When Splatoon burst onto the scene in 2015 with its squids, who are also heavily-armed children, people were instantly drawn to its brightly coloured. The team-based multiplayer shooter, where matches are won by covering the ground with ink, is enjoyed by adults and kids alike. Its primary 4v4 Turf War mode drives Splatoon’s multiplayer, and that’s where you’ll find most of its players on any given day. A single-player campaign teaches new players the basics and lets them try out different weapons in a safe environment, preparing them to join the multiplayer arena. However, because completing the single-player mode is not a pre-requisite for accessing multiplayer, many Splatoon players haven’t so much as looked at it. This means they have no real idea of the world these games take place in or how truly dark it is.
To learn about this, it’s probably best to start at the beginning. What follows is the incredibly bleak story of Splatoon.
Long before the events of the original Splatoon, humans were Earth’s most dominant species, though we had descended into frequent, pointless wars. Three more World Wars shook the planet, giving way to numerous civil wars. Finally, during the fifth World War, one country (it is no longer remembered which) launched a warhead at Antarctica, intending to melt it. The ultimate “if we can’t have it, no one can” approach. Humans fled into large underground caverns to avoid the coming environmental decimation. It was all in vain. The planet was flooded entirely, and with it, humanity was destroyed.
As disaster loomed, a professor placed his pet cat, Judd, into a cryogenic chamber. Judd, it turned out, was a master tactician and had rendered sound judgment on every major human war. Because Judd had proven himself so tactically important, the professor chose to freeze Judd instead of himself. As a contingency plan, he created an AI, a keeper of all human knowledge; a torch passed to the next sentient species to help them avoid making humanity’s mistakes.
This theming of genocidal global conflict and environmental destruction is a throughline in both games. Splatoon makes a very specific point: its characters live in the ecological wreckage of the human race. This, however, is just the beginning, and things are already fairly dire. But wait, it gets worse.
The next ten thousand years are fairly quiet. As the waters finally recede, some ocean-going life forms are forced to move onto land and evolve. Among these are the Inklings, the Octarians and the Jellyfish. At the same moment, Judd awakens from his cryogenic sleep. At first, relations between the species are cordial. They participate in friendly ink-based games with Judd adjudicating. However, over time, the water levels begin to rise once more. Water has become deadly to the evolved sea life now living on the surface. A rising sea level poses an existential threat.
And so, The Great Turf War began.
The Great Turf War tore the world into two groups, the Octarians and the Inklings. Though the lore never clearly explains their reasons for doing so, most other former sea creatures also took the Inklings’ side in the war. The Octarians, led by the terrible Octavio, are made up of intelligent octopi humanoids, Octolings, and their sentient appendages. The latter is kind of stupid and obedient and is created by any Octoling cutting off one of the tentacles on their head.
The first year of the Great Turf War saw the Inklings on the back foot as the Octarians raced to create weapons of mass destruction called the Great Octoweapons. With their backs to the wall, the Inklings answered in kind, building weapons of their own. Even with new armaments in their pocket, the Inklings were lucky to survive: a Sunken Scroll in the original game mentions that Inklings had a bad habit of sleeping in and missing battles.
In the war’s second year, the Squidbeak Splatoon was created by Judd, Cap’n Cuttlefish, Ammoses Shellendorf and two other Inklings. This would ultimately prove to be the moment that changed the course of the war. The Inklings began to regain ground on the Octarians. However, what sealed an Inkling victory was that a plug powering the Great Octoweapons was accidentally removed. With the weapons non-operational, other species were able to claim the land. As a result, the Octarians moved underground into the humans’ old dwellings, using kettles as doorways. These underground settlements required a lot of energy to run, as the area’s walls are made up of screens, imitating the outside world at all times.
As mentioned earlier, it’s never explained why or how the Zapfish are allied with the Inklings. Free of any context, the arrangement seems awfully one-sided. The Inklings use the electricity the Zapfish generate, and the Zapfish get … freedom, perhaps? At the beginning of the original Splatoon, news reporters Marie and Callie announce that the Great Zapfish is missing. It would later turn out that the Octarians’ energy crisis was even worse than first thought and that they had kidnapped the Great Zapfish, hoping it could solve all their problems.
Cap’n Cuttlefish, believing the Octarians were to blame for the Great Zapfish’s disappearance, finds an enterprising young squid they dub Agent 3, enlisting them in the brand new Squidbeak Splatoon. On Cuttlefish’s orders, Agent 3 explores Octo Valley, now the game’s underground hub, via kettles to reach and free the Zapfish. Octo Valley is broken into five sections, each containing some of the Octarians’ Great Octoweapons. Defeating these weapons frees even more Zapfish. Agent 3 is also helped by Agent 1 and Agent 2, who are definitely not Callie and Marie in trenchcoats (it is). During their travels, Agent 3 fights a great number of Octarians. They also occasionally encounter the Octolings, who seem to have goggles as part of their uniform.
