Splatoon 3 review – Nintendo’s new squid game is ink-redible fun

Nintendo Switch; Nintendo
Never mind the spectacularly colourful paint battles, this is quietly one of the best and most inventive action-puzzle games around

Nintendo's offbeat hit Splatoon has been around since 2015, but the idea is still so charmingly bizarre that it feels fresh: human-cephalopod hybrids splatter each other and their surroundings with colourful paint on ink-splashed battlefields. You transform back and forth between human and squid (or octopus), swimming through ink, emerging to chuck paint out of a bucket or shoot it from a squirt-gun or spread it with a roller, claiming territory with your own team's colour. The arenas are city alleyways, abandoned factories, warehouses and urban landscapes - they have the feel of real-life underground skate spots, derelict yet cool.

Splatoon 3 does not change much about this premise, but it's irresistibly stylish and gives you absolutely loads to do, from those chaotic trademark team battles to co-operative sorties on to industrial islands where you shoot at goggle-eyed fish to steal their shiny golden eggs. The more you play, the more you want to play, as new modes and weapons open up. A triple bow with exploding paint arrows, a transforming sword, an umbrella ... they all beg to be toyed with, and they're all gently hilarious.

Splatoon 3 is out now; 49.99