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Splitgate 2 remains a portal-hopping FPS delight, but it really needs to lighten upWhy so serious
Why so serious
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/1047 Games
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/1047 Games
Now, I never played quite as much as ourBrendy didof the originalSplitgate. But I had a fun time with its mixture of Halo-esque trigger pulling and portalling around! So I was intrigued to give the alpha version ofSplitgate 2a go and see if it had a little more substance to it than its initial reveal, which gave off a, “it’s Splitgate but with more money” feel.
Those portals have been improved a bit too, letting you stack portals over an enemy’s to encourage flanks, and some new tech makes portals intelligently snap to positions it thinks you’ve meant to target (although optional toggles in the menu mean you can turn these features on and off). None of these things I noticed a great deal, to be fair, but then again, I imagine more serious players will appreciate these micro-adjustments.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/1047 Games
And that’s the thing: Splitgate 2 seemed more serious. The two modes we played, Team Deathmatch and Hot Zone, both pandered to the esports way of doing things. Team Deathmatch wasn’t just a race to however-many kills, but it was split into rounds, where the aim was to win three rounds in total, and a round winwasa race to 15 kills. And Hot Zone was essentially King Of The Hill, but capture progress was shared across teams, so you could theoretically swoop in at the last minute and tear the capture away from the enemy at the last second.
Sure, I get that Splitgate 2’s alpha preview event wasn’t going to show its entire hand, and that these modes aren’t the finished product. 1047 Games co-founder and creative director Ian Proulx even said to me that what we played was a “very small sample of what’s to come”, and they’re waiting to see “how the community reacts”. For me at least, those modes felt a bit jarring and more inline with Call Of Duty’s death blender philosophy, with some fast time-to-kill thrown in. For the fast-twitch folks out there who like blazing around and arcing their elbows across their desks to secure headshots - perfect! But for a former Counter:Striker and Overwatcher who now can’t be arsed to climb the ranks, I genuinely felt as if the game wasn’t built for my tired mitts anymore.
So yes, I had wrung some fun from the portal-hopping, but I did find myself a bit behind the pace and longing for a mode that wasn’t quite so catered to pure skill and more catered towards flying through portals like you’re at some futuristic kid’s park. Then again, at least guns had some serious punch and some delightful flavour. The wind-up of the shotguns and the twirliness of the reload animations? Chef kiss.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/1047 Games
Besides my misgivings, I think Splitgate 2 is shaping up okay. Its fundamentals are solid and it’s been given a more premium feel now, with shinier maps and more fluid animations. But I remain a bit skeptical over its classes, which had little impact on any of the games I played over the course of the preview. Here’s hoping the next time the game appears, whether that’s behind or in front of us or both at the same time, it brings with it some goofiness. None of this serious esportsy, fast-twitch muscle fibre stuff. Just stupid stuff. Pure dumb dumb. I’d love for it to remind me and others of similar ilk that it’s also a game for us, too, the tired ones in the corner who just want some knee-slaps after a day’s toil.
