Skip to main content

No Wii U, but want to play Splatoon? Now you can – in Minecraft

splatoon minecraft mod
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Are you excited by the innovative twist on familiar mechanics and bright, fun gameplay of Nintendo’s colorful shooter Splatoon, but don’t have a Wii U? Be jealous no more, because just barely a week after its release someone has already ported the main, team-based competitive mode into Minecraft with an impressively thorough mod.

YouTuber and Minecraft modder Sethbling has recreated all of Splatoon‘s core mechanics within Minecraft with an astounding degree of fidelity. Players are divided into two teams that start on opposite sides of a map, with the goal of covering more of the ground and walls in their team’s color of ink than their opponents’ by the time the match is over.

All three weapon types from Splatoon — Splattershot, Splat Charger, and Splat Roller — are available and work exactly as you’d expect. In order to replenish ink and move more quickly around the map, players can turn into squids to swim through their own color while refilling ink. They can even go up walls.The map is designed and balanced for four players like the original game, but can support teams of any size.

Sethbling admits that he doesn’t even own a Wii U, and has not played Splatoon himself, but instead enlisted the help of friends who have to help ensure his recreation lives up. That’s probably for the best, since he might not have set out to create the mod in the first place if he did have the game. With such a thorough recreation of Splatoon‘s competitive heart, there’s really little need for him to get it now.

Sethbling is one of the modders whose content comes included with the Minecraft Gameband wearable. Although it’s unclear if IP issues with Nintendo would complicate it, his Splatoon mod seems like it would make another excellent addition for the device.

You can download the mod from Sethbling’s website here. It works with any version 1.8 server.

Splatoon in Minecraft

Editors' Recommendations

Will Fulton
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…
Silent Hill 2 still doesn’t have a release date, but you can play a free spinoff game now
Anita stands in a hallway full of post-it notes in Silent Hill: The Lost Message.

We got a new trailer for Bloober Team's long-awaited Silent Hill 2 remake during today's PlayStation State of Play stream, which highlighted the horror game's reworked combat. While it still doesn't have a release date, publisher Konami did reveal an entirely new spinoff, Silent Hill: The Short Message, which is available now.

The announcement trailer for the entirely new Silent Hill game, which is officially available and free of play on the PlayStation 5 as of this exact moment, depicts the series' notoriously creepy visuals and a storyline involving a woman named Maya contacting the protagonist, Anita, on a smartphone as the player is drawn deeper into The Short Message's dreary, graffiti-covered, and extremely haunted apartment complex.

Read more
You can play as Resident Evil 4’s Leon Kennedy in Tekken 8 … sort of
Leon Kennedy in Tekken 8

Tekken 8 has only been out for a few days, but folks on the internet have already found a way to make some incredibly convincing recreations of some of their favorite characters from other properties. Perhaps one of the most impressive seen so far is a version of Leon Kennedy that closely resembles his appearance in the recent Resident Evil 4 remake, giving players an opportunity to enter the King of Iron Fist Tournament as a zombie-slaying brawler ... well, sort of.

As shown by YouTube creator Dan Allen Gaming, it's entirely possible to replicate Leon Kennedy's look to quite a shocking level using Tekken 8's detailed character customization features. Everything from his iconic leather bomber jacket to his quintessential '90s haircut is nailed perfectly here by using popular fighter Lars as a base for the customization due to his similarity to Leon in frame and stature.

Read more
2024 is about to get busy, so play these short 2023 games while you still can
Venba, Paavaran, and Kavin enjoy dinner together.

At the start of the year, I always like playing through shorter games. I know that in just a few weeks, a nonstop flurry of game launches will occupy all my time, so I want to fit in as many as possible while I can. Shorter games will have an important place this year as chasers between AAA releases, many of which seem to be lengthy RPGs this year.

Last year had plenty of hidden gems that you probably haven’t played yet, so if you have a couple of hours to spare this year in-between the releases of games like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Dragon’s Dogma 2, then consider checking any of the following seven games out. We've also listed how long it should take you to beat each one based on stats from HowLongToBeat.
Sonic Superstars

Read more