If there’s an online gaming trend, you can bet your ass Nintendo has shown up embarrassingly late to the party. Multiplayer modes, friend lists, in-game voice chat, downloadable games, bug fixes, DLC, even smartphone gaming—for nearly a decade, the company has been too busy catching up to lead or innovate in this space.
Such a track record puts a lot of pressure on Splatoon, Nintendo’s first game to primarily focus on online multiplayer. (We wrote at length about that very issue earlier this month, but to wit: Nintendo hasn’t launched a game with an online versus shooting mode in nine years.) In good news, that fact has put the developer in a position to take exactly the kinds of risks that make this four-on-four battler so promising. The game’s paint-to-claim-turf conceit is refreshing, and its best ideas pump new blood into the third-person shooter genre.
There is absolutely fun to be had in a good Splatoon battle, but the catch here is the future tense. Splatoon reveals more than a few signs of immaturity in the online gaming space, but its worse offense sees Nintendo catching up, unfortunately, with another big gaming trend of late. This is yet another retail launch of an unfinished game. The version of Splatoon we’d like to play—different from the one people are about to spend $ 60 on—evidently hasn’t been made yet.
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