“Halo with portals” is a killer elevator pitch for a shooter. That’s part of what made Splitgate a breakout multiplayer hit a few years ago and why I’ve been eagerly anticipating this sequel since 1047 Games announced it was moving on from support for the first game. I was excited to go hands-on with Splitgate 2’s alpha a couple of weeks ahead of time and get a sense of what’s new. While the winning formula still works, the sequel is going all in on new modes that could dilute the series’ killer sales.
Right now, Splitgate 2 feels like it could be too ambitious for its own good. 1047 Games wants this to be a comprehensive live service title filled with variety, but that draws Splitgate 2 away from its elegant portal shooting play. While the basic 4v4 arena mode feels as good as ever, most of the other new modes I tried either shoehorned the portal system into a game mode where it doesn’t really fit or deemphasized the use of portals entirely. That threatens to take away the unique edge that made it a breakout hit in the first place and make it a tough sales pitch in a volatile live service market, even if its wealth of content is designed to address that very challenge.
Variety for the sake of staying power
Before my hands on session, I asked 1047 Games CEO and co-founder Ian Proulx about Splitgate 2’s biggest improvements over its predecessor. He repeatedly referred to the idea that this sequel has more content variety to retain players long-term.
“With Splitgate, it was super fun and super simple, but it lacked that variety and staying power,” Proulx tells Digital Trends. “We actually had really strong short-term retention. But what we saw is that players would come in, play three or four weeks, and ask, ‘Now what?’ as they’ve experienced everything there is to experience …We’ve addressed that through a number of different angles.”
There are now multiple factions players can choose from during games, each of which has about eight unique guns. There are more forms of progression, so players always have something to unlock or a new meta to learn. And there are lots of new modes, each of which will shake things up with each new round.
“We want randomness for the sake of variety, but not randomness for the sake of randomness,” Proulx says.
Even from this early slice of Splitgate 2 I played, 1047 certainly succeeded at offering content variety. Every thirty minutes or so, I was shuffled to a new mode, each of which played a bit different than what I had experienced before. While that move might be better for player retention, I quickly became worried that Splitgate 2 was a jack of all trades but a master of none as these modes moved away from the core concept that made the series so special in the first place.
During my time with Splitgate 2, I played eight different modes. My favorite was the first one I played: a 4v4 Arena mode similar to what the first Splitgate offered. The maps for it felt tightly designed and emphasized portal use. It tapped into the energy that made classic Halo great. I enjoyed each subsequent mode I tried Splitgate 2 less and less.
Firecracker is another 4v4 mode that played like Valorant, with one team defending against a team trying to plant a bomb. Splitgate 2’s weighty Halo-inspired gunplay isn’t a good fit for this style of shooter mode so far. Splitball offers a 4v4 mode where players simply had to collect balls and place them in their own team’s goal. It’s a bit of a gimmick, and one that feels disconnected from Splitgate 2’s core shooting and portal mechanics.
Things got bigger as I played the 8v8v8 multiteam modes that Splitgate 2 introduces to the series. These all took place on a large, icy map that’s bigger than anything 1047 has ever made. It’s a feat, but it’s where my opinion on Splitgate 2‘s new approach started to sour. The map felt way too big to sustain consistent action and didn’t have enough surfaces to place portals. It especially became a problem in Hotzone, a King of the Hill style mode, where there is only one central location to fight over. With very few opportunities to lay down portals around the point, I found myself a little bored by it.
Multiteam Team Deathmatch and Domination feel a bit better, but the lack of places to put the portal reared its head here too. I barely saw anyone use portals in a helpful way in any Multiteam mode. Maybe that’s because we were all new to the game, but I still felt like the thing that makes Spligate 2 special was being deemphasized for traditional gunplay. If I’m playing Splitgate 2 without using portals much, shouldn’t I just play Halo Infinite or The Master Chief Collection?
Ultimately, 1047’s quest to add variety to Splitgate 2 is a double-edged sword. It has more modes to play, so players can constantly have a reason to stick around, but the quality of each feels lower. The novelty of Chaos mode, which shakes things up through modifiers that greatly increase movement speed, or a Duos mode that changes up team structure, only does so much when I’m not latching onto the great hook I came for. I want Halo with portals when I jump into Splitgate; I just don’t need all this other stuff.
Proulx says 1047 Games wanted randomness for the sake of variety, but being random also means you aren’t always consistent. The most successful live service games find ways to deliver a consistently enjoyable experience that makes players want to stick around. Splitgate 2 is throwing so much at the wall in the hopes that something sticks for each player. It may resonate with people once they can spend more time with it, but my early hands-on time tells me that I’ll probably stick to the old modes I’m used to.
Splitgate 2 is in development for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, and you can formulate your own opinion on this sequel by checking out its Open Alpha starting today.
