In Nintendo’s E3 Direct presentation this morning, they showed off a brand new game from a brand new franchise: Splatoon. In a surprisingly uncharacteristic move, it’s a third-person multiplayer shooter.
You also play as ink-gun-toting squid girls.
Nintendo spent a solid amount of time in their E3 Direct presentation showing off gameplay footage from Splatoon, including interaction with the Gamepad, speedy squid-form traversal, and the way the different ink colors act both as weapons and as area-control tools by opening options for your team and slowing down members of the other team.
While the game didn’t go into detail about weapons or win conditions, Nintendo did show a reasonable variety of tools, including a giant paint roller and what appeared to be a mortar/cannon-style weapon in addition to the heavily featured super soaker-style weapons.
While Splatoon‘s squid designs do bear some resemblance to Bloopers from Mario—primarily in the thick black outline around their eyes—they appear distinct from most modern versions of Bloopers in Mario games, not only due to proportions but due to the form of the tentacles, which in Splatoon turn into long pigtails for players in human mode.
Splatoon is slated for release in early 2015.
