developers explain why they scrapped it, it makes a lot of sense.
Nintendo published a new entry in its long-running “Ask the Developer” interview series this week, digging into the making of Splatoon Raiders, the single-player-focused spin-off launching July 23 exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2. Producer Seita Inoue and director Yoshihiko Ito walked through the game’s early development, and the prototype sounds almost nothing like what’s about to release.
The trap-placement prototype
According to Ito, the earliest version of the project came together while the team was wrapping up updates for Splatoon 3. They wanted to build a single-player experience around Salmon Run, the four-player co-op mode where squids fend off waves of Salmonids to collect Golden Eggs. The pitch was simple on paper: what if one player could handle that chaos alone?
The first attempt leaned heavily into base-defense mechanics. Players placed traps across the map, then fought alongside them as Salmonids poured in automatically. It’s the kind of setup that works fine in a lot of genres — but Ito said the more the team played it, the more it felt like watching a fortress do the work rather than actually playing Splatoon.
Why it lost its “Splatoon-ness”
That’s the phrase the interview keeps coming back to — “Splatoon-ness.” Ito explained that Splatoon games are built around constant, rapid action: inking territory, swapping between squid and kid form, jumping, fighting, moving, all within a few seconds at a time. A trap-focused defense game just doesn’t ask that of the player. You set things up, then mostly watch.
So the team pivoted toward what eventually became the game’s signature mechanic — gadgets. Instead of placing static traps, players now equip two gadgets at once, alternating between them mid-fight. Some let you charge forward with extra power, others let you leap high or hover briefly above the ground. There’s a cooldown built in too, which keeps players constantly making split-second decisions rather than settling into a defensive rhythm.
How that shaped the rest of the game
The gadget system ended up defining more than just combat. It informed the design of Splatoon Raiders’ new protagonist, the Mechanic — a quiet, resourceful character who builds their own gadgets and grows more capable as the game progresses, unlocking new actions and higher attack power the further you get. It’s a much more natural fit for a character-driven, single-player Nintendo Switch 2 title than the original fortress-building concept ever was.
It also explains why this is Splatoon Raiders and not Splatoon 4. Inoue has said the team wanted to try something with a genuinely different rhythm, something players could sit with solo, rather than force that experimental structure into a mainline entry. If you’re tracking other Switch 2 exclusives worth building a library around, our rundown of Gamescom 2026’s biggest publisher lineup is worth a look, since several platform holders are expected to show off more of their 2026 slate there.
Splatoon Raiders almost turned into a completely different kind of game — one built around watching traps do the fighting instead of doing it yourself. Nintendo caught that early enough to pivot, and gadgets ended up giving the spin-off its own identity instead of just being Salmon Run with training wheels off.