I recently got to play a preview of the free-to-play PvP shooter Splitgate 2. After six hours, it's clear to me that developer 1047 Games is trying things a bit differently than expected. The original shooter was celebrated as "Halo meets Portal," introducing portal gameplay to arena-style shooting. It worked, and Splitgate exploded in popularity.

Those eager to jump into its sequel for more of the same may be alarmed to learn that Splitgate 2 won't just be more of the same. Sure, there's still Halo-style shooting and Portal-esque, erm, portaling. But its gameplay feels supercharged, focusing on chara??cter abilities and high-octane comba??t in smaller arenas where unseen crowds cheer for their favorite bloodsport.

Team player

Splitgate 2 ??lets you represent factions and perform stunts for the folks at home. Earning points and completing feats causes invisible fans?? to cheer as a "coach" feeds you match info in a sprightly British accent.

There are three factions you can pick and customize in Splitgate 2. First, you have Aero??s, which favors speed and agility. Meridian members dress up in sleek purple and black, l?ooking more like the secret soldiers of a cyberpunk megacorp. Finally, you have Sabrask, a militaristic group that sports heavy orange armor.

You can customize each faction's loadout, all of which offer you the choice of three gun types that fall unde??r long-range rifles, machine guns, and a shotgun. Aeros does swap out a shotgun for a bullet-spitting SMG, however. You also get one of two equipment options and a Team Trait that offers everyone on your team a small buff.

There's also a smattering of equipment and special abilities unique to every faction. Meridian lets you heal allies with a health grenade o?r to temporarily see through walls, for example. Sabrask gives you a shield you can place on the ground, allowing? you to shoot through it while it blocks enemy bullets.

Swap meet

You can swap between and customize factions and weapon attachments between missions, giving you ??the option to change things to better ??suit your team composition. Often, during a losing match, I would quickly return as a Sabrask bruiser.

The Sabrask shotgun is ridiculous, capable of delivering a thunderous buckshot slap to t??he face that can bring someone down in one or two shots. Add an attachment to increase its range, and you will end up with something that should be illegal. But the gun's reload speed is so painfully slow that I often found it better to grab a discarded gun off the ground and jump back into the fight.

Meridian was my other favorite faction. I naturally gravitated to its three-shot burst rifle. It wasn't exactly like my beloved Battle Rifle from Halo, but picking off enemies at a distance with it still le??ft me with the same self-satisfied smirk on my face.

Back to the arena

Ther?e were two modes to try in the preview. Team Deathmatch is, naturally, a fairly well-trodden mode for shooters, where two teams duke it out for the most kills. There is a small twist, however.

Team Deathmatch is round-based in Splitgate 2. Every 15 kills, the game wo?uld pause so you could take a breath, tinker with your build, or chat strats with your team. After eight seconds or so, you're sent back out to try and earn another 15 kills. The first team to win three rounds takes home the gold.

The other mode was Hotzone, Splitgate 2's take on King of the Hill. But, like with Team Deathmatch, it comes with an unexpected wrinkle. Zone control is shared between the two teams, and the last team member on the point when it reaches 100% claims the score. Naturally, this means that a team can claim a control point for the majority of the time, only to get wiped and lose the point within seconds. The team with two control? captures wins the match.

Controlling chaos

There were two power weapons in the preview. The Fubar rocket launcher could shoot one rocket at a time or everything it has loaded by zooming in first. The other is the Splitstream rifle, which you can split into two weapons for dual-wielding action. Before the preview, we were in a brief meeting with Ian Proulx, the creative director of Splitgate. During the chat, Proulx compared the gun to Halo 2-style dual??-wielding. And he's not mistaken. Nothing else I've used comes so close to the golden days of that pre-patch SMG/Pistol combo like the Splitstream.

The preview included a handful of maps to try. Maps in the Splitgate 2 preview felt tightly designed, made to funnel two teams of four toward the center where a lot of the action took place. Teams fought to hold sections that offered map control while smaller skirmishes lit up hallwa??ys and various rooms. Power weapons that spawned into the map cou?ld change the tides in moments.

Those familiar with classic Halo multiplayer may have felt their eyebrow rise a bit. As someone who played way too much Halo 3 in college, the Splitgate sequel still gladly evokes its spirit. Gunning for map control while watching for power weapon spawns is peak Halo, with the portal gun again presenting more tactical options. You can sprint, slide, and hover in the air. The pacing, along with the default abilities, means Splitgate 2 is less Halo 3 and more Halo 5 played fast-forward.

