Nintendo is releasing Splatoon 2 for the Switch this Friday. Alongside that ink shooter, the publisher is also planning to introduce its new online app that enables players to group up and voice chat when in multiplayer matches. And it turns out that playing online without that app is a real pain.
We’ve put some time into Splatoon 2, and reviewer Mike Minotti thinks the series is still fresh now that it has migrated from the Wii U to Nintendo’s newest hardware. What is not so fresh is that you can’t party up with your friends through the game itself. Instead, during our play sessions, I had to wait for Mike to get into a game and then join him from the friends menu.
If that sounds cumbersome, it’s actually worse in practice. If Mike’s match was already full, I had to just wait in a loading screen for a space to open up. If no one leaves after the end of a round, I had to wait even longer. I could’ve gone to play in my own matches, but then my chance to join Mike could’ve passed me by.
Even when I did get into the game, Mike and I were rarely on the same team. The game knew I joined him from my friends list, but it didn’t naturally group us up.
I’m sure that many of these problems will have solutions in the app, but not everyone is going to always have access to a phone while they’re playing. And even if you do, you should still have the option to do them while in the game.