Agent 3 finally finds the Great Zapfish. They are moments from freeing it when it’s sucked up by DJ Octavio, the same Octavio who led the Octarians in the Great Turf War. Agent 3 struggles to defeat DJ Octavio, and, just as all seems lost, Callie and Marie arrive on the scene, singing Calamari Inkantation. Agent 3 is able to defeat a distracted DJ Octavio, but the music has an added effect: the goggles worn by the Octolings, secretly brainwashing tech created by Octavio, were left scrambled and inert. When Octavio had originally proposed his scheme, the Octolings vetoed the idea, refusing to join him. Instead, he’d used the goggles to control the defiant populace. In the crowd of the Octarians is Marina Ida, who, after hearing Calamari Inkantation, defects from the Octarian army and heads to the surface. DJ Octavio is confined in a snow globe with Cap’n Cuttlefish to watch over him. The Great Zapfish is returned to his place on the antenna of Inkopolis Plaza.
Day-to-day life in Inkling society continues, none the wiser.
After a bruising final Splatfest in which Inkling society was asked if they preferred Callie or Marie from The Squid Sisters, the idol duo took a break to focus on their own things for a while. During this time, Agent 3 and Cap’n Cuttlefish went off to investigate some rumours they’d heard.
Octoling Marina, now on the surface after her defection, encounters an Inkling named Pearl on Nantai Mountain, practising her singing. Marina later pitches Pearl with a demo of a song she calls ‘Ebb and Flow.’ The two agree to become a pop duo called Off the Hook. They enjoy a rapid rise to fame, eventually replacing the Squid Sisters as hosts of both the news broadcast and Splatfest.
The subject of one of Pearl and Marina’s first broadcasts is a tragedy: Callie and the Great Zapfish, who had moved to Inkopolis square, are both missing. Most Inklings are relatively unconcerned, but Marie knows better. She goes to Octo Valley to confirm a hunch and, sure enough, finds DJ Octavio’s snow globe broken. Furthermore, there is no sign of Cap’n Cuttlefish. Keeping a low profile in Inkopolis Square, she approaches an Inkling to help her find out what exactly has happened. The newest member of the Squidbeak Splatoon is dubbed Agent 4 and sent off to explore Octo Canyon, the Octarian settlement near Inkopolis square. Weapons store owner Sheldon joins Agent 4, lending them fire support. Similar to the original game, Agent 4 encounters Octolings, all of them wearing the same suspicious sunglasses. As they progress, Squidbeak Splatoon receives repeated messages telling them to turn back.
The voice in the message sounds suspiciously like Callie.
This is confirmed when the three eventually find the Great Zapfish, Callie and DJ Octavio. Callie talks about how her shades make her look so fresh, and DJ Octavio explains that they are mind-control sunglasses. His latest brainwashing tech, he claims, is so strong that the Calamari Inkantation can’t scramble them. Agent 4 must then face the combined might of DJ Octavio and Callie in a remix the duo calls the Spicy Calamari Inkantation. Agent 4 holds their own but is unable to gain any ground either. That’s when Sheldon and Marie show up in a flying truck. Maries uses her E-litre to knock the glasses off Callie’s face, allowing Agent 4 to attack. Once again, DJ Octavio is defeated, the Great Zapfish is saved, and Octolings can think for themselves. Several start to make their way to the surface, where the Inklings assume they are simply other Inklings following a weird hair trend.
(Editor’s note: How are the Inklings still alive? They don’t seem very bright. — David)
An Octoling wakes up in a subway with only the memory of the Calamari Inkantation. Cap’n Cuttlefish explains that he and Agent 3 were fighting our amnesiac Octoling when all three were knocked out. Unable to find Agent 3, Cuttlefish concedes he is willing to work with the Octoling to ensure their survival. Unfortunately, the only thing at their disposal is a telephone in the middle of the Platform. The phone explains that they are in the deep-sea metro and must “find the promised land”. The voice on the other end of the line calls the Octoling’ Test Subject 10,008″, and says they must complete a series of challenges, including finding the four “thangs”. Cap’n Cuttlefish dubs the Octoling’ Agent Eight’, and the phone, Tartar, gives them a CQ-80 to provide access to the tests. A train pulls in, and Agent 8 and Cap’n Cuttlefish board, ready to begin.
