Diehard Hooker

Seasoned Horrorboros

Marina ida if she dressed like a fucking nerd

on top of all that in-world stuff, the salmonids are very heavily inspired by irl indigenous cultures, the ainu and pnw groups most prominently. i may be missing some due to this being a brief rundown; the major points are salmon (and bears, worth mentioning for context. the salmon war intrisnic grizz.) being an essential resource through their histories, salmonid spiritualism leaning into the environment's resources and cycle of life and death, cooking being a central piece to their lives (including tools, weapons, decoration, fashion, afterlife) and an utmost sign of respect, and all the salmonid folk art that is just directly formline.

I'm excited for Raiders but am honestly really tired of yet another silent, blank slate, self-insert protagonist for Splatoon and think the devs oughta retire the formula. Splatoon 3's Story Mode really highlighted the limitations of it, because how do you have a protagonist who befriends a Salmonid (a supposed enemy from the previous game) and works together with it to take down the villain CEO who's been hiring and ordering teens like the protag to kill and steal from the Salmonid race... and then not use ANY of that for the actual narrative. No connection between Smallfry and Grizz, no stakes for why Smallfry is here to help, no motivation for Neo Agent 3, no acknowledgement from Grizz that the weakest form of the species he's been exploiting is the one that defeated him. Protagonists like Neo Agent 3 end up becoming total wastes of narrative potential because they're dropped in the middle of an interesting, long-developed world/conflict/cast of characters, yet they have nothing to say about any of it, so the story ends up feeling stunted and juvenile.

God, Splatoon Raiders' gameplay and stuff with Deep Cut better be good because genuinely, what were the devs thinking with "the japanese-inspired city is bankrupt so you (the player) have to bring back money by invading tropical islands and plundering/"splatting" the indigenous populations of their golden artifacts. an indigenous population that is directly inspired by Pacific Northwest tribes. you're the good guy btw. also a central gameplay loop is irreversibly damaging the artifacts you steal for weapon upgrades."