Portal-hopping shooter Splitgate 2 revealed, looks like the original cult FPS but with a lot more money
Witness the first cinematic trailer
1047 Games have announced Splitgate 2, sequel to the gambolling free-to-play FPS from 2021 in which you could blast people through wormholes. The new game brings back said wormhole-based carnage together with newly "faction-forward" teamplay, and if you want to know what "faction-forward" means when it's at home, I encourage you to stick your whole head into the below crackling cinematic trailer-vortex. I promise nothing bad will happen to it on the other side.
Splitgate 2 sports three factions, each favouring a particular style of quantum superpositional skull-splattery, in addition to new arenas, weapons and modes. We see a bit of that in the trailer: one character has a pop-up holo-shield, another has an electric frisbee, a third keeps things simple with a homing rocket launcher. It's apparently a big step up in production scale from the 2021 game, which the developers characterise as something they slapped together in their pyjamas at a sleepover, using detergent bottles and jam. Since then, 1047 Games have swelled to around 150 people, amongst them veterans of such venerated gunalots as Overwatch, Halo and Call Of Duty.
"The original Splitgate's development was ambitious but scrappy; the game was created from a dorm room, and the massive success and community it earned surpassed our wildest dreams," 1047's co-founder and CEO Ian Proulx observes in a release. "This time around, Splitgate 2 has been designed from the ground up in Unreal Engine 5 to deliver the AAA FPS experience our fans deserve, with the series' signature action completely overhauled by an all-star team composed of the most talented individuals in the industry.
"This is a revolutionary step forward for competitive shooters," he went on. "It's the perfect entry point for players new to the world of Splitgate and a comprehensive upgrade worthy of our existing community." Thank you Mr Proulx, I have filled out my press release bingo card now, though you forgot to tell me how laser-focussed Splitgate 2 is on delivering immersion.
Hark at me and my jadedness! I'm just grumpy because I keep accidentally writing "Slipgate". You'd think I'd be more receptive to the sequel to a game Brendy tagged with a Bestest Best, summarising it as a "raucous shooter that goes beyond its portal gimmick, with first-rate arenas and gutsy gunfights". For my part, I can only comment that the screens below remind me of Halo's louder map designs. I'll have to give the 2021 game a try.
Splitgate 2 is out in 2025. Read more about it on Steam and the Epic Games Store. There's also a companion app created by Hologram Software, which you can find over at the game's official site. This allows you to "delve into the universe through collectibles that will earn you in-game rewards at launch, quizzes and even an entire comic series". The comic series in question is Splitgate: The Games We Play, a set of biographies for the flashy, interdimensional hooligans you see in the above trailer.