Developer 1047 Games has revealed that it wants its upcoming multiplayer shooter, Splitgate 2, to grow beyond its inspirations like Halo and Portal. In an Interview with PCGamer, creative director and CEO of the studio, Ian Proulx, spoke about how the studio hopes to work on the game and maybe even make it bigger than its predecessor.
This largely comes down to the studio having more resources. The original Splitgate‘s tagline of “Halo meets Portal” was attributed to the studio not having the resources to market the game properly. With Splitgate 2, the studio wants to ensure that players take the title as its own thing.
“Halo meets Portal was a pretty good tagline for a team that had no marketing budget,” said Proulx. “But we want to build our own path with this sequel. We don’t want to just be the ‘Halo meets Portal‘ team. Those games were obviously a huge inspiration, we’re not shy about that, but Splitgate 2 needs to be its own thing.”
Proulx also talks about how refinements in the game’s development have led to the studio also looking at the future of Splitgate 2. Proulx credits this to the fact that the original Splitgate didn’t have much in the way of longevity for a sustained player base.
“We looked at what Splitgate did really well, that fans really loved, and at the areas where we felt it fell short – where we weren’t able to sustain longevity,” he said.
Instead, with Splitgate 2, the studio wants to take cues from other successful live service titles, such as Apex Legends and Fortnite, which were able to more successfully engage players in the long term. Despite players having fun with the original Splitgate and leaving positive reviews on Steam after spending a few hours with it, few players returned to the title.
“Splitgate started off as a school project. I co-founded this studio with a friend of mine in a dorm room,” explained Proulx. “The Splitgate team was under 20 people. A small team with a small budget. We had a lot of raw talent and passion, but we were very inexperienced,” he says. “I think the biggest thing I learned from Splitgate was the importance of Live Ops.”
“Our short-term retention was world-class, up there with the top shooters,” Proulx continued. “Players would come and play Splitgate for about four weeks, have a good time, leave a good review – we’re 92% positive on Steam – and then they would run out of things to do. Games like Apex Legends, Call of Duty, Fortnite, Valorant would have big updates and players would go back to them. The biggest lesson learned is how key this part of game development is; figuring that out and being able to move quickly is just so important.”
The last time we got a look at Splitgate 2 was thanks to the studio showcasing its fast-paced, portal-hopping gameplay with a trailer. The trailer gave us a good look at the title’s core mechanic and how various other things, including guns, would interact with player-made portals.
The game doesn’t yet have a release date but is slated for release on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S in 2025.
