1047 Games is going to give it another shot, announcing that the Splitgate 2 beta will end on December 4, and the online shooter will relaunch at the end of the month – I’d put some money on the launch at The Game Awards, right?
In a plain announcement on Steam, the team writes: “Thank you to everyone who participated in the Splitgate 2 Beta! On December 4, the beta season and active Battle Passes will end, along with seasonal ‘rank’ progression.”
This will be the second release of Splitgate 2, following a tumultuous, aborted launch earlier this year. The game premiered during the Summer Game Fest in a way that made many people dizzy – namely, the studio’s founder called out the industry while announcing the trend-following Battle Royale mode. Coupled with many changes in gameplay direction that people didn’t like as much, the game failed, leading to 1047 moving the game back to beta and, more disappointingly, turning off a bunch of people.
So what has changed? As part of the latest Targeted Beta Weekend, 1047 described how they tuned the experience:
This game has undergone significant changes since the beta launched in May. We started with factions and abilities, then rebuilt the entire foundation around what makes Splitgate unique: portals, movement, and pure gunplay.
Here’s what’s changed. We have removed factions completely and re-presented skills as buffs. We’ve brought back classic no-round modes like King of the Hill, Domination, and Team Deathmatch. We’ve added Classic Arena, a level-start mode that captures the spirit of the original Splitgate. We’ve introduced novel maps, novel weapons, reworked menus and improved systems, constantly based on your feedback.
We also added portal overload and EMP, fundamentally changing how map control works. We have improved the equipment to improve combat clarity. We have adjusted the operation of our controller. We fixed critical bugs and made countless optimizations.
None of this happens without you. The last six months have been a journey, and every feedback, every test participation, and every community discussion has shaped where we are today. Splitgate is in the best place it’s ever been, and that’s because you were here with us.
It certainly sounds like a major overhaul that goes more back to the game and the genre’s roots. Splitgate 1 was released just before Halo Infinite and was extremely popular due to the fact that it resembled the classic Halo arena shooter style and had fun with the portal mechanics.
