The Igloo — Splatoon Raiders Is Here, and It Almost Wasn't This at All
Splatoon Raiders launches on Nintendo Switch 2 today — and it started life as a tower defense game before finding its footing. Plus: Microsoft tests free Xbox streaming with ads, the EU clears EA's $55B Saudi buyout, and Halo's paid early access breaks on launch day.
Wednesday, July 23, 2026. The biggest thing in gaming today: Splatoon Raiders is live on Nintendo Switch 2, and the ink is already flying.
The lead · Splatoon Raiders — Nintendo's riskiest Splatoon yet
Splatoon Raiders launched on Switch 2 today, and it arrives as one of the more interesting Nintendo experiments in years — not just because of what it is, but because of what it almost was.
In a pre-launch developer conversation, Nintendo EPD director Yoshihiko Ito revealed the game started as a tower defense title. "It was like a base defence game," the team said, before the design shifted hard toward "a strong sense of action" — faster, more chaotic, unmistakably Splatoon but pulling in a new direction. The pivot happened because the team found the series' core identity — its feel, its rhythm — getting lost in the prototype structure. They rerouted.
Why this matters to players: Raiders is a standalone spin-off, not Splatoon 4. It's built to sit beside the mainline series, not replace it. For Switch 2 owners who've been waiting for a first-party Nintendo reason to use the hardware, today is that day. For anyone who watches how games actually get made, the developer commentary is worth a read — it's a textbook example of prototyping until a franchise's identity reasserts itself, then shipping from there.
Listen to today's episode on The Igloo podcast — we went extended on this one.
Sources: Eurogamer · Game Developer
Xbox is testing free game streaming — with ads before you play
Microsoft has started rolling out an ad-supported, free tier for Xbox cloud gaming to members of the Xbox Insider program. The model: you stream games without a subscription, with ads playing at the start of your session. Microsoft is firm that ads will not interrupt gameplay — "we do not interrupt the flow of gameplay" is the exact language — which reads as a deliberate boundary set before anyone could ask.
For players, the upside is real: a lower barrier to trying cloud games, no subscription required, no mid-match breaks. The open question is whether "Insider test" eventually becomes the default free tier, and what it looks like at scale. Microsoft has been looking for new monetization paths since the Activision acquisition, and cloud infrastructure costs money. This is the clearest signal yet of where one of those paths might lead.
EA's $55B Saudi buyout just cleared a major hurdle
The European Commission has approved the $55 billion acquisition of EA by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake, and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners. The EU ruled the deal raises no competition concerns. Global regulatory approvals are still pending, but clearing Europe is a significant step.
The combination of a sovereign wealth fund, a major private equity firm, and a political figure's investment vehicle taking ownership of EA is genuinely unusual territory for the games industry. EA's portfolio — FIFA, Battlefield, The Sims, Dragon Age — is among the most globally recognized in gaming. The EU's approval answers the regulatory question. The harder question — what new ownership actually changes for the games themselves, and when — is still open.
Sources: Rock Paper Shotgun · Polygon
One more thing
Halo: Campaign Evolved launched in early access today. Xbox players who paid extra to get in early can't access the game — a bug is preventing premium buyers from loading it on day one. The same day the franchise launches on PlayStation for the first time in 25 years. Timing. (GameSpot)
Sources: Eurogamer · Game Developer · VGC · GameSpot · Rock Paper Shotgun · Polygon · GameSpot (Halo)
Listen to today's episode on The Igloo podcast.