Splatoon: Nintendo's Darkest Franchise 

Join the Discord :) discord.com/invite/Q4qZR86FUn Also i want to clear up something I got wrong. This obviously doesn't retract from the tragedy that is TarTar, but he didnt blend 10000 Octolings. For one Isopadre (who he is isnt important) is said to have gone through the trials and escaped successfully, meaning it wasnt just Octolings (hes a fucking isopod, this game is LITTERED with puns like this). More importantly, i LITERALLY say in the video that he first tested them to see if they were worthy of being apart of the Blended Ink, meaning not everyone was worthy of being blended. It could be argued that he blended them anyway and just disposed of the waste, but I think the more likely answer is that he would just simply sanitize the unworthy ones. Also i accidentally cut a line out of the video that I wanted to share. Deadf1sh willingly became sanitized so they could let go of their fears and doubts, allowing them to put all of their focus into making music. Thank for read, love you

Hey, Splatoon is baby's first shooter. And baby's first existential crises.

I love infodumping splatoon lore highlights to friends, they are ALWAYS suprised

Splatoon after putting racial wars in a kids game for no reason:🥰

That's not even the worst part about Sanitization. I don't remember whether this was said in an interview or in game, but I'm pretty sure that the reason sanitization turns someone green is because you extract the memories and desire of a person, turn them into physical form, extract the consciousness, then make a new body *out of the blended ink* and place what's left of the consciousness in there. That's why they're green. The form just resembles what they used to look like. But that's also why the green effect isn't reversed after you gain your memories (like we saw with Acht regaining memory and still not going back to normal.) sanitization is terrifying. E for everyone does not always mean for kids.

SPLATOON WAR CRIMES 🗣️‼️‼️

I have to assume they’re eating non-evolved squid. It’d be like if Humans started eating monkey meat, it’d be weird but there’s probably people out there that do that

Hearing someone shout "Race war!" as Bang Bang Bing starts to play is the most Splatoon interaction ever.

Dang, he didn’t talk about the celebrities fighting in the second and third race wars. Or the attempted furry world domination. Or the metaverse kidnappings. Or Judd and his evil clone

I remember playing splatoon a long time ago, never really thought of this game that deeply, its crazy how complicated the lore is for a "kids" game like this

I’m about 2,000 total hours deep into this game franchise since 2015, and this seems about right. It gets the splatoon fan seal of approval :D

What’s really cool is that side order is a virtual reality universe that Marina made with some other octolings to restore sanitized octolings and Dedf1sh was one of the octolings who got restored.

Bro forgot to mention that the first two games storymodes were just you committing genocide

I heard in a interview that inklings and octolings have turf wars because if they didn't have any other competitive game an actual war would break out

this might make me a bad person but seeing the thumbnail with agent 8 saying lobotomized is literally so funny 😭

I have been part of the splatoon lore community for a while now so I’m just going to help clear a few smaller things up for people and patch a plot hole or two in the story. 1. While the splatoon 1 lore comic is pretty useful for gathering some idea of some of the story before humans went into the underground domes, it is very outdated and the information in it could be entirely wrong at this point in the story. But Splatoon 3 clarifies what actually caused the mass extinction event with the Alterna Logs. While there still probably was a raging war humanity got destroyed more by a collection of bad timing with natural disasters including various intense volcanic eruptions along side serous sea level increases. 2. The reason why the Alternan’s chose a rocket to escape to the surface and not just use the tunnels out is that that was a product of Nintendo of America changing parts of the lore when translating it. In the original Japanese version the goal was to y’know actually go to space with the Spirit Lifter and not just see the surface. 3. While it is true that the Inklings and Octarians have a modern day feud it is another Nintendo of America translation that led to the feud being related to race. The actual reason for the ongoing feud is much more Interesting. It is all related to the idea of two rival nations giving propaganda to their people to dehumanize each other. While both ways each of them use propaganda differ with DJ Octavio being much more intense with having diagrams depicting inklings as mindless savage animals in classrooms, while Inklings have Octarains losing the war because of their inferior number of limbs. 4. This one is a bit nickpicky but Tartar’s goal with the N.I.L.S. Statue wasn’t to control all of Inkopolis but to eradicate all sentient marine life using the DNA of the best test subjects who would be a « Primordial ooze in which a ultimate life form would emerge ». 5. The blended Octolings and various other sea creatures aren’t actually used to sanitize the Octarains but instead as I said before, used to make the Primordial Ooze. They use a special sanitized ink to remove the soul of the Octarain and then they fill it with a replacement that then controls what the Octarain does. Sorta like how we clean bacteria to insert our own DNA to control the bacteria. Btw this isn’t to say this video is bad, I actually enjoyed it a lot! I just always like to clarify some lore details because there is so much lore misinformation in the splatoon details that it’s always good to inform people ‘bout the proper lore. Thanks for making this and getting the lore side of splatoon out there more!

