As a seasoned gamer with decades of experience under my belt, I must say that Splitgate 2 has managed to capture my attention in a way few games have in recent memory. This game harkens back to the golden age of arena shooters, a time when Halo, Unreal Tournament, and Tribes ruled the roost. But don’t let its nostalgic charm fool you; Splitgate 2 is no mere relic of the past.
What I find remarkable about Splitgate 2 is not just its Halo-style arena shooting with portals, but also the wealth of additional features that make it stand out. The developers at 1047 Games have refined aspects of the game that strengthen its unique identity, while also introducing fresh elements that distinguish Splitgate 2 from many other shooters available today.
Before its closed alpha testing, I had the opportunity to play Splitgate 2 for approximately four hours. Some of that time was spent playing alongside other members of TopMob, forming a team of four players. The preview version we played didn’t showcase all the features the game will eventually offer, but it did offer a good sense of how new and old elements are coming together from the original Splitgate to create a more distinct, unique experience for the sequel.
In essence, Splitgate is a free-to-play multiplayer first-person shooter set in arenas with unique walls that allow you to place portals. By shooting a portal at one wall and another at a different wall, you create a gateway, enabling instant travel from one location to another. Additionally, you can shoot through the portals and pursue opponents as they navigate through their own portals, resulting in an array of exciting possibilities and strategic chaos for those skilled in utilizing them effectively within gameplay.
In Splitgate 2, the functionality of the portal feature has been streamlined by 1047 Games. Instead of using two buttons as in the initial game, firing a portal can now be done with just one button. Additionally, the portals come in two colors: gold and purple. Previously, the color of the portal you fired was determined by its own button, necessitating shooting both to create a pathway and allowing for complex maneuvers like “triple portaling.” However, Splitgate 2 introduces a “smart portal system” that simplifies this process, allowing players to simply tap one button without worrying too much about the colors. The game still offers more control over your portals if needed, but our initial experimentation suggests that the simplified approach makes it easier to perform fun and outlandish portal tricks.
In this game, the firearm mechanics resemble those found in Halo games; there’s no need for aiming down sights, instead, weapons generally have a brief zoom option, and each battlefield generates powerful weapons such as rocket launchers or high-capacity submachine guns that can offer one team an edge over the other, albeit temporarily. Additionally, the original Splitgate incorporated some science fiction elements, such as a jetpack providing limited vertical mobility to enhance your portal skills.
In its development, Splitgate 2 maintains the fundamental aspects that have been successful, minimizing excessive changes. Rather than overhauling the existing mechanics, the sequel expands on everything outside of the core gunplay-and-portals concept. The movement system has been made smoother and more dynamic, offering additional features like a slide ability. Players can customize their weapons to accentuate one stat or another according to their preferred playstyle. Furthermore, a light class system has been introduced, allowing players to specialize in roles such as running-and-gunning or supporting teammates, thus introducing a degree of variety without significantly altering the core gameplay experience.
It’s in those class abilities that Splitgate 2 began to impress. I already liked the main idea of portaling around a map to get into fast and intense firefights, and seeing experts put portals to work alongside Splitgate 2’s slides, twitchy jumps, and jetpack bursts is always a bit dazzling. With the class abilities, alongside some adjustments to how game modes work, Splitgate 2 puts a greater emphasis on teamwork, while amplifying the game’s tendency to create standout moments and surprising plays. And even in our limited playtime, we saw quite a few of them.
In the game Splitgate 2, there are three distinct groups, or factions, each with a unique emphasis. The Aeros faction emphasizes swift mobility and flanking tactics. They possess a primary ability that temporarily increases health beyond its maximum limit while accelerating movement speed. Additionally, they have a stimulant that swiftly heals them post-combat, and a disc that can be hurled at adversaries to momentarily stun and slow them, enabling the Aeros to capitalize on their speed advantage.
