Splitgate 2 Wants To Help More of Us Make “Sick Plays” With Portals
Creative director Ian Proulx sat down with Restart at Gamescom to discuss how Splitgate 2 hopes to expand upon the original space-linking shooter without forsaking its core appeal.
Posted 3 months ago
“Gunplay, movement, and portals.”
That’s the groundwork for satisfaction that Ian Proulx, creative director on Splitgate 2, helped define when the original game released in early access back in 2019. And it’s a foundation he believes developer 1047 Games has carried through into its upcoming sequel. New factions, new abilities, and new weapons aside, those three facets form the core of what makes Splitgate special.
Splitgate 2 aims to deliver the same satisfying gunplay as the original.
©1047 Games
Splitgate 2’s announcement in 2022 came as a shock. The original, first started by Proulx and his colleagues while they studied at Stanford, had proven unexpectedly popular. Pairing the level-linking of Valve’s Portal series with a Halo-style shooter was, it seemed, something FPS fans had plenty of appetite for. So why, in an era of live-service support and sustainment, did they shift focus to a sequel?
“Splitgate is a great game,” says Proulx. “I love it, I’m very proud of it. But it started off as a school project. And so there’s a lot of learning that has gone into making Splitgate 2 that we just didn’t know at the time or didn’t have the resources to go do.”
Servers, team structure, and live operations – hardly a captivating pitch, but Proulx knew that if 1047 Games wanted to deliver on the scale of interest they were seeing, it needed to get the boring backend details correct from the get go. And following an influx of investment, this was the chance to pull it off.
New faction abilities promise to reshape fights.
©1047 Games
“We didn’t want to be rushed to build this team,” Proulx says. “We wanted to hire the right people at the right time. To build this game the right way, not giving into that pressure to hire too quickly.”
With Splitgate 2, the team didn’t just want to do the same game but tidier, though. It was also an opportunity to expand and refine. To create a game and a world with its own style, while still retaining the nucleus that pulled so much interest into orbit in the first place.
“We know that people really liked our gunplay,” Proulx says. “We love our gunplay! Let’s make sure we do more of that. There was some pressure of, what if we go to an ADS (aim-down-sights) style? No, no, no. Everybody goes ADS. This is one of the things that makes us different and unique; it’s point and click. You can focus more on movement than focusing on the intricacies of aiming and timing and all these complicated things. Keep it simple, make it feel awesome, and let people just pull off sick plays and not have to worry about all that other stuff.”
To enable the team to build around that central simplicity – in both gameplay and theming – Splitgate 2 introduces factions. In gameplay terms, these are essentially classes. Each faction features a core ability and a distinct selection of weapons.
“What we saw with a lot of competitive Splitgate 1 was, even though there weren’t any actual roles or classes, at a high level, players kind of paved their own way for different roles,” Proulx explains. “Somebody would play on the hill, somebody would play right off the hill, and then you’d have two people that are playing very aggressively and flanking. So our thought is, we can achieve that in a more obvious way that caters to those different playstyles.”
In addition to functional variance, factions also bring unique aesthetics. These visuals will help distinguish players and their roles on the field, but also ensure Splitgate 2 stands apart from its peers. It’s an aspect that Proulx is clearly proud of.
“We didn’t really have lore or even an art style in Splitgate. You’ll see in Splitgate 2 we’ve got Aeros, a very sporty faction; Meridian, a very sci-fi faction; and Sabrask, a very military faction. It all is this cohesive thing unified by the SSL theme – that’s the league, the underlying sports theme we have.”
Splitgate 2's factions have distinct aesthetics, and even their own promos.
©1047 Games
Faction differences, however, breed balancing concerns. Splitgate 2 won’t include any explicit team composition restrictions. Player freedom and strategic planning is valued by Proulx and his team. But to encourage variety, Team Traits are gained by including at least one of a given faction on your side.