Picking up the pace

Knowing you can break a team's control with smart portal placement means Splitgate 2 moves fast as hell. Getting past a choke point is easier when you can just bust through a science? fiction-hole in the wall. I was often surprised by how quickly a 15-kill round in Team Deathmatch would go.

This is the start of where I feel Splitgate 2 falters a bit. The game moves so fast that the sudden stops are jarring. I wonder if upping the kill score to 20 would make things feel a bit less bumpy, but the speed feels baked in. Team Deathmatch games can wrap up in less than ten minutes, and I felt burnt out by the time I p?layed for ??about an hour.

Hold that thought

Hotzone was often just as swift but had its own issues. Respawns in Hotzone are not rigid and will increase by small amounts the longer the match lasts. Dying ea??rly in Hotzone means you get to respawn quickly; by default, you?? return to the fray after five seconds. Every eight seconds, the respawn time increases by one second until capping at 20.

Getting kills against enemy players knocks three seconds off your teammate's respawn timer. Smart or aggressive plays are incentivized, as playing it safe can mean allowing the opposing team to score nearly unopposed. Everyone who has played multiplayer team-based shooters knows the pressure of being the last alive on your team, eyeballs burning holes into the back of your head. That intensi??ty is so much higher in Hotzone.

But it can be a bit aggravating for those stuck in respawn hell. Having to watch the control point tick along for nearl??y 20 seconds while the opposing team enjoys a picnic in the point is damn near unbearable. The high-risk, high-reward nature of the respawn timer may make for some exciting moments, but it's just as true that it can lead to waiting in frustration. Considering how expedient the gameplay is, the sudden stop and long pause between the blistering action feels off.

I can split these gates

I have learned that I am laughably shit at using portals in Splitgate 2. There were no large, vertical maps in the preview, meaning most portal options existed to get a drop on enemies or move to a point on the m??ap a bit faster. Early?? on, enemy players often got the better of me. I was chasing one player down when they dropped a portal to their right and left. They entered the latter and suddenly were across the room.

I died like the idiot I was, but I started to learn. Before the end of my time with the game, I was able to move around the map for positioning. If an enem??y player was dug in, I created a portal behind them and blasted through it from safety.

Thrills and spills

Despite the concerns, the Splitgate 2 preview still offered more than a fair share of excitement. Both the movement and sh??ooting felt meticulously fine-tuned.

If you told me the game was rea?dy to fully launch tomorrow, I'd believe you. The maps are fantastic and varied, with plenty of ramps and angles to use to your advantage. It can be thrilling to charge into a fig??ht with an ally and use a portal to sandwich enemy members. Personally, I had a lot of fun with the game despite my limited time with it and the misgivings the changes brought.

Splitgate 2's blistering pace will be something to get used to, but the gunplay still feels damn good in the preview. It's too early to say if Splitgate 2 will reach the dizzying but temporary heights of its predecessor. But the game will be available to play in Alpha form on August 21, 2024, giving everyone ?a chance to try it out.

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Splitgate 2 is teleporting players back into the series' free-to-play shooter action. Developer 1047 Games announced a sequel to its original game, and the studio has brought on talent from the teams of Call of Duty, Overwatch, Halo, and more to help make it.

1047 Games is calling the game "bigger and better than ever," with a large selection of arenas, weapons, and modes on offer. There will also be three factions to choose from "based on your preferred gameplay style and competitive strategies," according to the press release. Splitgate 2 will also be running on Unreal Engine 5, marking a visual upgrade from the 2019 predecessor.

To coincide with the Splitgate 2 announcement, there's an official Companion app. Once you boot it up, you can get collectibles that offer in-game rewards when the sequel launches. There are also quizzes to complete and a comic series to read through. The first issue is out today, and the next fo?ur parts will be released every month. They focus on the backstories of those heroes featured in this week's trailer.

"This is a revolutionary step forward for competitive shooters," said co-founder and CEO of 1047 Games in the press release. "It's the perfect entry point for players new to the world of Splitgate and a comprehensive?? upgrade worthy of our existing community."

Since launching Splitgate, 1047 Games has grown into a large team of over 150 developers, who have experience with other multiplayer titles like the Halo series, Valorant, and League of Legends. Hopefully, that knowledge will prove fruitful for this upcoming shoot?er, as the team is currently targeting n?ext year for launch.

Regardless, you should check out the original if you haven't already; it's one of the best free-to-play games on Steam right now.

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The new project will be built in Unreal Engine 5

Developer 1047 Games is moving on to a new project. The studio announced today that it is ending feature development on its portal-based shooter Splitgate, and moving on to a new game.