I would just like to mention that while there were 10,008 applicants to Tartar's trials, only those who passed the required amount of trials and found "worthy" were blended. An example of an applicant who wasn't found worthy and is still alive and now chilling in Inkopolis square in Splatoon 3 is Iso Padre. Only a fraction of applicants were found worthy and blended.

The octarian technology also gets very dark. The octoweapon you showed; the Octo Oven? Well it used to be an industrial grade oven, but it launched bread out so hard they went 'well, we can make this a weapon' and baked actual Octarians into the bread to be utilized. Biotech is pivotal to how the Octarians survived being forced underground, and even if the octarians in question might have been okay with it, it is super messed up when you think about it. The Duality of splatoon's light hearted aesthetic coupled with it's deeply terrifying subject matter is a boomerang that keeps hitting me in the face.

Just to clarify: Humanity in Splatoon world didn't go extinct because of ocean levels rising, that was explained in Splatoon 1's guide, but in Splatoon 3 is revealed that the global scale conflict triggered a lot of natural disasters besides the increase in the ocean levels, like volcano eruptions, massive earthquakes, high pollution levels, diseases and so on. Even if the ice in both Earth poles melted, it's not enough water to flood even half of the Earth's surface. I think that's why Nintendo changed the story about humanity's extintion.

Side Order, the DLC for Splatoon 3, is fortunately, a lot more light-hearted. But it does touch on topics like how humans sometimes might want a world where they are no conflicts and everything is in "control", as in "mind-control", and how sometimes we want everything to be in order. But the story is mostly heart-warming

I adore that Splatoon has slowly revealed it's darkness hiding under the bright and colorful exterior with each passing main line game, like the devs are slowly peeling back how deep this rabbit hole goes knowing that they've already got ya from how unassuming the surface of the franchise looks.

8:38 Great video, but smmaaalll correction. Dedf1sh was never "partially sanitised", that was actually a translation error. The more accurate translation is "they partially wanted to be sanitised", meaning that they kinda wanted to be sanitised if it meant they could continue working on their music, and thus Dedf1sh was fully sanitised. Other than that, banger video 👍

inklings arent very smart but that helped them not make another great turf war as soon as octolings will step out on surface mistaking them as inklings with weird hairs

Looks like you really "splat" the target on this one, I'd say you did a "inking" good job

Kirby: "Finally, a worthy opponent. Our battle will be legendary!"

This video is mind blowing. With the level of quality and attention to detail completely shattering my expectations, it's easy to call this my favorite video of yours and your best work to date. My eyes were glued to this documentary throughout, and I can't wait to see what's next. As always, incredible job, and damn well done.

Holy shit dude, this video was genuinely amazing. The production quality and attention detail, i was definitely not expecting this

I think the Octolings/Octarians stayed underground at least semi-willingly after the Great Turf War because of DJ Octavio's brainwashing or whatever it is he's up to. The Octolings who ended up in the Metro are most likely ones who heard the Calamari Inkantation during Splatoon 1's final boss fight(and potentially Splatoon 2's depending on the timeline for when Octo Expansion happens) and became curious about the surface, eventually looking for ways to escape and winding up in the Metro. So they literally just wanted freedom after being exposed to a world they were conditioned to hate and then got turned into goop instead. also 4:06 ive never watched neon genesis evangelion but my brain has decided that those things are squid evas

*stares at splatoon games and amibo* Yep

It's nice to know the worlds peaceful thanks for warning us of WW5

It’s nice to see more people cover this franchise. It is one of my most favourite franchises and is pretty underrated. Thank you for this video!

Ngl the bad ending for the dlcs and hero modes are FRIED UP

While Splatoon lore isn’t something I focus on, I love how the game has so many dark moments but then always ends with something positive to give you hope, both for there world and ours. Of course most of the Splatoon world is safe but we see the threats that lie in the dark and the game always gives us hope that these threats can be stopped and keep people safe

Us splatoon players get to confuse people by saying things like "HE'S KRAKEN CHEESING" and "IS THAT A TARTAR REFERENCE?"

