When Splitgate launched in 2019, it quickly took the shooter world by storm. A new arena shooter that somehow fused both Halo and Portal that felt great to play felt genuinely new in the space. It was so novel, an idea that felt revolutionary while also easing in a feeling of “How hasn’t this happened yet?” It wasn’t perfect, but it was fun and doing something different compared to its contemporaries as a free-to-play FPS.
With Splitgate 2, Ian Proulx, the CEO of 1047 Games and creative director of Splitgate, and the team at 1047 Games is making the “Game of [their] dreams.” At a press event, Ian talked about how they plan to iterate in the recently announced sequel. According to Ian, the original game felt limited by team size and resources. That’s no longer with Splitgate 2. The team set out to make a true AAA shooter, focusing on meaningful variety, better progression, more teamwork, better live-ops, and improved pacing, all while catering to different playstyles.
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Actually playing Splitgate 2, it’s easy to instantly see and feel how much better it feels while feeling familiar in all the best ways. Portals are still the main focus, now being able to be shot out with the press of a single button. Mixing up which portal you were shooting amongst the chaos of the original is now gone, as the system is smart enough to tell which portal should follow. You can still use two separate buttons, but the one-button system instantly feels more fluid and better to use.
Another major change in Splitgate 2 is its faction system. When loading into a game, players choose between three different factions that remain locked during that game. Different loadouts within each faction can be swapped out in-game, but rounds are set for the factions.
Each faction feels different and important, with the games reliant on proper teamwork and balancing. Aeros is the sporty fast faction, with an adrenaline rush ability that increases health and speed across the board. Reloads, movement, tossing the faction-specific shock disc that stuns other players—everything is faster for a short amount of time. They also boast a stim shot ability, allowing them to heal themselves in key moments.
The Meridian faction, on the other hand, is much more support-themed. Players will have a time dome that can be tossed down, popping a bubble up. Allies inside the bubble move faster, recharge health quicker, and generally do everything faster in the bubble. Enemies, on the other hand, get massively slowed down across the board. Meridian players also get a healing grenade. Tossing it down pops instant health, also continuing to pulse every couple seconds for extra health. Their ability is hypersight, pulsing out and tagging nearby enemies through the walls.
Sabrask is the final faction, being the most tank-like out of the three. All three classes have the same time to kill, so while not being an outright tank, Sabrask can toss down walls as their ability that stop bullets. They also get both sticky and smoke grenades but are only able to use one at a time in a loadout. The stickies are so satisfying to toss out and stick an enemy. The smoke grenades shouldn’t be ignored either, killing line of sight in a small area and preventing portals from being tossed up through the smoke.
Each of the three factions also has teamwide bonuses. Aeros players grant faster ability cooldowns for the whole team. Meridian boosts health regeneration across the team, making it faster to regain health and shields. The Sabrask faction grants extra ammo for the team on spawn. Having players from all three grants all bonuses team-wide, so team balance is integral to being able to take the other team down.
The gunplay and movement have similarly been overhauled. The gun feel and shooting already felt fantastic in the original, and Splitgate 2 delivers tighter gunplay. Each weapon feels different, especially across factions. The Meridian faction has a shotgun that charges to deal massive damage, while the Sabrask shotgun feels like a heavy mechanical blast. Aiming down sights doesn’t affect accuracy either, letting players who prefer to hip fire dole out the same damage output. Each weapon has a good amount of kickback and feels like it’s supposed to.
The factions had three loadouts available in the preview. Each had a variation of an assault rifle, carbine, shotgun, and sniper, along with the ability-specific kits. On the map, two power weapons could be found. 1047 promises many more for the full launch, but the two available felt great. The rocket launcher is a tried and true favorite with some interesting augments. Hip firing shoots out a single shot while aiming down sights fires three in a tight spiral. One rocket won’t be enough to take out an enemy unless it’s a direct hit. Firing three may wipe an opponent in one hit but empties the entire flip in one shot, with only one reload available.
The splitstream, on the other hand, is a supremely cool take on an assault rifle. Shooting normally does a ton of damage, but players can split the rifle, becoming a dual-wielding pistol/SMG combo for higher and faster damage output. Doing so prevents players from using their abilities or grenades, so choosing the right moment to pump damage is integral. The factions feel closer to Battlefield classes instead of a hero shooter like Overwatch, and that’s very much welcome as it gives Splitgate 2 its own identity in the shooter space.
Splitgate 2 also feels more fluid than ever, thanks to the updated movement. The jetpacks remain, letting players get height advantage when they need to. The newly added slide also adds a layer of slippery that the original sorely lacked, picking up speed when sliding down a ramp. It feels faster than Splitgate, adding a layer of momentum to each move.
The two game modes that were available during the play period included Team Deathmatch and Hotzone. The Team Deathmatch was standard fare, a race to the kill point total. Hotzone, on the other hand, is a futuristic take on the King of the Hill. The first to capture two hills takes the round, and the first to five rounds wins. 1047 has taken some interesting steps to differentiate its take on King of the Hill. When the match starts, a zone in one of three spots will open on the centerline of the field. After it’s capped, the next spot moves further into enemy territory, letting the losing team stage an epic comeback if played properly.
Hotzone also has something that 1047 referred to as shared progression. In standard King of the Hill, entering the space usually starts a meter that gets reset if the other team takes it. Not so in Splitgate 2, as the progress made by the other team stays when overrun. This creates a really tense layer on King of the Hill, making timing attacks incredibly important. Do you wait, letting the other team build progress, and swoop in at the last second to steal the cap? Or do you rush in and hold the line as best as you can? It makes for some incredibly tense firefights, especially when the newly reworked respawn system gets accounted for.
Rather than having standardized respawn countdowns, Splitgate 2 has a system that changes as the battle goes on. Early on, respawns are set at five seconds, quickly pulling players back into the fight. As the game goes on, respawn timers creep up to 20 seconds, which, coincidentally, is the amount of time needed to cap a hill. If you or your team can get kills, the respawn timer for dead allies drops by three seconds per kill. This is a genius marriage between run and gun arena shooters in the early game and slower, more methodical high-intensity moments found more in no respawn shooters. The stakes get higher as the match goes on, making death matter more as the round timer counts down.
The handful of maps available during the preview felt great. One was a wide arena, multi-leveled with plenty of interesting sight lines and portal spawn spots. It reminded me a lot of old levels in Unreal Tournament, drawing on nostalgia while feeling brand new at the same time. Another arena was set in a desert, with more outdoor spaces to fight and a big structure in the middle. The final map looked like a mall, with a massive hallway in the center where a lot of the battles went down.
So far, Splitgate 2 feels like a meaningful step forward from the original. The gunplay is fantastic, the new factions genuinely change the way the game plays, the movement is more fluid than ever, all while retaining the addicting portal-focused arena battles that made the first game so much fun. All of this, on top of a commitment to more lore in the form of the comics on the companion app. Plus, more surprises the team wasn’t ready to talk about yet. If 1047 can offer a wide variety of maps and weapons to dig into at launch, Splitgate 2 has every reason to be even bigger than the first.
Splitgate 2 is coming to PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC on Steam and Epic Games in 2025.
