Splatoon Raiders devs scrapped their original island concept because it felt too colonialist

Splatoon Raiders launches July 23, and ahead of release Nintendo published an Ask the Developer interview with art director Koji Sonoyama and sound director Shu Tamura that reveals just how dramatically the game's visual direction changed during development.

The original concept placed players on a lush, resort-like tropical island — the home of the Salmonids, the game's antagonists. The team chose remote islands over Splatoon's usual urban settings specifically to take advantage of Switch 2's improved ability to render organic environments, like grass you can actually ink. But playtesting the prototype created an unexpected problem: everyone who played it felt sorry for the Salmonids. Sonoyama describes the core issue plainly — it felt like players were invading a place where the Salmonids were happily going about their lives, then taking their treasures by force and basking in the spoils. He doesn't use the word colonialism, but that's exactly what he's describing. Tamura adds that even the background music made things worse: the adventurous, resort-friendly soundtrack only reinforced the sense that players were cheerfully attacking cute, innocent creatures.

Splatoon Raiders is a new direction for the franchise — a single-player action game rather than the competitive multiplayer the series is known for. The Salmonids have appeared in Splatoon 2 and 3's Salmon Run co-op mode, but always as mindless enemies to fend off in waves. Giving them a home, a habitat, and idle animations of them chatting apparently made them feel like actual inhabitants rather than obstacles, which is what triggered the team's discomfort.

The developers tried a first pivot — reframing the setting around the feeling of being stranded in a strange, outlandish environment — but Sonoyama admits that didn't fully work either, since white sand beaches and clear ocean water still looked too pleasant. That forced a more fundamental rework of the visual direction from the ground up. The interview doesn't detail exactly where the final design landed, but early reviews are positive ahead of the July 23 release.