NoE: Was there ever a thought to associate a known franchise with Splatoon?

HN: The whole idea was to not be constrained by an existing franchise. The first point was that it needed to be fun to play, and once we’d achieved that, we then conceived the characters and the world vision to match perfectly with the gameplay. We felt that a new world with new characters was more suited to the gameplay, and that’s how we came up with this new franchise.

NoE: I think that the players really feel that as well. Splatoon has a very unique sense of style – from the visuals, to the music, there’s a really one-of-a-kind feel to the whole game. Where did the inspiration for that come from?

HN: We really wanted the look and feel of the game to match the gameplay. You can have a Mushroom Kingdom to paint, or you can have a real world. We thought players would be more motivated to paint when they’re playing in a more realistic landscape. So, for the hub, we created a city that seems real.

We then thought about the kind of Inklings who would enjoy playing something like this – they’d like to have fun and goof around, so to speak. For that reason, the Inklings in the game are basically teenagers. In the game world, the whole act of shooting ink around for fun is like going skateboarding or riding a BMX in our world. It’s a bit dangerous and you do it on the streets, so in that sense it’s inspired by extreme sports.

We imagined what kind of fashion these people would like, and that kind of skater fashion seemed appropriate to bring in and integrate with the gameplay. The developers of Splatoon are around 30 years old now, and a lot of the fashion in the game is inspired by the style they grew up with during their teenage years.