How to Play with Friends in Splatoon Raiders

While Splatoon Raiders is primarily marketed as a single-player journey, you can certainly team up with friends for multiplayer action. The game doesn’t explicitly explain how to set this up, and it inherits the same limitations found in Splatoon 3—most notably, the absence of true local wireless play. Here is everything you need to know to get a session running with your friends.

How to play Splatoon Raiders with friends

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

Once you clear the initial introductory missions, you will gain access to your team’s ship base. Head to the far end of the platform—past where the treasure bot is positioned—and look for a radio. Though the game offers no formal tutorial or guidance to find it, this radio serves as your gateway to multiplayer sessions.

Interact with the radio to initiate the process. Upon your first visit, you will be prompted to register a nickname for online play. The system defaults to your Switch 2 username, though you are free to customize it as you see fit, provided it complies with Nintendo’s community guidelines.

From there, you can choose between online or local connectivity. It is important to clarify that “local” does not imply split-screen co-op; Splatoon Raiders does not support couch co-op on a single console. If you are playing alongside friends in the same room, each person must have their own individual console and a personal copy of the game.

When selecting the online option, you have the flexibility to create a private room with a password, browse existing rooms created by others, or invite people directly from your console’s friend list.

Keep in mind that Splatoon Raiders dynamically adjusts its difficulty for group play. Once you bring a party into a raid, you should prepare for increased enemy density and a significantly more chaotic experience.

Source: Polygon