10 New Lore Bits We Got from Splatoon Raiders

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Published Jul 30, 2026, 1:19 PM EDT

Daniel Trock is a Contributor at DualShockers specializing in PC games, lists, and reviews. He has been writing professionally since 2018 and covering games since 2020, with previous work spanning guides, news, lists, and reviews across multiple publications.

Before joining DualShockers, Daniel contributed guides to GamerJournalist and lists to TheGamer. He currently covers tech topics for SlashGear and BGR. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Marist College and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative and Professional Writing from Western Connecticut State University.

One of the most endearing aspects of the Splatoon series, besides its gameplay and multiplayer community, is its surprisingly sprawling lore and setting. The games’ have always had a tendency to sprinkle bits and hints of lore throughout their single-player campaigns, collectibles, and flavor text, with Splatoon 3 in particular dropping more than a few major revelation bombs about the state of the planet and the origins of our favorite squids and octos.

Naturally, Splatoon Raiders has its own bits of lore to offer up, and while they’re not quite as revelatory as those dropped in the mainline game, there are still some interesting elements to sink your teeth into, from the current state of Splatsville following the Grand Festival to some interesting biological and sociological information on the Salmonids. You could probably uncover all sorts of stuff if you’re especially eagle-eyed, but here’s a few nifty surface-level tidbits I managed to glean while playing through the game.

Spoilers for Splatoon Raiders and the main Splatoon series ahead!

10 Splatsville Ain’t Doing so Good

Curse You, Gentrification

At a couple of points throughout Raiders’ story, Shiver, Frye, and Big Man assert their desire to get some cash in order to support their beloved hometown of Splatsville, the main setting of Splatoon 3. That’s the entire reason we’re in the Spirhalite Islands in the first place; we’re looking for valuable loot.

Despite how much emphasis they put on just getting the loot, though, it’s not just a matter of buying nice things for the city. Splatsville is in pretty dire economic straits, apparently having racked up a bill of 60 billion G during the Grand Festival. If you recall, Splatsville was a pretty podunk town before the events of Splatoon 3, so apparently the influx of new residents, paired with the general excitement of the Grand Festival, sparked a bit of fiscal irresponsibility on the city’s part. That’s the real reason we’re going to all this trouble looting Salmonid artifacts, because the city’s going to be in trouble if we don’t.

9 Deep Cut are the Heads of Their Clans

These Three are Big Deals

In Splatoon 3, particularly in the single-player campaign, Shiver, Frye, and Big Man all announce themselves as members of three of the Splatlands’ most prominent Octoling, Inkling, and manta ray families: the Hohojiro Clan, the Onaga Clan, and the, uh, Manta Clan. At least within their particular confrontations in the campaign, it wasn’t implied that the three of them were anything more than mere members of their respective clans, albeit very talented ones. However, it seems talent doesn’t go unrecognized in the Splatlands.

As is revealed in several Briny Scrolls, Shiver, Frye, and Big Man are all currently the acting heads of their respective clans. In fact, they’ve all been in charge since adolescence. Shiver bonded with Master Mega in an elaborate ceremony when she was a kid, Frye was raising hell with her moray eels even before she became a fully-grown Inkling, and Big Man put on an inaugural dance performance when he was just 16. These three aren’t just a gaggle of Team Rocket-esque troublemakers, they’re big deals.

8 Shiver, Frye, and Big Man have Solo Careers

Everyone Does Their Own Thing

Deep Cut is a very closely-knit group, with the three of them having met back during their school days and remaining tight ever since, both in their affinity for each other and their desire to do right by their clans and home in the Splatlands. In fact, Shiver and Frye actually got mad at Big Man for collabing with the Squid Sisters under the alias of “Ian BGM” on their song “Liquid Sunshine,” going as far as making a diss track on him, “Big Betrayal.”

In spite of all that, it seems all three members of Deep Cut have been pursuing their own professional avenues to varying degrees. Through Briny Scrolls obtained by increasing your bond with them, you learn that Shiver has apparently been performing on stage in fancy operas, Frye has been scouted as a high-end fashion model, and Big Man has been livestreaming audio equipment reviews, albeit under another pseudonym, out of fear of the others’ wrath.

7 Ink Conducts Electricity (Maybe)

Is There Anything it Can’t Do?

The Ink produced by Inklings and Octolings is one of the most mysterious substances in the Splatoon setting. It’s able to do just about anything under the right circumstances, from harming enemies to healing allies, not to mention propelling incredible distances and controlling small devices. There’s never really been that much information on Ink despite it being a central mechanic, but a little bit of flavor text in Raiders has shined an ever-so-tiny light on the matter.

According to the flavor text on the Splatellites Gadget, one of my favorite Gadgets in the game, by the way, the orbiting Ink pods that the device creates are actually the result of the Mechanic’s personal Ink being guided by electromagnetism. Apparently, Ink can just conduct some forms of electromagnetism, and considering what we learned of the origins of Inklings and Octolings from Splatoon 3, this actually makes a lot of sense. It’s a relatively little detail, but I find the physiology of Inklings and Octolings interesting, so who cares.

6 Salmonid Ink is Actually Saliva

That Just Makes it Worse

Speaking of Ink, I’ve always been a little confused when playing Salmon Run in Splatoon 2 and 3. After all, the Salmonids seem to possess a healthy supply of their own Ink, as well as the technology to utilize it in similarly wacky ways to Inklings and Octolings. That doesn’t really make any sense, though, even within the logic of the series. Salmon don’t produce ink, there’s no biological reason for them to. Turns out, I was right on that front. They don’t produce Ink at all.

