You crash-land on a stretch of the Spirhalite Islands you’ve never set foot on, ink still dripping off the wreckage, and Deep Cut isn’t asking if you’re hurt — they’re asking if you can hear the Salmonids already circling. That opening moment sets the tone for Splatoon Raiders almost immediately: this is a single-player-focused spin-off built around raiding, looting, and getting back to the ship in one piece, not the competitive turf battles the series is known for.
| Genre |
Third-person action shooter |
| Platform |
Nintendo Switch 2 |
| Modes |
Single-player, up to 4-player co-op |
| Playable Characters |
Inkling or Octoling, as the Mechanic |
| Setting |
Spirhalite Islands |
How Splatoon Raiders Sends You Into the Spirhalite Islands
You take on the role of the Mechanic, and every raid follows the same rhythm: pick a destination on the Spirhalite Islands, drop in with a member of Deep Cut riding along inside an Exploration Bot, and start clearing out Salmonids for loot. Early raids are forgiving, but the game ramps difficulty fast once you’re pushing into zones the tutorial never touches, and beginners who treat every raid like the first one tend to get overwhelmed the moment enemy density spikes.
What players notice by their second or third raid is how much the Exploration Bot changes the pacing. It’s not just a companion for flavor — it drills for loot, fends off enemies, and gives you an extra body to lean on when a wave of Salmonids gets out of hand.
Splatting Salmonids and Working With Shiver, Frye, and Big Man
Combat still runs on the series’ ink-based mechanics, but the enemy variety and pacing owe more to a looter-shooter than a shooting gallery. Community discussion keeps circling back to how each member of Deep Cut brings a different feel to a raid — Shiver, Frye, and Big Man aren’t interchangeable, and picking who accompanies you changes how a run plays out.
- Loot-focused players prioritize raids where Spirhalite Crystals are known to spawn heavily, since those crystals fund the deepest upgrade tiers.
- Co-op players lean on the four-player mode specifically because Splatoon Raiders scales enemy difficulty based on squad size, turning chaotic raids into something more coordinated.
- Solo-focused players tend to stick with whichever Deep Cut member’s Exploration Bot best covers their weak spots, since there’s no human backup to fall back on.
Upgrading Gear and the Hideout Ship
Everything you drag back from a raid funnels into the Hideout Ship, which acts as the game’s home base. Weapons, gadgets, and the ship itself all take Spirhalite Crystals and salvage to upgrade, and the loop of raid-loot-upgrade-repeat is what keeps players coming back for “just one more run” long after they meant to stop.
What surprises a lot of newcomers is how much the upgrade path shapes combat difficulty. A raid that feels brutal with starter gear becomes manageable once your gadgets catch up, which means struggling with a specific zone often has less to do with skill and more to do with how much time you’ve put into the Hideout Ship.
Playing Splatoon Raiders Solo Versus in a Four-Player Crew
This is one of the more debated parts of the game. Some players find the single-player pacing meditative and appreciate that it doesn’t force multiplayer to see everything the Spirhalite Islands have to offer. Others feel the raids were clearly tuned with a full crew in mind, and solo runs can drag once enemy density stops scaling down enough to compensate. Both takes show up constantly in community discussion, and neither side is exactly wrong.
- Can you play Splatoon Raiders entirely solo? Yes, the single-player mode is fully playable start to finish, with the Exploration Bot and a Deep Cut companion standing in for teammates during every raid.
- What does the Exploration Bot actually do during a raid? It accompanies you into the field, helps fend off Salmonids, and can drill for extra loot, functioning as both a combat assist and a resource tool rather than a passive companion.
- Do you need to have played earlier Splatoon games to understand Splatoon Raiders? No prior knowledge is required, though returning players will recognize Deep Cut and the ink-based combat systems carried over from Splatoon 3.
Between the raid loop, the Hideout Ship upgrades, and the push-and-pull of soloing versus squading up, Splatoon Raiders turns the Spirhalite Islands into the kind of place you keep finding one more reason to go back to, usually because Frye just mentioned a crystal deposit you haven’t checked yet.
