1047 Games came out swinging in 2021 with their hit game, Splitgate. Now, they’re back with Splitgate 2, a massive team full of industry veterans taking the well-liked indie shooter to the next level. A Halo-like competitive shooter that mixed the intense multiplayer with Portal‘s portals. Releasing after several delays of Halo Infinite, Splitgate seemed to hit all the right notes. We got to go hands-on with Splitgate 2 during PAX East and talk to 1047 Games’ CEO, Ian Proulx, about why the team thought releasing a sequel was best, and how they plan to continue making their mark on the industry.
Playing Splitgate 2, even for a couple of matches, the TLC put into this game is felt right away. More quality of life changes, like making the portals one button instead of two, let you use them more on the fly instead of remembering which portal you put where. Portaling around becomes more of a tool for movement and finding good angles than a resource to consider. And the gunplay is even more top-notch. From the sound quality to the impact, Splitgate 2 has elevated itself vastly since its 2022 launch out of beta. To get here, though, lots of scaling was needed internally.
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Proulx talked about the need to scale right away and how that was an immediate challenge for the team. “The biggest thing initially was just trying to scale the team quickly while everything was on fire. We’re trying to put out updates, but also we’re trying to grow the company.” While happy with what the team made, that doesn’t mean the team was happy overall with how the company felt.
That need to make sure they get it right again led to the end of the first game, so that they can focus more on the hiring and scaling. “We [felt] like we’re doing a mediocre job of running this game and a mediocre job of building the team and focusing on the big picture. And so we wanted to go all in on like, ‘Hey, let’s pause. Let’s reset. Let’s take our time. I don’t want to feel rushed to make hiring mistakes.”
Shifting to Splitgate 2 allowed the developers to scale everything up.
That pause led Proulx and the team to then hire many industry veterans from well-known shooter brands, like Call of Duty‘s Animation Director and lead Weapons Artist. Yet, hiring great people wasn’t the only goal. The other goal of Proulx during the growth was to ensure that the original passion remains. “The biggest challenge has been pulling that off, like building a great team, staying disciplined to only hiring superstars, and preserving the passionate culture. It’s easy to lose your identity, and I think we’ve been able to preserve it where it feels like the same 15-person company that worked three years ago. We just have a lot more people on the team and all that talent”.
And the world Splitgate 2 is releasing in is different, too. Halo Infinite is out. Many more live-service games are around, always fighting for the player’s attention. Proulx talked about that void and how it may have changed since their first launch. “I think the void is bigger. There are a lot of people who want a Halo-style gunplay. There’s another void, though, that we feel this time around that we didn’t the last time, which is the Titanfall style movement. I think our movement really scratches that itch. I honestly think on top of that, just if you look at the competition, like gamers are starting to get tired of the same thing year over year over year.”
Yet in a similar vein, players feel more tied to their games than ever. Not only investing time into what they play, but also through battle passes, regular events, and cosmetic unlocks. Giving that up for a new game is a big ask. Proulx mentioned that the hardest part about meeting player demand is having the content for them to make that jump.
“If there’s one thing I’ve been thinking about, and I’ve been obsessing about for the last few years, is, how do I make sure that we solve that problem? That is exactly what happened with Splitgate and with most free-to-play games: you do part of the hard part, which is making a really fun game. Yeah, that’s hard part number one. But that’s not enough, right? You gotta actually have so much content.”
Splitgate 2 had months worth of post-launch content in the pipeline.
Does that mean he and the team have it all figured out? No. This is an answer that every team needs to figure out on their own to find what works for their game. That answer can change regularly, too, before, during, and every week after launch. But they are planning for this issue. “We haven’t figured out. At least we think we do not. I can’t say that with certainty until we launch.”
“But we’ve got months of content lined up. We have multiple teams internally; some of them are working on season two, some are working on season three, some are working on launch, and we just have a ton of content. This game is going to have monthly battle passes, monthly maps, monthly events, weekly content cycling in and out, like there’s just always something new.”
As for what’s new for everyone is the new 24-player mode, Multi-Team mode. This is a mode that really sets itself apart from Splitgate and is a chaotic mode for everyone. Proulx talked about this new mode and more to make sure that there’s more than just competitive modes at launch.
“It’s three teams of eight. It’s ultimate chaos, right? We had a lot of different flavors of four vs. four, and those modes are still in the game. But I think having that eight v eight v eight really takes the edge off; you just get in that flow state, you turn your brain off, and you shoot stuff. It’s not super sweaty, it’s just chaos, lots of power weapons, lots of fun.”
The other significant difference from Splitgate is the beta cycle. 1047 Games is more prepared this time and has a timeline in mind. While he couldn’t share it, Proulx was able to give a glimpse at what players can expect starting with the Open Beta on May 22nd. “Our launch will be soon after that. We haven’t announced it yet, but what we have said is we’re going straight from beta to launch. There’s a beta Battle Pass. It’s a $5 shorter kind of mini Battle Pass. There’s also a variety of things in our item shop that players can buy if they want.”
Even playing the game briefly at PAX reminded me why I put a lot of hours into Splitgate for several weeks after launch. It’s a fun shooter that scratches every itch while finding new ones to hit. Splitgate 2 is set to be a big return for 1047 Games, and the team has taken the lessons learned from their initial release to make an even bigger mark on the competitive shooter genre.
Splitgate 2 enters Open Beta on May 22nd for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC for free.
