“Splatoon 3” Google Search

Recently on September 9th, Nintendo released the third game in their territorial shooter series Splatoon on the Switch, aptly named Splatoon 3. To celebrate said game, and the series as a whole, Google have once again worked their magic and created a fun interactive experience that can be triggered when any of the games are searched for. Cue lots of ink-redible fun…

Even though it has been one of the success stories for Nintendo in terms of modern IPs, they cannot count me amongst its adopters. Simply put, I am not a fan of any kind of shooters and genuinely just suck at them, enough said. Regardless though, this experience intrigued and, after searching the term, I willingly clicked on the little splat animation occurring beside the game profile on the right.

Spawning a fresh UI overlay, clicking with the mouse now fires a series of splats at the browser, spanning the classic Google colour palette of red, blue, green and yellow. With a terrific cannon-fire animation, it is surprisingly entertaining covering the information behind, with sound playing a huge part as the ink shoots from off-screen and collides with a satisfying splodge upon the backdrop.

Continuing to fill the screen, Google didn’t take the easy option and utilise the same splat over and over. Mixing things up with various splat patterns, on rare occasion you’ll even find two eyes hidden within, a direct link to how the in-game characters, Inklings, can submerge in their own ink.

Maintaining the rapid fire, I eventually filled the entire screen, with an option below allowing me to share my exploits on social and via email.

Lastly, a second UI option, a water droplet, floods the screen, washing away all remnants of ink with a subtle blue to transparent gradient and wavy line. Again, sound plays a large role here with the sound of water sloshing and draining away.

For what is still a fairly niche game in the West (in Japan it is huge, this entry selling over 3 million copies in its first week alone), it is wonderful to see Google put this experience together to entice additional players to the cause, even if it hasn’t done quite enough to persuade me. Test your aim and get splatting!