Nintendo needs more Splatoons, and to get out of its comfort zone more

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Twelve years ago, it might have seemed inconceivable that Nintendo would release a competitive multiplayer shooter. It was just hard to imagine what that would look like. And it's certain nobody would have predicted the answer. They might have been able to guess at a game with a colorful paintball aesthetic, but painting as a territory capture mechanic? And players who can travel faster in their own ink by turning into a squid and swimming in it? No chance. That Nintendo would also invent robust in-universe fashion and music cultures around it was surely on nobody's imaginary bingo card, either.

Even if you had somehow intuited all of this, would you predict this game would start a 30-million-selling franchise? Never in a million years.

All of this is exactly what happened with 2015's Wii U shooter, Splatoon. This side of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, it might be the most inventive, contemporary, and broadly relevant game Nintendo has released in the last 15 years. It's certainly the company's most exciting new franchise in that time. Conceived and made by a younger generation of Nintendo designers, Splatoon is a rare example of a game that sees Nintendo taking note of what's going on outside its walled garden in the rest of gaming culture, then reframing it in a uniquely Nintendo way. (Breath of the Wild is another.)

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo

Now we have Splatoon Raiders, a spinoff that takes Splatoon's basic mechanics and applies them to the framework of a player-versus-environment looter-shooter. Reviews like Polygon's have invoked Borderlands and Diablo; you could even see Raiders as a kind of Destiny lite. This is an oversubscribed genre, but one Nintendo has never touched before. It's thrilling to see the developer unleash its pop aesthetic, playful sensibility, and design nous on a kind of game you wouldn't think anyone could make look fresh. Back in 2014, you might have said the same about competitive shooters, too.

The freshness travels both ways; Splatoon gives Nintendo an opportunity to be punk, to be cool, to express a more boisterous competitive spirit. Nintendo is so revered, its quality control is so impregnable, and its franchises are so timeless that it's easy to forget that it needs this kind of shot in the arm as much as any other creative enterprise does. Art and entertainment feed on newness, and there hasn't been so much of that from Nintendo of late.

Splatoon shouldn't be Nintendo's only outlet for this kind of thing. Nintendo needs more Splatoons, more Pikmins, more WarioWares. It needs to venture outside its comfort zone into unfamiliar genres more often, to spend more time processing all the other wild things gaming can be. What would a Nintendo roguelike look like? A Nintendo friendslop game? Nothing like all the others, that's for sure.

eShop game of the week: The Mermaid Mask

This murder mystery honors the LucasArts point-and-click classics in one simple way: It's extremely funny. Reviewers love the clever plot, set on a submarine, and the witty script and voice acting. According to Polygon's Giovanni Colantonio, it has the same energy as Rian Johnson's Knives Out movies, as it smartly leans into the inherent absurdity of the whodunnit genre.

Nintendo Classics game of the week: Gunstar Heroes

If you're generally in the mood to shoot stuff this week, try this classic run-and-gun Sega Genesis game from Treasure, masters of the dark arts of the shmup. (We featured Treasure's Sin and Punishment a few weeks ago.) It's your basic 1990s run-and-jump-and-shoot-dudes game, only executed at an absurdly high level.

Nintendo Music track of the week: "Escarpment Torment / DHA" from Splatoon Raiders

This, from the "special release" sampler of the Splatoon Raiders soundtrack, must be one of the most avant-garde pieces on the whole Nintendo Music soundtrack. A delirious, sawing cello line spirals over juddering, stuttering arthouse techno. Wild stuff. (There's a playlist of all of Switchboard's music picks here.)

This week's most interesting releases

Splatoon Raiders

• July 23
• Switch 2
• Chaotic paintball series reborn as a solo/co-op loot-shooter campaign

Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game

• July 23
• Switch
• Fairly hardcore fighting game set in the Airbender universe. (Note: Switch version does not have crossplay at launch.)

Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster

• July 23
• Switch 2
• Two-for-one reissue of the classic RPGs gets a native Switch 2 version

Club Soko

• July 23
• Switch
• Sokoban puzzle game with fun art about pushing your way deep into an underground nightclub

Helix: Descent N Ascent

• July 23
• Switch
• Puzzle adventure with striking black-and-white illustration style