Octo Valley and the Zapfish

Splatoon 1's story mode is short, funny, and far more consequential than it looks. It introduces the Octarians, Cap'n Cuttlefish, the New Squidbeak Splatoon, DJ Octavio, and the tradition of a nameless Inkling stumbling into a century-old war because they walked past the wrong manhole. Everything the later games do, they do in the shadow of Octo Valley.

The theft

The game opens with the Great Zapfish gone. The enormous catfish that powers Inkopolis has been taken from the top of the tower, and the city's power is on borrowed time. Inkopolis News reports the disappearance with cheerful confusion. Only one person seems to know what happened: an old Inkling in a tattered military coat who is peering out of a manhole in the corner of the plaza.

That old Inkling is Craig Cuttlefish, veteran of the Great Turf War and last active member of the Squidbeak Splatoon. He knows the Octarians took the Zapfish because he has been watching them for a hundred years. His shack in Octo Valley, perched above a decaying underground world, is the only outpost the surface has ever kept. When the player's Inkling follows him down, he promptly drafts them as Agent 3.

Octo Valley

Octo Valley is the Octarians' outer territory: a series of floating islands and industrial structures, each concealed by a kettle-shaped entrance that only a squid can slip into. Inside each kettle is a level, and at the end of each level is a Zapfish held captive as a battery. The environment tells its own story. The domes are lit by painted skies, the machinery is worn, and Octarian propaganda posters plaster every surface. This is a civilization that has been underground too long.

The enemies, too, are a tour of Octarian society: Octotroopers, Octocopters, Octosnipers, and Octolings, the elite soldiers who fight like Inklings do. Each area ends with a rebuilt Great Octoweapon guarded by a boss: the Octostomp, the Octonozzle, the Octowhirl, and the Octomaw. Each has a tentacle exposed at its power source, a direct echo of the loose plug that lost the Great Turf War.

DJ Octavio

Ruling all of it is DJ Octavio, the commander of the Octarian army and Cuttlefish's oldest rival. He fights from inside the Octobot King, a flying mech with a turntable cockpit, and his boss battle is one of the series' most memorable set pieces: the player rides a platform through a rhythm-synced assault of ink missiles and giant fists while Octavio taunts them over the music.

The turning point is a song. Partway through the fight, the Squid Sisters' Calamari Inkantation comes in over the radio, Cuttlefish's spirit rallies, and the tide turns. Octavio is defeated, the Great Zapfish is freed, and the DJ is stuffed into a snow globe in front of Cuttlefish's shack, where he stays, grumbling, until Splatoon 2.

A manhole, an old soldier, and a war nobody else remembered. That is where the agents started.

What it establishes

Almost every recurring element of the series' story modes starts here. The agent numbering: Cuttlefish is the Cap'n, Callie and Marie are Agents 1 and 2 (their identities as the Squid Sisters are only confirmed by hints and the credits), and the player is Agent 3. The kettle structure, the Zapfish-as-battery conceit, the exposed-tentacle boss design, the collectible Sunken Scrolls, the hero gear: all of it debuts in Octo Valley and carries forward through Octo Canyon and Alterna.

It also establishes the tone. Cuttlefish is doddering but sharp, Octavio is a menace but a ridiculous one, and the war is real but the games refuse to be grim about it. Nobody dies in Octo Valley. The Zapfish go home. The DJ goes in a globe.

Agent 3 goes back to Turf War, and Inkopolis never learns what happened. But the story does not stay buried. Callie and Marie's final Splatfest, months later, will send Callie wandering into Octo Canyon and into Octavio's reach. Agent 3 will resurface in the Octo Expansion, sanitized and turned against Agent 8. And Cuttlefish, still keeping watch, will be the first to go missing when a bigger threat than the Octarians finally shows up.

Octo Valley is the smallest story mode in the series. It is also the seed of all the others.