In a new statement shared on the Splitgate site, 1047 says that the FPS has reached a level of success it could not?? have anticipated. This has led to the studio growing substantially and bringing on new talent. It's also meant a lot of time trying to rework older content and systems, in what it characterizes as "bailing water" from a ship.

In light of this, 1047 Games has decided to build something new. And to do so, it's ending feature development on Splitgate.

"We’re turning our attention away from iterative, smaller updates and going all-in to focus on a new game in the Splitgate universe wh?ich wi??ll present revolutionary, not evolutionary, changes to our game. It will be a shooter, it will have portals, and it will be built in Unreal Engine 5. Oh, and it will be free."

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5XKcTM_NM8

A portal to a new world

That doesn't mean Splitgate is going away, though. 1047 Games says Splitgate will remain online, as will items and progression. There's also a new Battle Pass rolling out on September 15. The pass will be free for everyone, as a thank-you to everyone who's played Splitgate.

Support w??ill also continue, though it will be limited in scope to smaller updates and fixes. The bulk of 1047's focus, the studio says, will be on an entirely new shooter.

Splitgate started out as an interesting combination of Portal and Halo, which worked pretty well at the time for those waiting on Halo Infinite. It's since grown to be its own thing, and it'll be interesting to see what 1047 does with a new engine, larger team, and all the lessons learned from making Splitgate.

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The portal-shooter saw over 10 million downloads in its first 30 days of open beta

1047 Games has announced that the Splitgate open beta will carry on for the foreseeable future. The studio will use the time to continue scaling up, in order to?? match its sudden increase in popularity.

Splitgate, which is essentially a first-person shooter that includes portals similar to those seen in Portal, recently saw a massive influx of players. 1047 Games had previously delayed the launch of Splitgate to spend some time scaling for its sudden uptick in player count. With over 10 mill??ion downloads in the first 30 days of open beta, the studio has continued working to increase player capacity and reduce queue times.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjUYEvsYgyY

In a press release, 10??47 co-founder and CEO Ian Proulx outlined how the team would be using its continued open beta period.

"We?? are focused on keeping the game st??able for fans, and iterating on the game’s concurrent capacity in order to minimize player wait times," said Proulx. "We want to do this the right way, and we want to be prepared for massive scale when we officially launch, all the while continuing to improve the beta with frequent updates, additional features, and improvements to server capacity."

I recently hopped into Splitgate and aside from the log-in queues—which have been noticeably decreasing in wait times over the past week or so for me—it's a pretty fun first-person shooter. It wears its Halo inspiration pretty plainly on i??ts sleeve, as there are even straight up Team SWAT, Shotty Sniper, and Oddball modes. It's been solid enough that I've gone back a few times, and it feels like it's filling the Mas?ter Chief-shaped hole in my heart.

As for what else is coming in the foreseeable future of Splitgate's open beta, 1047 says it's putting an update live with Ranked Duos and increased server capacity today, and it has several content updates planned through the rest of this year. The studio is planning a "significant" announcement for players during this month's Gamescom 202?1 as well.

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Things are going to need to scale up

Splitgate recently hosted an open beta for its portal-based FPS arena gameplay. Suffice to say??, it was a little more popular than might have been anticipated.

Developer 1047 Games announced today that after two million people downloaded the open beta in the course of 14 days, the studio will be delaying the launch of Splitgate into August. The open beta will still remain online, and the team will meanwhile work to scale server capacity in order to handle the "expon?ential" growth of the player base.

Originally set to launch on July 27, the open beta went live on July 13, and within the next two weeks experienced a massive influx of new players, stressing the game's framework and server infrastructure. Updates and announcements on current server status have been steadily rolling out over on the Splitgate Twitter feed.

In order to help with scaling up, 1047 Games also announce??d a $10 million round of funding led by Human Capital, which will provide a cash influx to? help increase server capacity and stability.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=NysKf5ciCMQ

Meanwhile, Splitgate will still be getting a beta update on Tuesday with some of the planned launch content for the arena FPS. This includes three new maps and new customization options. 1047 is also including some frequently requested features from the open beta, like mou?se and keyboard support and FOV slider on consoles, and c??ustomizable controller layouts too.

Splitgate mixes Halo with Portal, allowing players to open their own portal gates to use for whatever purposes, be that mobility or a new tunnel to shoot through at your opponents. It'?s also cross-play and cross-gen, which would definitely help bolster the a?vailable player pool.

Though it's staying in open beta for a little while longer, it'll be interesting to see the reception once servers? are solidified and launch is in sight. There are a lot of different types of shooters to pick from these days, but one that makes you think with portals definitely has me intrigued.

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