The Best Nintendo Game Every Year 1983 - 2024

You can never tell what Nintendo are going to do with new IP yet nearly a decade later it’s hard to parse if Splatoon was a wild surprise or a surprisingly tame addition to Ninty’s catalogue, at least from a genre perspective. With dwindling third-party support, the company tried their own spin on a team-based online shooter.

And whilst this made all the sense in the world, it's unlikely anybody had “squids that are also kids shooting coloured ink all over oil rigs to mark their territory” on their bingo card. However, it's zany approach really made Splatoon a feature title of the Wii U. The chaotic team-based fun of fighting for control by painting the scenery more than trying to snipe your foes was delightful.

It also made simple but effective use of the GamePad, showing players a top-down map of the arena to see where their presence (and ink) was needed, as well as allowing them to quickly super-jump from place to place with a touch of the screen.

One of the best things about Splatoon was that it was a great representation of Nintendo’s ability to support a game after release, something that they hadn’t been asked to do a lot of in the past. Like many games, Splatoon only got better with time, tweaks and more content.