Nintendo reveal artwork of Splatoon’s original ink-blasting rabbit concept

GDC panel talks scrapped ideas

Everyone knows the song “You’re a kid now, you’re a squid now, you’re a kid, you’re a squid… etc”. But things could have been oh-so-different for arena-shooter Splatoon, had Nintendo gone with its original concept of an army of rabbits.

Speaking at GDC 2018 in San Francisco yesterday, Splatoon Producer Hisashi Nogami spoke about the original designs that went into creating the popular, colour-stained Switch game, with new tidbits concerning the game’s original protagonists, a concept previously revealed on “Iwata Asks…” several years back.

Originally, the lop-eared cuties were chosen due to their territorial nature and distinctive colouring, but the concept was changed to squids when they started asking themselves why rabbits were firing ink and diving into streams to swim into battle. Y’know, like a squid might?

Soon after the conference, Nintendo tweeted out some original artwork of the abandoned idea, which you can check out below.

Nintendo’s speaks on Splatoon’s “rabbit” concept [Nintendo / Kotaku]

Did you know the characters originally in development for #Splatoon were planned as rabbits instead of Inklings!? Check out this fun image of what might have been, from Mr. Nogami’s #GDC18 panel today. pic.twitter.com/Tk5vyQgH0u

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) March 21, 2018