Riptide 2026

Only weeks late, as is fashionable for me, I wanted to recount my experience at Riptide 2026. This is absolutely a personal blurb and not a comprehensive piece of journalism, but here goes.

I can barely tell you who won anything, I know that in Splatoon, Cookies & Cream won(?) and Hbox won the Melee stuff. I wasn't really there to follow the winners. I tend to follow specific folks and the event overall.

I haven't competed in Splatoon since 2024, but I keep attending because I can't miss out on the event I've been a part of since Splatoon premiered at it in 2021. Like I said in the Raiders review, I have complex feelings about the game these days, but that's less true when it comes to hanging out with the friends I've made while playing it. It's nice to be somewhere that I can see and put faces to a lot of the names that I'm frequently encountering online.

Thursday

The event takes place at the Kalahari in Sandusky, Ohio, which means about 8 hours of driving for us eacah way. Given that we travel as a group, and how pedestrian-unfriendly the resort part of the area is (though props to them for having a bus system, and for it being tracked on Transit!), we decided to car pool. The journey there for us was unremarkable in a good way, mostly just listening to music and lots of snacks. Thursday night is traditionally the time when everyone checks in, grabs their badges, and greets a handful of their friends in a fairly jet-lagged stupor. We were pretty tired, and only a select few people saw us on Thursday night. We stocked up on some snacks at Walmart and got our badges.

The actual tournament occupies the rest of the weekend. Not for me as a player, of course, but I still plan a lot of my schedule around rooting ofr my friends and associates. I did make sure to section off some "me time" this year, because previous years left me feeling as though I didn't take proper advantage of the waterpark. It's a resort, I love the water, and I was going to be damned if I didn't get some good swimming in. I hit the pools at least once each day when I wasn't watching friends play.

When it comes to watching my friends play, I'm very happy with how they did. Pretty well all around! I was rooting for several teams, because most of the people I played with in the past have ventured in separate directions and have new teams. This is normal, and fine, and it just gives me more teams to root for. It also means that I got to meet their new teammates and make new friends. It was just a matter of observing how their tournament runs went.

Friday

The group stage is generally the most cordial and chill time of the weekend. It's primarily about playing your best game and seeing where you end up for the rest of the weekend. It's the least annoying time.

Saturday

Saturday is when the gloves come off. People are either duking it out under the threat of ending their tournament run, then and there. Emotions run high, and well, some people are just real assholes. I understand yelling, being intense and all, but the fastest way to get me to root for your team's downfall is to start trash talking the other team. Some call it "hype," there is a whole division of the competitive scene that thinks there isn't enough of it, but I'm pretty sure it's just nonsense. Due to my strong aversion to bullshit, quite a bit of my bracket viewing time becomes dedicated to relishing the termination of the runs of disrespectful teams. oops.

Sunday

Top 32 kicks off day Sunday, and I only really remember the first half of it. A few of my friends' teams made it to this point, and I stuck around until they were out. After my friends were eliminated, I wasn't really that invested in the final result anymore. While top 8 was underway, my friend group had an enjoyable pool trip during the rare sunny day of the weekend, and we made it back in time for most of top 4. We watched the rest of the tournament from our room with some friends. It became a little bit of a watch party. This was more enjoyable than being in the crowd for us, as we were able to enjoy the presence of friends we don't see otherwise, and also pay closer attention to the production. I really like to hear what the commentary team is doing. It seems like the real exciting matches weren't the grand finals, which was a bit of a washout.

After everything wrapped up, some of my friends hosted a big gathering in one of the common areas, so we joined in. We even brought our riichi mahjong setup and used it as a way to connect with some new folks. Being the last night of the weekend, it was a good way to facilitate a bunch of goodbye conversations with my friends before we all returned to our homes. I had a good time, but we did have to retire to our room before midnight so we could pack for the long trip the next day.

Summary

In Summary, I had a pretty great weekend, even without participating. I always leave these events wondering when or if I will be ready to compete in Splatoon again. It is easy to remember the things that I loved about the series, but not everythign is so straightforward. There is a lot of emotion and baggage to navigate before I jump back into something major like that again.

Thank you so much to everyone that I met and befriended this weekend. I hope we are able to keep in touch until the next event.
See you next year, be nice to each other, and play solo queue!