“It’s a subtle perk, it’s not going to be the difference between winning and losing, but it’s just that nudge that gives you a slight advantage to encourage that team comp,” Proulx says. “But there are absolutely viable strategies of like: ‘Hey, round one we went a balanced team comp. Round two let’s all go Sabrask. Round three let’s go two Meridian, two Aeros.’ There are a lot of strategies.
“We’ve tried to break the meta internally and brought in a bunch of advanced players and said: ‘Try to find out what the meta is, try a little bit of everything.’ And we kept coming back to, it’s actually pretty well balanced, especially for where we’re at. We know it’s going to change a lot over time, but it’s playing pretty close to the way we want it to.”
Portals are the primary reason Splitgate first found its way into players’ sights. But they’re also an element that, much like building in Fortnite, has the potential to put some off. An added level of stress and button management to adapt to during gunfights. But 1047 Games wants Splitgate 2 to be more welcoming than its predecessor. Proulx is eager to encourage those with concerns to still give it a try – even if they weren’t a fan of the original.
“What I’d say to Splitgate 1 players who didn’t like the portals is, we’ve definitely made this game a lot more accessible in terms of the portal mechanic itself, so you should give it another try!” Proulx says. “You can still go back to the traditional controls (different buttons for each portal) if you want, but we now have a smart portaling system where it’s just one button press. Most of the time it’s just alternating back and forth because that’s what you wanna do. But it’s smart enough to detect when you want to hit the same portal twice. And 99% of the time it gets it right, and it just kinda works.”
The Aeros 'look' is sleek and sporty – a smooth-edged take on vectorheart aesthetics.
©1047 Games
The goal isn’t to make portals serve any less of a pivotal role in combat. Instead, it’s to enable players to utilize them without a lengthy period of onboarding frustration.
“We don’t want you to have to worry about which button am I pressing?” Proulx says. “We want you to worry about am I making sick plays under pressure when someone’s shooting at me? I don’t want you to have a sick play and then screw it up because you hit the wrong button.”
Splitgate 2 is planned to launch as a free-to-play game, with live-service support introducing new content post-release. But as with the overall development, Proulx doesn't want to rush into any decisions over content or quantity expectations until they’ve heard from the game’s community.
“What we’ve shown so far is a small fraction of what’s to come,” Proulx teases. “We don’t have any future factions currently planned, but we’ve designed this game in a way where, hey, we could add a fourth and fifth faction. Or we could add more weapons and equipment within factions. Or maybe we don’t do either of those and focus on maps and modes.
Ian Proulx discusses Splitgate 2 with Restart at Gamescom 2024.
©Restart
“One of the great strengths of 1047 is that we’re very flat. There’s not a lot of red tape. We’re very nimble. And we’re very community focused. … In my head I have a vision of what could a future faction look like, or a future gun – a lot of these different paths we could take. But we know that’s all bogus right now, because the day we launch this game we’re gonna learn a ton, and that’s gonna inform what direction we take it.”
With Splitgate aiming (but not down sights) for a 2025 launch, 1047 has plenty of time to refine those plans and play with the game’s factions. But as they stand, does Proulz himself have any favorites?
“Yes.” Proulx pauses, as if refusing to elaborate. Then, he laughs. “I can share. It really depends on the mood. Sabrask has my favorite gun. It’s the Warden Carbine. I just love that thing. I think we absolutely crushed it from the art to the audio to the animation – everything about it. That’s my go-to gun.
“In terms of the equipment – this is my cop out answer – I really like Meridian. I like to be able to throw down a time dome. I like the sci-fi feel. And in terms of Aeros, I probably like their ability the most. It’s adrenaline rush, I get a speed boost and I get a health boost temporarily, and that kinda supports my playstyle. I want to go take the 1v2s that I’m probably not supposed to and push everything.
“Visually I’d say Aeros also. I think they all look great, but I think the most unique is the sportiness. … To me, the thing you haven’t seen a lot of is that Aeros sporty, Formula 1 meets super soldier at the same time. That’s my answer! I love all my children equally though!”
Our thanks to Ian Proulx and 1047 Games for taking the time to speak with Restart about Splitgate 2.