TEN MINUTES of quality work from my favorite youtuber? Yes pls

I'd say it's closer than you think between this and the series with canonical parricide, life draining alien parasites, genocide, form stealing virus-like other parasites, and the most ungodly thing of all: Metroid Other M and Metroid Prime: Federation Force

Let’s not forget that the inklings are so stupid, they only won the Great Turf War because a power plug got pulled on the octoling side and the octolings couldn’t use their weapons. And then the inklings thought they won because they had more tentacles. Gotta love those squids

From babies first shooter to babies first race war

YES. nintendo has always sprinkled creepy elements into its game, and splatoon is no exception. I love what they did with the Big Run events, where salmonids invade the main hub. the cheery music is replaced with a sinister tone, and you can even hear the sounds of chaos in the air: the roars of king salmonids, the warning ring of a last player making a hopeless stand against overwhelming odds, or the iconic noises that boss salmonids emit.

omg I didn’t know you were a splatoon fan too! btw great video

Splatoon Gameplay: “Splash-O-Matic is the best shooter in splatoon due to its accuracy, jump fire rate, damage, and Ink efficiency. It’s kit helps it take over the battlefield with relative ease, being a…” “so true!!!!” *Splatoon Lore:*

The final bosses for OE and splat 3’s bosses I lovingly call the eugenics laser and the capitalism rocket

As a Splatoon guy with the Forge profile picture. This is awesome

The fact that we can be close to create a splatoon world is scary

I was wondering how this franchise could get darker than the Kirby franchise of all things - I was not disappointed. Well done! Lovely video.

YOOOO I LOVE THIS VIDEO!! Nice work on the research!! I love seeing my friends' reactions when they discover Splatoon has lore, and how dark its lore is! I love it when I get to the World War 5 part and the Sanitization part, and I like using my pfps to give further visualisation of a sanitized octoling lmaooo!!

Pocketnaut long form video is nothing but a gift from the universe

There’s also this giant bear from that Noah’s Space Rocket that exploits Inklings and Octolings to exploit and kill Salmonids for their eggs in order to turn everyone into a mammal.

As someone who started with Splatoon 3, Splatoon lore is a dark mindfuck that's for sure Pokemon can get super dark with the manga and lore implications, but splatoon takes it to a new level of dark

Comments by someone who likes this franchise a Very Regular Amount, mostly to add information to people who don't know the lore 0:07 I say it's still marketed more like a casual experience (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-E56la2yNwo0.html). Japan's market is just more into quirky unconventional stuff I believe 0:51 There were *at least* 5 world wars (to my memory) 4:34 I believe this is to reflect real-life inkfish being cannibals. They eat the not-sapient, less evolved species if that somehow eases your consciousness 6:34 cough cough after alterna cough 6:52 Sanitized ink is made for the giant laser statue, Tartar's goal was to make the "perfect lifeform" out from the most intelligent test subjects somehow. It also can make Sanitized Octarians, and presumably sanitize other species 8:02 Agent 8 was actually subject 10008, so at least that many people were tested, but not necessarily accepted into being blended. Octarians weren't the only species to go through the trials, as Iso Padre (giant isopod) was also a former test subject Feel free to make corrections or add tidbits of your own

'Splatoon is a post-apocalyptic shooter' is my favourite Sploon fact.

“Splatoon: Nintendo’s darkest franchise” Mother 3 causally traps an immortal being in a capsule he cannot leave, even after the world has Crumbled away he’ll never die

"This is Nintendo's darkest kids franchise" Kirby having a character who almost committed $u¡cide: Edit: Holy Jesus this series is in the same level as scary as kirby

8:05 btw, the phone doesn't "kill" 10000 people, they were 10000 subjects, and most of them didnt even finish the levels and stuff, its most likely that he killed 1000 or less people that were a subject, you can tell it because iso padre in the train, tells you that he was a subject too but never finished so yeah.

As someone who dont know anything about splatoon this sure was a suprise. I need to play it now.

Great video! I've always loved the darker aspects of Splatoon, so its nice your shedding some light on it.

Splatoon, the only franchise where race wars are not only perfectly acceptable, but *expected* And where everyone throws a party over it

I thought about this topic a lot to as playing Splatoon 3 more even though I’m not a huge Splatoon fan looking at the backstory files that you get from the missions you realize how much darker the whole story can get

4.08 1 thing to add to the great Turf War. 😅 The inklings just won because the octoling used cables to power their weapons( yk, great octoweapons and stuff) and someone tripped over the wire and accidentlly cut off all of the power of the octarians. 😐 (At least that's what probably happened, based on sunken scolls.) That was also how Lil'Judd was created(but you didn't mention 'em here sooo.. ) But that's deeper and minor lore, which takes way longer to explain than 10 minutes(trust me. I watched a 4 h video to understand EVERYTHING), so I don't blame you! Amazing video btw!

