Hi, I’m Hamish Black and welcome to Writing on Games.
For years, the shooter has dominated the video game landscape and, as a result, most people’s
playtime.
However, thanks to the commercial superiority of one or two titanic franchises, combined
with the business realities of AAA game development, you’ve seen the genre entirely defined by
the influence of those few games.
So, you see a cavalcade of what amounts to dudes with guns shooting at dudes with guns,
crafting the most barebones you-vs-them narrative, framing multiplayer competition as inherently
destructive and the intimate viscera of violence as a number on a leaderboard; the badge to
be worn proudly by the conquering badass.
This medium can create entire universes out of nothing and yet, even when we venture into
the far-flung reaches of space, so often we find ourselves as dudes with guns shooting
at dudes with guns.
This isn’t a problem of shooters being overly violent per se; it’s not even about making
them more kid-friendly or gaining some superficial level of sophistication.
It’s that our vision of what this genre can do, what its mechanics can say, has become
so singular; providing one type of experience, telling one type of story, appealing to a
select group of players while potentially alienating so many others.
In short, one would be forgiven for glancing at modern shooters as a whole and seeing a
bunch of pretty middling games.
Strip all of that away however and there is still clearly something to be said for the
pure mechanic of firing a projectile in a game; the immediacy of overcoming a challenge
or winning a competition by pointing at something and hitting a button before your opponent
has the chance to do the same.
Otherwise, the genre wouldn’t be the commanding force it is today.
The problem is not shooter mechanics themselves, it’s how narrowly we continue to frame them.
What if, though, a game could provide you with that mechanical satisfaction without
needing to mire an experience in the violent revelry or brotastic bravado we’ve come
to associate with the shooter genre?
Enter Splatoon 2, a game that, on a foundational level, functions like any other shooter, but
through slight tweaks to its mechanics and rules, could not feel more different from
one; curating an environment that evokes creative expression over violent competition, and allowing
a wider audience to experience the fun of a genre they might otherwise have been turned
off by.
See, Splatoon 2 still has you moving around a map shooting guns and potentially eliminating
opponents.
It’s just that, given Nintendo’s penchant for finding the beauty in the simple, their
mission statement can be summed up like this – swap out the bullets for ink, shift the
target from other people to the map itself.
Honestly, that is pretty much the core of Splatoon.
And Nintendo are able to draw so much out of such a simple shift in ideals.
For example, in other shooters, bullets function as bullets; they either hit the target and
kill them, or they miss.
Here, even if you miss an opponent, that shot is far from wasted.
The ink you project serves multiple purposes; swimming through your own team’s ink allows
you to move faster, as well as refill your ammo.
You’re not just thinking of bullets as a means of carving through your opposition;
you’re thinking of pathways you can create to most efficiently navigate the arena, placing
an emphasis on improvised strategy (if that’s not a total oxymoron).
What is truly important however is this shifting of the target from other players, to the map
itself.
In most of the game’s modes, the goal is merely to cover as much of the arena in your
team’s ink as possible.
Other shooters force you to take out opponents as the central goal; here, any time you spend
being forced to defend yourself against other players, is time you’re decidedly not spending
helping your team win the game.
This leads to a situation where you’re constantly juggling between pushing further into an enemy’s
spawn risking contact that would forcefully interrupt your objective, or finding less
populated areas where inking might not offer the strategic benefits associated with faster
movement.
It makes a change from “running around until you find someone and hoping you see them before
they see you.”
It’s a hectic, messy, downright joyous experience that, bolstered by the tangibility of optional
motion controls, subverts the typical shooter’s need for absolute precision; making the game
more accessible for those with reflex issues and the like.
And this emphasis on chaotic fun is a sentiment reflected by the game’s mischievous, cartoonish
aesthetic.
It makes for an energising change from grey/brown mundanity signifying a more serious, gritty
feel in other games (which, on an aside, is a feeling totally not represented through
the trivial nature with which games like Call of Duty treat conflict).
Hell, Splatoon even goes as far as to bring the idea of lobbies into its vision of a different
kind of shooter.
I’m willing to bet that when you think of shooter lobbies, you picture of a bunch of
morons making the most of their anonymity by spewing the dumbest stuff they can into
their microphones, creating a pretty hostile environment.
Splatoon 2’s lobby, on the other hand, is a place you want to stick around in; it’s
vibrant, it has activities to keep you occupied, there are customisable player avatars displaying
their daft little drawings and what’s more, you can encourage them through a rating system
focused on positivity.
Combined with Nintendo’s stricter approach to moderation, you’re encouraged to mingle,
to share with those you’ll soon be in competition with in a comparatively safe environment.
It may not seem like a drastic or even noteworthy shift in most players’ eyes, but given that
so much of the modern shooter landscape is defined by a need to destroy, to pit player
against player in violent, toxic competition, it is so refreshing to have a game that frames
your interactions, on every level, as a means of communal, unrestrained creativity (even
if what you’re creating is a mess).
And, again, not a lot has actually changed in the moment-to-moment player inputs the
game requires of you.
You still get the physicality of firing the gun, the impact of shot hitting target.
It’s just that thanks to a slight shift in the purpose that shot serves and the identity
of that target, Splatoon 2 ends up feeling new, revitalising.
All of a sudden, you’ve just opened up this genre to so many people who perhaps might
not be into the brutality of painting the walls with someone’s brains compared to
just, ya know… painting the walls.
What’s perhaps most refreshing about Splatoon, however, is that it’s not some indie experiment
shouting from the sidelines that we could be approaching the mechanics of competition
differently; this is Nintendo - one of the biggest companies currently making games,
actively demonstrating that there’s an audience clamouring for that fresh take on old staples
and that, by making small tweaks to perceived genre standards, we can provide a wealth of
varied, compelling experiences.
So I hope you enjoyed my piece on Splatoon 2.
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And with that, I'm Hamish Black and this has been Writing on Games.
Thank you very much for watching and I'll see you next time.