VIDEO PREVIEW: Splitgate 2 embraces modernity to go bigger and better

The following is a transcript of the video above.

Now you’re thinking with portals. And guns. Again. That’s right, it’s time to talk about Splitgate 2.

We at VGG were lucky enough to be invited to be part of a media preview event for the highly anticipated follow-up to 2019’s Splitgate from 1047 Games, a free-to-play arena shooter that hearkened back to the agile chaos of Halo and Unreal Tournament but added in an unpredictable strategic tool in the form of in and out portals.

Splitgate 2 is not a game I imagined coming, even five years down the line from the first game’s release. Splitgate 1 was a game that my partner and I ended up falling in love with pretty quickly and have each sunk about 50 hours into, portaling and fragging with the best of them. It was a game I didn’t really feel needed a sequel.

But there’s a reason I play the games and don’t make them, as best summarized by Ian Proulx, the co-founder and CEO of 1047 Games, who looked back at the viral hit of the first game in comparison to this sequel in a media briefing before servers opened.

“Splitgate ultimately started off as a school project and it was never really the game of our dreams [that the idea started as],” said Proulx. “Splitgate 2 IS the game of our dreams.”

So what does that all mean? How do you take that original concept and level it up in 2024? Well, you start by sprinkling in a little hero shooter with Splitgate 2’s three unique factions, a little tactical shooter with a bit more focus on teamwork to help organize the chaos, and in the end keep it based in the same arena shooter Halo-like roots we all came to love with the first game.

In our 5 hours with the alpha, we got to play two modes, Hotzone and Team Deathmatch, across three unique maps, Frontier, Zenith, and Ozone. 

Hotzone is Splitgate 2’s King of the Hill mode where two four-player teams take turns to battle over and capture zones that spawn, with the zones and flow of action bouncing back and forth across the map as it goes. First to two captures wins the round, best of 5 rounds wins the match — and so let loose the chaos.

Splitgate 2’s core twist on the control point concept comes in what they’re calling “shared progression” for captures in Hotzone. This means that, unlike other games that require you to “undo” the progress done by the other team before capturing a point yourself, you can actually wipe out the enemy team moments away from victory and continue capturing it from wherever they left off. Capture progress is the same for everyone in the match and it’s a mad dash to steal points right out from under your enemies left and right.

This leads to more strategic push-and-defend phases in a Hotzone match, where you and your teammates anticipate big pushes from your enemies as capture progress reaches the end or find yourself letting your enemies grab an easy capture on the other side of the map to ensure your team is able to fight another day. This is all part of a purposeful push to “slow things down a bit,” to insert a bit more strategy and dedicated teamwork into what is otherwise a flurry of portal shots and rocket launchers. 

Don’t get it twisted though, this is still Splitgate. Their version of slowing things down a bit is still infinitely faster than most shooters out there today. Some of these end-of-round moments were reminiscent of the chaotic blitzes I came to associate with the first game in a really fun way. 1047 told us one of their core tenets in creating Splitgate 2 was to help facilitate “epic moments,” and I had more than my handful of epic final pushes in my time with the alpha. I wonder though how frustrating this shift to team-oriented play could turn out to be in the long run, particularly in the chaos of a quick play solo queue lobby, where folks never seem to play the objective.

Splitgate 2’s take on Team Deathmatch also finds ways to mix up the general chaos and simplicity of the mainstay game mode with that same slower, more deliberate pace of modern tactical games. TDM takes place in rounds, with the first team to reach 15 kills per round winning the point. Best of 5 rounds wins the match. 

With such a low kill target and this round-based structure, it’s not as simple as running out again and again and throwing your body on the pile. It can be, especially toward the start of the round as you try to overwhelm your opponents, but when either team starts to get close to the kill target, you become so much more conscious of the map, your teammates, and when to make your pushes. I don’t normally associate such tactical thinking with a classic TDM, but Splitgate 2, for all its chaos and running around, manages to make the mode feel new again.

These mode changes alone showcase 1047 Games’ attempt to establish their own unique space in the genre. Not quite pure arena shooter, not quite pure tactical team shooter, not quite hero shooter, but something else entirely. Splitgate 2.