The video is so cool and flows so well. Great effort!

7:39 this is genuinely terrifying and menacing

Splatoon turned saw real fast

1:23 started reading the earth fan fiction

There will never be another game experience like the one that Splatoon 2 octo expansion gave me, the ending the song that played Edd & Flow is soo nostalgic to me love the splatoon lore ❤

I literally was shaking while watching through the whole video X,D I just absolutely adore splatoon lore and seeing it getting even more attention makes me so happy !!!

I'm always so excited when people make these vids and I even got the art book to show my friends thanks!!!!

I can’t take this video seriously with the thumbnail

6:34 but it was really fan and then once you get all the skills that you learn from it, it’s even more fun

I love the edit in the beginning with the inkling falling

Thank you so much for making this video. this is both nintendos darkest and most underrated series (in the states) and it needs to be spread badly

Holy shit this video is fucking fire 🔥 please make more of this 😭

i thought this video was really long but its so short good job!!!

I started with Splatoon 2 as the 2nd game I ever got for my switch, got way more out of it then Pokken Tournament DX, that's for sure. Splatoon is awesome, if you haven't played it before, I'd recommend checking it out

LOBOTOMIZED ?? LIKE GEOMETRY DASH FIRE IN THE HOLE ????🗣 🔥🔥

6:36 I totally agree. I still have nightmares about some level, and the Agent 3 second fight

This game is the alternate world to kevin costners waterworld.

Always love seeing a splatoon fan 🙏

As someone who loves splatoon. Idk if id say darkest nintendo series or if its not even close to others. A lot of messed up stuff happens in it but xenoblade and fire emblem exist. So idk

Everyone: What is the scariest game Me: Splatoon

I love how all theres all this information showing how incredibly dark this game can be. And it barely scratch the surface of the iceberg. Its crazy how deep the lore is. (Shout out to the Rassicas iceberg video)

Inklings won the war because the great octoweapons got unplugged right at the end that's why they use zapfish rn

Do more splatoon lore, this is great, just subscribed

need more vids like this on my feed.

This video was amazing. We need more splatoon lore covered by this guy!!!

Gotta love how the lore starts with the 3rd game

Honestly this is fuckin awesome and id love to see more of this stuff from you 👌

Dude fliping love the splatoon franchise. The setting, the characters, the gameplay, the music and even the really dark slightly traumatizing lore that has no reason to be there.

Banger video 🗿

I love how Comander TarTar is the longest section💀

There's a few mistakes like the route the inklings and octolings used to escape alterna, when they escape through a hole made by the explosion of the reactor that killed the humans, and also the lack of Mr Grizzy lore but essentially its everything yeah

I love how you narrate, are you going to post more videos about Splatoon? When I tell people Splatoon is my favorite game they think I'm joking, but the world building, lore, story, the fantastic cultural inclusion that has surfaced stronger with Splatoon 3 are never talked about enough! I loved this video, I'm subscribing :)

when i was a kid i always wanted to play splatoon but i never could bc well, wii u was kinda expensive for my family, some years ago i finally bought the switch and then my aunt bought me splatoon 3, i swear to god that this was the best shit that has ever happened to me

The fact that a Splatoon character and a Library of Ruins character are extremely similar is horrifying to me (Commander Tartar and Angela)

i refused to play splatoon for 7 years and i finally got 3 and fell in love. much darker than i was expecting when i learned all the current lore. splatoon is now my favorite game franchise, if the profile picture wasn't enough to hint at it

Pleaseee do a video on the bands next omg the lore is really hard to find but when you do find it is really funny and borderline insane. It sometimes feels like a sea creature parody of real life rock band discourse.

Labotomy ? FIRE IN THE HOLE !!!

There is a lot more going on but that video pretty much sums it up. When Octolings are sanitized, their memories will become memcakes, which stores those memories, in Side Order, the concept of memcakes is expanded on with Marina trying to give people their memories back through a game which eventually turned into Side Order, it's a lot less messed up than Octo Expansion but it touches on topics that are although more light-hearted, also more sad and heart-warming

7:20 this reminds me of that pea-dna soup thing you do in jr high, where you or your teacher blends Peas with dish soap, water, and some other things to separate the dna from the pea-stuff.

The funny thing was the reason why the octolings lost the race war were due to power outage, the plugged every weapon they have to one plug and someone accidentally unplugged it

THE THUMBNAIL HAD ME ROLLING