You feel danger as you’re playing the game,” explains Nogami.įor the game’s first major single-player update, a new chapter called “Octo Expansion,” the team went even darker. For the co-operative “salmon run” mode, things are a bit darker, taking place in a swamp-like environment at what appears to be dusk. In the main competitive multiplayer matches, for instance, the arenas are typically large and open, taking place in bright, well-lit locations like a mall or skatepark. The Splatoon team also uses contrasting visual styles and moods to differentiate between different modes of play. Is it me or? /K9bQ5Rw1BI- Luggy March 8, 2018 Nogami says this is a way of “telling the player ‘Look, time has passed in this world.’” A pair of canvas sneakers featured in the first game might be available in Splatoon 2, but with some minor changes they’re made of leather now or available in different colors. One of the ways you can see this is through clothing. Two years passed between the launch of the original Splatoon and its sequel, and that same amount of time passed in the game’s lore as well. It enforces the place these characters have in the world, and for the sequel, fashion was also used as a way to show the passing of time. So what type of clothing would someone need to wear? What would they want to wear?”įashion isn’t just a way to let players express themselves, it’s also a world-building and storytelling tool. “Like skateboarding or snowboarding in our real world in their world, they take on these ink battles. “We start with thinking, ‘OK, what is the activity in this game?’ And the activity that the inklings do is shooting ink at each other in these wild battles, as an extreme sport of sorts,” Nogami explains. But the extreme sports aesthetic wasn’t chosen randomly. And Nintendo not only launched Splatoon 2 with a huge range of gear options, but it has also continually updated the game with new clothes. As a competitive multiplayer game, customizing your character in Splatoon is an important part of the experience, as it allows players to show off their individuality. They wear band T-shirts, high-end sneakers, and face masks with skulls on them. The inklings - half human, half squid hybrids that can change form - dress like teenage skate punks. That line of thinking extends to virtually every aspect of the game, including fashion. The famed designer would tell Nogami to ensure that “the look of the thing you’re making is in line with the function.” And it’s a trend that has continued through to Splatoon 2, which launched on the Switch last summer. Nogami got his start at Nintendo working as an artist on Yoshi’s Island, and he says this process is something he learned from Super Mario and Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto. Slides from Nogami’s Splatoon 2 presentation at GDC 2018.
“My approach is not just to create art, but to try and sense what a game’s content and function demand from the art, and create art that’s in line with the game’s particular needs,” explains Hisashi Nogami, Splatoon’s producer. The inklings don’t just look cool their design is meant to enhance the game, whether it’s the action or the storytelling.
The Splatoon series is arguably the most stylish in Nintendo’s lineup, but that style is born from functionality. But why would rabbits shoot ink or paint? This led them to create squids and then to the transforming inklings that became the series’s defining trait. Since it was a game about controlling space, they initially thought that infamously territorial rabbits would be a good fit. Eventually, as the game started to evolve, so did the character design.Īt first, Nintendo toyed with the idea of using familiar faces like Yoshi or Mario, but the game was so different from the company’s previous work the team realized they needed completely new characters. During early prototypes of the game, these rectangular characters - which the development team at Nintendo started calling blocks of tofu - would shoot black-and-white paint at each other in a simple arena. Splatoon’s colorful inkling characters started out as bland, white boxes.