Another big piece of finding that unique identity comes in the introduction of Splitgate 2’s three unique factions: Aeros, Meridian, and Sabrask. Aeros is meant to embody the original Splitgate, all agile and portal-focused. Meridian is a support class, with major team-amplifying equipment and abilities. And Sabrask is for those pure shooters: gunplay is the focus and their weaponry embodies that. Players choose their faction in between rounds and are encouraged to swap to meet the needs of the team as the rounds go on.

Each faction comes with their own unique weapon loadout, ability, and swappable equipment item. For example, Sabrask players can toss out shield walls that teammates can shoot through but enemies can’t, Meridian players can ping all nearby enemies through walls for their teammates, and Aeros players can boost their all-around speed to get out of tight situations.

Where Splitgate 1 was a pretty homogenous experience — everyone who played had fairly similar setups — Splitgate 2, through its factions, offers genuinely different playstyles. I spent some time with each, but I only really broke through with the Aeros class. With the Aeros-exclusive SMG, I was able to run around and be a bug like I used to back in my days in TF2 harassing folks as a scout.

But the fact that I genuinely felt myself having to shift my playstyle in a meaningful way to actually find success with the other classes and weapons shows that 1047 has been successful here. Ignore the fact that Aeros was by far the most popular faction I saw all session long. 

This may ask a little more of the players who are looking for a quick drop-in drop-out shooter, a niche Splitgate 1 filled nicely, but I think as long as you aren’t in sessions with legitimate esports professionals like I was, you’ll have a solid time in Splitgate 2.

I think with more time to dig in, folks will find their niche in these three factions. I particularly liked Meridian as an option in Hotzone where I could throw a healing grenade down on the point to keep our team  alive while holding off attackers, whereas in the kill focused Team Deathmatch, I was happy to run about with Aeros and keep myself alive with the speed boost and health stim. 

A quick sidenote here: Each faction when chosen comes with a unique team-enhancing ability, like Sabrask adding more overall ammo to each player in each round or Aeros reducing ability cooldowns for all teammates, but it was hard to see the actual effects of these buffs in real play. I’d be curious to see how they could amplify that in full release to make it more noticeable and practical, encouraging folks to spread out across the three factions and to make more meaningful decisions in choosing those factions in matches.

So you’ve got that sprinkling of tactical teamwork, a dash of hero shooter-like gameplay with the faction system, but what about that base Splitgate feel? What about those portals that people fell in love with?

One of the things I was most skeptical about in Splitgate 2 was the shift to having just one dedicated portal button. Instead of buttons for each your in and out portal, you simply use the same single button to shoot both. The game’s got some magic system that is able to know which portal you want to shoot at any given time that the developers assured us “just works”... and they’re right. You can go back to the classic system but I don’t think I want to.

It made portaling around even easier than it was in the original and it had me feeling encouraged to go wild shifting around. And that’s just one of a handful of small changes that the team has made here to make the base experience even better. Portal walls are all the height of your portal itself, meaning you can always run straight into them instead of tripping on the awkward lip at the bottom of your exit plan. Portals nudge each other out of the way, so no longer can a teammate awkwardly hog a portal wall and keep you from getting around. And gone are the portal EMP grenades, replaced simply with the ability to erase enemy portals by slapping one of your own on top of it.

I could go on and on about the smart choices 1047 made here to refresh what was already such an original and exciting shooter concept, but I’ll cut myself short here. Splitgate was such a fun moment in my recent gaming history, a game I shared with loved ones and found fun because it embraced the chaos of an era gone to the wayside. Splitgate 2 embraces some modernity and that honestly had me worried that it wouldn’t recapture that moment.

But after five hours with the alpha, I can tell you straight: Splitgate 2 is bigger, better, and so incredibly fun. As long as I’ve still got my silly modes, my Gun Game, my Zombie VIP, and my Splitball, I’m happy, 1047. … so I’ll be watching with bated breath to see any footage of those modes, 1047. 

Splitgate 2 will release in 2025 as a free-to-play title and I know our crew will be lined up at the door when it does. To get YOUR hands on it, 1047 will be running another alpha from August 21 to August 25 and you can sign up for this playtest right on the game’s Steam page.