Five tips you should know before jumping into Splatoon's multiplayer

Watch in 60fps on YouTube | Subscribe to Polygon on YouTube

As of this moment, Splatoon is now available via the Nintendo Wii U eShop, which means players are finally starting to get their hands on the multiplayer — many of them for the first time. Here are five essential tips to help you get the most out of Nintendo's latest Wii U exclusive.

• Give the motion controls a chance! While Splatoon's gyroscope-based control scheme can feel off-putting at first, it also offers a legitimate benefit for players who choose to stick with it. An important thing to keep in mind: with motion controls on, you’ll still use the left stick to strafe and the right stick to look around - the only required use of the gyroscope is for tilting up and down. Since Splatoon is a game about shooting short-range goopy projectiles rather than bullets, being able to quickly tweak and adjust pitch axis on the fly is a huge advantage.



• In Turf War, the goal is obviously to cover as much turf as possible, but remember that painting walls doesn't count toward your team’s score. While painting walls can frequently be useful for traversal reasons such as reaching higher areas to shoot from, neither your team’s final score nor your special weapon meter will increase from it. Only bother spraying the walls when absolutely necessary.
• While in a match, one great tip is to keep your eyes on the squid icons at the top of the screen. Not only do they represent which players are currently splatted on each team, they actually subtly change size depending on which team has the lead. This is a great way to see at a glance who’s winning a match without shifting your focus to the map on the Wii U gamepad.
• That said: look at the map as frequently as you comfortably can, especially between deaths. You can single-handedly shift the tide of an entire match by spotting a large, uncontested piece of of enemy turf and spending 20 seconds covering it in your color. Keep your eyes on the area around your spawn point, too - if the rest of your team is away covering territory, one sneaky enemy could quietly slip into your unprotected base and single-handedly take 20 to 30% of the map.
• One of the best ways to be a team player: maximize your use of the super jump. At any time, tapping either the name or location of a teammate on gamepad map will jump you right to their location. It can be risky - if they die during the jump, it's likely there's an enemy camping there to take you out , too - but more often, it's a useful way to get back into the fray and start painting distant or highly contested turf, especially right after spawning.

Splatoon is available now for $59.99 on the Nintendo Wii U.