It has now been 7 whole years since the original Splatoon arrived on Wii U!
When this game was first revealed all the way back at [E3 2014](https://youtu.be/8L54s2m1dPs), it instantly drew everyone’s attention. A brand new in-house IP from Nintendo for the first time in 14 years? And it’s a competitive team based shooter that actually looks like is has some creativity and originality behind it? Heck yeah! And thanks to an impressively effective marketing campaign by Wii U standards, a constant stream of free updates, and a simple yet addictive gameplay loop, the first Splatoon sold nearly 5 million copies and has been officially declared the best selling new IP on a home console since Wii Sports.
Splatoon 2 first showed up in the Nintendo Switch reveal video in October 2016, before being formally announced during the big Switch presentation in [January 2017](https://youtu.be/qN4w5D2tzME). This was a marquee title for the Switch’s first year on the market, along with Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, ARMS, Mario + Rabbids, and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 among others. Eclipsing the sales and reviews of the first, Splatoon 2 firmly planted itself as the go-to shooter for Nintendo, and it even got the series’s first ever piece of paid DLC in the Octo Expansion a year later.
Splatoon 3 was announced last year during the [February 2021 Nintendo Direct](https://youtu.be/GUYDXVDLmns) and is scheduled for release this September for the Switch. And despite what people may think that it seems too soon to get another entry, it will have been five and a half years since Splatoon 2 by the time this game comes out. In the meantime, the Splatoon franchise has showed up in other Nintendo games such as Smash, Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, the Squid Girl manga series, and much much more. And there’s a rabid slathering fanbase at the ready for some more woomy. So where do you personally think Splatoon as a franchise stacks up compared to the competition?