Splatoon arrived in 2015 and did something almost no shooter had managed: it made the act of covering ground feel more satisfying than eliminating opponents. Nintendo's franchise follows the Inklings and Octolings, teen cephalopods who fight turf wars with ink guns, rollers, and brushes in arenas that shift from dry concrete to saturated color in minutes. The through-line every fan chases is that particular cocktail of competitive precision, wild self-expression, and a world built on maximalist style. The music is a genre unto itself, the fashion is ridiculous in the best way, and the skill ceiling rewards mastery without making newcomers feel unwelcome. If that hits right for you, the cross-media universe of games, animation, music, books, and film that follows below was assembled with the same sensibility in mind.
Essential Splatoon
The core games, ranked by how much they expanded the canvas
Same Competitive Energy, Different Weapon
Games that share Splatoon's mix of team tactics, fast movement, and mastery curves
Style Over Survival: Films and Series with the Same Attitude
Visual chaos, teen energy, and worlds built on self-expression
Jet Set Radio Is the Spiritual Ancestor
Before Splatoon, SEGA's Jet Set Radio (2000) established the template: a youth subculture at war with authority, self-expression as weapon, and a soundtrack that felt like it arrived from a parallel dimension. The cel-shaded Tokyo streets of Jet Set Radio are the direct cultural grandparent of Inkopolis. Jet Set Radio Future expanded the world further on Xbox. Playing them back-to-back reveals exactly how much of what feels original about Splatoon is actually a lineage being honored and extended.
Spider-Verse Proved Maximalist Color Is Serious Art
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) arrived the same console generation as Splatoon 2 and confirmed what the game had been arguing: that deliberate visual excess, color as grammar, and a refusal to tone things down for mainstream comfort is a creative position, not an immature one. The Sony sequel, Across the Spider-Verse, pushed it further. Both films reward Splatoon fans specifically because they share the same conviction that style is substance.
Persona 5 Owns the Same Aesthetic Brain Space
Persona 5 (2016) and Splatoon 3 (2022) were released seven years apart and share almost no mechanical DNA, but they occupy identical aesthetic territory: maximalist color, a defiant youth subculture, a soundtrack that sounds like a genre invented specifically for this IP, and menus that feel designed by someone who genuinely wanted to show off. Fans of one almost always respond to the other. Persona 5 Royal is the definitive version; Persona 5 Strikers is the action spinoff that feels most like Splatoon in pacing.
The Splatoon Timeline
- 2015Splatoon launches on Wii U, introducing Inklings and turf war to the world Splatoon
- 2015The Splatoon manga begins serialization in CoroCoro Comic in Japan
- 2017Splatoon 2 launches with Nintendo Switch, adding Salmon Run co-op and new idols Splatoon 2
- 2018Octo Expansion DLC delivers the series' most ambitious single-player campaign Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion
- 2022Splatoon 3 launches as the biggest entry yet, with a fully redesigned hub and new story mode Splatoon 3
- 2024Side Order, a roguelite DLC, reframes Pearl and Marina's story with new mechanics Splatoon 3
Colorful chaos and team arenas
For Fans of Overwatch
Explore the For Fans of Overwatch guide →Splatoon turned the shooter genre's core act inside out: covering the map matters more than eliminating the enemy. That single inversion produced one of the most distinct competitive games ever made.CrossBinge editorial