The Meridian group predominantly performs support roles, deploying either healing grenades or a time-accelerating dome beneficial to you and your team, boosting your firing speed, reload times, health restoration, and slowing down your opponents’ actions. However, they can also emit a wallhack ping, revealing enemies behind walls, which might seem powerful until you understand that players frequently move around the map using portals. Lastly, the Sebrask group adopts a military strategy, wielding weapons that fire more slowly but pack a punch compared to others. They can toss either a sticky frag grenade or smoke grenades capable of disrupting portal functionality. Sebrask’s key ability is the deployment of a forcefield shield, which deflects enemy bullets but allows friendly ones to pass through, giving them a more defensive stance.
In Splitgate 2, despite each faction having unique gameplay styles, they are all balanced to prevent any one from becoming excessively powerful. None of the classes are invincible, as they can be taken down in a relatively short amount of time due to Splitgate 2’s swift time-to-kill. Even the slowest faction, Sebrask, moves at a reasonable pace. All players engage in combat using portals, sprinting, jetpacking, and sliding. Although each faction offers slightly distinct weapon choices, passive perks, and abilities, the speed at which you can eliminate enemies or be eliminated yourself, along with your ability to maneuver quickly, serve as effective equalizers.
In Splitgate 2, the teams are skillfully designed to motivate players to collaborate and assume specific roles, reducing solo play. The significant enhancement over the original concept lies in promoting cooperation rather than individual play. This is achieved not only through the class system but also by Splitgate 2’s innovative design of game modes. During our preview session, we experienced only two modes: team deathmatch and Hotzone, which is Splitgate’s version of King of the Hill. Both modes have been refined to emphasize teamwork and create unique, standout moments in gameplay.
In both situations, the game is divided into several rounds. In the deathmatch mode, the team that accumulates 15 kills first wins the round; once this occurs, the match restarts with both teams starting anew, until one team secures three victories. This method provides a losing team with an opportunity to recover and potentially flip the outcome, rather than enduring a prolonged beating. It also ensures fairness as power-ups appear at regular intervals in each round.
In Hotzone, the game design strongly emphasizes collaboration, with modifications to the scoring system and respawn mechanics. Similar to King of the Hill modes found in other games, the goal is to maintain control over a designated area for a certain duration. A point is earned when a team captures this territory; three captures win the round. However, unlike other modes, both teams share a capture timer. This allows one team to occupy a control point for 29 out of the necessary 30 seconds, while the other team can strategically attack, kill them, and snatch that final second on the timer to secure the point. It’s an ingenious twist to the game mode, compelling teams to either plan defensively to hold the zone or to attempt a dramatic, last-second, coordinated offensive using their portals and abilities in unison.
In this game, there’s a respawn timer that initially sets at five seconds but increases throughout the round, reaching a maximum of 20 seconds. This prevents players from repeatedly attacking the hotzone without proper planning, as teamwork is essential to mount an effective attack against a well-entrenched enemy. However, each kill your team scores while you’re respawning reduces the timer by three seconds, providing a motivation to keep fighting. The combination of this respawn system and the round-based approach led to some wild moments during our gameplay, as well as disappointing losses when we failed to strategize effectively, ultimately being outmaneuvered by a more coordinated group.
During our gaming session, Splitgate 2 proved to be a delightful experience. It retains the original’s simplicity for newcomers while challenging experienced players with its high skill potential. The transitions between the games seem like logical expansions of the core arena-shooter concept. The inclusion of portals in a competitive shooter certainly adds an element of chaos. However, the modifications to Splitgate 2’s gameplay modes and the introduction of team abilities serve both as enhancements and balances against skilled players exploiting teleportation and swift movements for an unfair advantage. It’s evident that 1047 Games has given careful thought and critical analysis to their game, beyond just its initial novelty factor, and it was impressive to see how seamlessly all the components worked together.
As a gamer, I found Splitgate 2 to be a breath of fresh air in the competitive shooter genre. It skillfully recaptures the essence of a distinct era in shooter history, clearly drawing inspiration from games like Halo, Unreal Tournament, and Tribes. Yet, it manages to stand out from the crowd with its unique feel. It’s a high-speed, action-packed game that seamlessly combines innovative design concepts. After spending four hours playing it, I believe it deserves to be recognized as a worthy successor to, and an advancement over, the original game.
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2024-08-16 00:40