Flavor text on a couple of Boss Salmonid research notes, chiefly the Salivator and Steelhead, reveal that the “Ink” produced and utilized by Salmonids and their weaponry is, in fact, saliva. Given their big, gaping maws, it stands to reason that these things produce a lot of spit on a regular basis, and even real-life saliva has dissolving properties, so it’s not that farfetched for Salmonid saliva to be weaponized in the same way as Ink. It is, however, very gross.

5 All Salmonids Start as Smallfry

Kinda Obvious in Hindsight

This is going to seem incredibly stupid on my part, and I won’t deny that, but it somehow never occurred to me that Salmonids could all have a unified point of origin. Previous Splatoon games made clear that all Salmonids are of the same species, of course, but I was operating on the assumption that they just sort of sprang up fully formed and ready to start swinging frying pans or shooting lasers. Obviously, this was not correct.

The flavor text for the Smallfry entry on the Salmonid observation logs reveals that, unsurprisingly, all Salmonid types big and small start their lives as Smallfrys. What wasn’t obvious, though, is that, according to this flavor text, a Smallfry’s ability to grow into a different type of Salmonid, especially Boss Salmonids, is largely dependent on that particular Smallfry’s constitution. Those born with a greater lung capacity could become a Smoker, for example, while those with a demonstrated proficiency with machinery could become a Scrapper.

4 Salmonids are a Product of Rapid Evolution

Salmon Did it the Old-Fashioned Way

On the subject of Salmonid development, we’re still a bit lacking in information on where, exactly, Salmonids came from, biologically speaking. We know that the Inklings, Octolings, and other such forms of humanoid sealife are the result of rapid mutation induced by the fall of Alterna, but Salmonids seem a little too brutal and tribal to have the same origin. The exact answer is still a mystery, but a particular Briny Scroll does give us a hypothesis to chew on.

According to this Briny Scroll, Salmonids are believed to be a product of rapid evolution and adaptation to the many natural disasters that preceded humanity’s ultimate downfall. Rather than humanoid-type mutations, it seems like the Salmonids became ambulatory and dexterous through simple natural selection, all as a survival response to the dangerous state of the planet. Admittedly, it takes a long time for that kind of evolution to take place, possibly longer than 12,000 years, but if any creature could spawn fast enough to facilitate it, it’d be salmon.

3 Salmonids Once Had a More-Advanced Society

No Idea Where it Went, Though

Perhaps the most surprising revelation in Splatoon Raiders is that Salmonids actually had a genuine society at one point in the distant past. We know current-day Salmonids have a social hierarchy and a primitive warrior culture, but these earlier Salmonids were apparently a lot more advanced than that. Like, Atlantis-level advanced, a far cry from the drooling maws and scrap machinery we regularly harass on GrizzCo’s orders.

From the treasures you loot in your raids to the massive underground locales at the tail-end of the game, it’s clear that Salmonids were, at one point in time, advanced enough to possess technologies like large-scale crafting and digging, as well as societal concepts like royalty, art, and even cooking. That last one kind of makes sense, given the Salmonids’ ethos revolving around “deliciousness.” Still, this begs the obvious question: how did this advanced society devolve into the pack of fishy cavemen we see now?

2 Salmonids are Sensitive to Certain Sonic Frequencies

Much Like Real Salmon

Ever since Salmonids were first introduced in Splatoon 2, it’s been clear that they tend to be rather… testy in temperament. It’s not unreasonable, considering we’re basically robbing them every time we interact, whether of Golden Eggs or, in Raiders’s case, valuable artifacts. Even then, we’ve seen multiple instances of Salmonids flying into full-on berserker rages, such as during Big Runs and when Glowflies swarm. Raiders may have given us one of the more concrete possible explanations for this phenomenon: sonic frequencies.

Before and during the Salmonarch’s emergence in the climax of the game, the creature seems to emit a powerful sonic pulse, which is swiftly followed by Salmonid populations rioting around the world. The flavor text on its research confirms that the Salmonarch’s energy causes magnetic disruptions that drive Salmonids bonkers. This could be a more dramatic example of the phenomenon we see when Glowflies are flying around; a particular tone or energy wavelength is interacting with something in the Salmonids’ brains.

1 The Existence of the Salmonarch is a Known Legend

Hinted at All the Way Back in Splatoon 2

Way back in Splatoon 2, one of the Sunken Scrolls found in that game’s single-player campaign shows an artistic rendition of Salmonid swarming, with seven ominous circles in the sky. It’s accompanied by a legend: “When smoke rises from the seven rings, the pinkfish will emerge from the sea, devouring all the creatures of the land.” This same message is displayed in Raiders’ bad ending, if you fail to defeat the Salmonarch in time. More to the point, those “seven rings” also appear in the sky before the Salmonarch’s advent.

Based on this old sunken scroll, not to mention several Briny Scrolls obtained in Raiders, this is not the first time a cataclysmic Salmonid event has occurred in known Inkling/Octoling history. Members of the Splatlands’ clans fought off a similar incursion of “pinkfish” in ancient times, and the Salmonarch’s flavor text even says outright that the one you fight is believed to be the seventh such specimen to be born of Spirhalite enrichment. Other Briny Scrolls claim the Salmonids enrich themselves in order to “reach the heavens,” so presumably, this continuous cycle is toward that goal, whatever it actually is.