However, the moment they’re inside the train, two new players named MC.Princess and DJ_hyperfresh accidentally hack the CQ_80, offering to help them escape the facility.
After collecting the four Thangs and bringing them to Tartar, he asks a pair of important questions: is Agent 8 prepared for a higher plane of existence? Are they ready to be something bigger than themselves? It is revealed that the four Thangs fuse together to create a blender, with Tartar intending to turn Agent 8 and Cap’n Cuttlefish into ‘raw material’. If a test subject is smart enough to complete all the challenges and collect the Thangs, they receive the honour of being turned into primordial ooze. Tartar reveals that he is the AI left by Judd’s scientist friend to pass on the knowledge of humanity. Though Tartar was excited to pass on his knowledge when he saw the Inklings and Octolings evolving into their humanoid forms, he was dismayed to see them come into conflict. When he saw them fighting over what he deemed were trivial matters, Tartar created his own new directive: destroy them all and replace them with sanitised versions.
DJ_hyperfresh, (who is actually Marina in disguise) attempts to hack into the blender to prevent Agent 8 and Cuttlefish from being turned into a cephaloid slushie. Unable to break through, she sends out a distress signal. Agent 3 breaks through the roof, sending Tartar and the blender flying. Cap’n Cuttlefish decides to stay with the now unconscious Agent 3 but encourages Agent 8 to escape with Pearl (the disguised MC.Princess) and Marina’s help.
Travelling through the structure, Agent 8 makes their way through sections of the facility, which are named after sections of the human digestive tract (and it’s kind of gross considering they’re moving through it backwards). During the Spinal phase, they are stopped by a partially sanitised Agent 3. The two Agents duke it out, with Agent 8 triumphant. Agent 8, Agent 3, and Cap’n Cuttlefish make their escape, ending up on a small island as Pearl and Marina swoop overhead in their helicopter.
As they’re getting ready to leave, the island begins to shake, rising out of the ocean. A giant human bust slowly rises from the seabed, with Commander Tartar at the controls. He tells the assembled Inklings and Octolings that he is so incensed by their treachery that he will coat Inkopolis in the sanitising liquid. This would destroy the free will of everyone in Inkopolis – if it doesn’t kill them first.
Marina realises that the statue is drawing solar power to charge itself and devises a plan to cover it in ink. Agent 8 has three minutes until the statue fires its sanitising doom laser. Marina offers Agent 8 prototype hyper bombs to help them ink the whole thing. Succeeding prevents the NILS statue from getting a full charge, but that’s not enough to stop Commander Tartar, who decides to fire it anyway. Pearl unleashes a Booyah via a Killer Wail weapon so powerful it destroys the NILS statue and Tartar with it. Defeated, Tartar takes solace in the idea that he can be with his inventor, the professor, again.
Tartar was so upset with how the Inklings and Octolings had conducted themselves that he decided the answer was eugenics. Do you know who else came to that conclusion? It starts with ‘H’ and ends with ‘itler.’
Now, up to this point, it’s been a secret that there is third species in the world of Splatoon: the Salmonids. They live in a dam and keep mostly to themselves, living in the water and only emerging every 70 years to spawn. Inklings are forbidden from having any contact with the Salmonids, but a shady corporation called GrizzCo hires Inklings to participate in a competition called the Salmon Run. Their goal is to collect Salmonid power eggs and the ultimate prize, golden eggs.
The Salmonids and the Octarians have a trade agreement. As long as the Octarians provide the Salmonids shields and technology, the Salmonids will supply the Octarians with power eggs. The golden eggs, however, are off-limits. Meanwhile, Salmonid meat is available for sale at Mako Mart, the Inkling supermarket. Salmonids view being eaten as the ultimate honour. Therefore, they are perfectly happy to be consumed. This law of consumption is a two-way street, however: Salmonids aren’t against eating Inklings either. Salmonids believe in the food chain and that eating (or being eaten) is nature’s way. While there is no mention of whether the Salmonids will eat each other, inklings can and will eat squids, their non-evolved forms. Is this technically cannibalism?!
So, to recap: the story of Splatoon contains six world wars, a mass extinction, numerous weapons of mass destruction, the despotic oppression of an entire people, eugenics, and kidnapping. With Splatoon 3 set to release with the Return of the Mammalians campaign, it could get even worse. The Octarians appear to be sprouting fur, which the Salmonids can eat. Is it some kind of virus spreading across the world? Possibly! We’ll find out when the game launches on September 9, exclusively on Nintendo Switch.
Yes, I wish to receive exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions from our partners.
Now you can get the top stories from Kotaku delivered to your inbox. Enter your email below.
By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.