The Hype Around Splatoon

A surprising amount of buzz has been mounting the past few weeks around Nintendo’s soon to be released title Splatoon. Announced during the 2014 E3 Nintendo Direct, Splatoon has been receiving a lot of discussion, partly through word of mouth and also due to Nintendo’s own efforts to promote the title to fans.

Part of this promotion relied on a timed demo, that was available during certain periods earlier this month. Those who owned a Wii U could download and play during these hour long “Global Testfires”, and quite a few seemed to enjoy what they played. It’s exciting to see Nintendo back a game in this manner, especially because it is one of their own newly developed IPs.

Playing from the third-person as a squid-human hybrid, the primary objective of the game is to cover the playing field in varying shades of ink, while simultaneously fending off the opposing team with a variety of different weapons. There’s also the ability of each player to swim through their own colored ink, and gain enhanced mobility while also replenishing their ink supply.

The demo released earlier this month, and showcased the game’s highly touted “Turf War” mode. Whichever team manages to cover more of the ground in their own respective color wins the match. While covering the ground is the primary objective, eliminating players can temporarily give your team an edge.

Despite concerns over the game’s lack of voice chat, Splatoon seemed to resonate with many who participated in the demo. So much so that Nintendo is hosting another session for players on May 23rd, from 6-7pm ET.