Splatoon 3

The Splatoon franchise has pretty rapidly gone from being a new, unproven series on the Wii U to giving us one of the most popular multiplayer games on the Switch, which is no small feat. Splatoon 3 offered up a meaningful iteration on the first two games’ Turf War wall-painting mechanics and kept people engaged for months with regular Splatfest competitions that became mini-online wars over the silliest debates, and the appeal is no mystery; effortlessly moving through the ink you leave all over the map is still a delight. As Ari Notis once wrote, “If Splatoon 3 doesn’t win you over to Nintendo’s take on the world of competitive shooters, nothing will. This third game in the ink-splattering sequel has something for everyone, from an endearing single-player campaign, to raucous showdowns against giant enemy salmon. It improves or expands on just about everything from the previous game without getting too overwhelming or losing its soul in the process, still focused on two teams trying to coat a location in their color of ink. The online connectivity can still be a mess, but the amount of character customization and player self-expression takes the social shooter to a whole new level. There’s even an in-universe collectible card game. It’s Splatoon 3’s world, we’re just living in it.”