So, I understand how the premise of Splatoon came about. “Let’s try to design a shooter that doesn’t use gratuitous violence as a crutch for fun gameplay.” Cool idea. So, what’s a great alternative for bullet-induced gore? Well, first you’ve got to add a projectile that lands with a softer impact. Something, I dunno, splattable. Then, you’ve got to have lots of color, because the screen isn’t gonna be red from all the blood and stuff.
What’s both splattable and colorful? Ink! Brilliant; but like, humans don’t really shoot ink at each other. Squid do, though. How about a squid/human hybrid? Fantastic. You’ve only gone and done it. Splatoon is born.
The idea of a humanoid squid is pretty terrifying, though. Like, cue The Shadow Over Innsmouth. I’d give Nintendo a free pass, but this isn’t the first time they’ve gone full Lovecraftian. From the eponymous Majora’s Mask’s Cthulhu tentacles to the fact that Pokemon‘s Mewtwo is the result of the kind of cloning that seems to have beaten the antics of Bloodborne’s Healing Church to the punch, Nintendo has always been operating within some pretty weird territory. I’d like to emphasize “weird”, and extend it to “Weird”, because this is absolutely in line with the tenets of weird fiction, and “The Weird.” Overall, pretty weird.
The Shadow Over Innsmouth, for those who have not read it, is based on a small town and its interactions with an alien species who live in the ocean – the Deep Ones. These Deep bois sign a pact with the local townspeople, in which the townspeople agree to cross-breed in exchange for not being annihilated by the Deep Ones. There wasn’t really an alternative. Give us Deep One babies, or we’ll just straight up murder everyone here. The town obliged to commit to the former.
Years down the line, the town of Innsmouth is filled with people with non-functional eyelids, and webbed hands and feet. Not quite squid-people, but definitely some hybrid form of humanity and cephalopods. In Lovecraft’s book, this is supposed to be, and is successfully, utterly horrific. Splatoon doesn’t provide an explanation as to why its squid-people are emphatically squid-people, but I mean, how else would this have come about? It’s the unwritten esoterica that usually contains the stuff that’s a bit weird, so it’s worth speculating. Someone, at some point in time, eyed up a lovely squid and thought, “how you doin’?”
Also, you’ve got the Octarians, who are the bad guys. They’re octopi, as the name would suggest, and they went and stole Inkopolis’ electricity. Dick move, that. Anyway, there’s some fishy stuff going on in Splatoon (Pun intended because you should always own your puns). At the end of the campaign, when you’ve inevitably reclaimed Inkopolis’ supply of electricity, and all of the squid-people are rejoicing, you can hear some pretty messed up sounds. The devs said that they weren’t aware of this, but I’m not so sure. I think that these are the howls of, I dunno, an entire marine race who have just lost their electricity and are now stuck in the Mariana Trench with like, no lights. Done in by the squiddy bois.
In a way, it kind of fulfills the narrative that you’d expect would follow from The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Eventually, you get an army of Deep Ones, who can either ignore or expunge humanity, depending on what side of the seabed they woke up on – yes, I tried Googling “where do squid sleep,” but alas, my research efforts were in vain… Anyway, this army of squiddy bois can pretty easily create a marine empire, what, with their human brains and all that, and that’s kind of what you do in Splatoon. Despite having three hearts, you heartlessly strip an indigenous marine animal of what it needs to survive and go on to celebrate all colonial-like back in your metropolitan haven for Deep Ones. Like, you’re 100% the oppressor.
Color and fun aside, just look at Splatoon from the perspective of the Octarians. They’ve got an army of squiddy bois splatting their women and children with ink. Like, they must be absolutely terrified. Just a day in the life when, all of a sudden, you’re under attack. Yeah, they stole the electricity supply, but I think they can plead Robin Hood and say that they needed it more than Inkopolis. After all, the army of Deep One squiddy bois seem to be doing just fine, and their human brains could for sure figure out a way to provide electricity for both parties. That’s not horror for the Octarians, though, is it? Unless they’re getting splatted left, right, and center, this theory doesn’t stand.
Splatoon is great fun, but you’re basically playing as the things that put the horror into of one of the most famous horror stories ever. I know what you’re up to, Nintendo. Don’t even get me started on what it means to catch Mewtwo in Gen I of Pokemon. You’re getting horror, dressing it up in bright colors, and saying, “Hey, look how fun this is.” And it is fun. But, it’s also completely horrifying when you strip the color away and you’re left thinking “Well, shit. That’s a bit mad, actually.”