Splitgate 2, the successor to its OG title Splitgate, which was released in 2019, takes you up a notch when jetpacking, portaling and sliding around feels seamless and fun to do all whilst throwing bullets at your enemies. Let’s talk about it!
Splitgate 2 takes the original concept of the first game right up a notch when it comes to getting around and gunning your counterparts down. The idea of creating a portal to gain the edge on your enemies is a unique idea when it comes to an online FPS shooter. However, in my opinion, this is done greatly here, 1047 Games sharpened their swords when it comes to crafting a fun blend of gunplay and movement. The idea is to shift around without any issues while taking advantage of your prey (prey being the enemy team as they see someone portaling down on them). You get a sense of Apex Legends when you slide downhill, as you pick up pace depending on the hills decline and slow on flat ground, but not just that you pick up pace on ground such as ice and water during the slide animation. Coming back to movement, you get a small piece of nostalgia akin to Titanfall and Infinite Warfare when you can jetpack around the map to get an altitude advantage, which I think expands the maps to bigger heights and gives you more ways to gain an edge.
Now enough of the movement talk, how does the game play?, and how does it feel? The game is actually quite smooth. Playing on the Xbox Series X, the game ran smoothly with no frame drops and had no drops even in those bustling battlegrounds on each map. When I say bustling, by the way, I mean BUSTLING. You can play a 24-player Arena mode, which pits you against other teams in 8v8v8 game modes, which come in the form of Hot Zone, Firecracker and Splitball. All of which have you in constant battles across the maps, either on your own, or with your teammates. This means you have to react to every situation, which is where the portals, sliding and jetpacking 100 percent helps.
Moving on swiftly to a feature I personally think they do well: Battle Royale. Okay, I hear you, “Another Battle Royale shooter game! *sigh*”, and that is where I would say “But there’s a twist”. Yes, while Battle Royale’s are flooding the market, Splitgate 2 combines a lot of online shooter experiences into one action-fueled game. However, what does Splitgate’s BR do differently, you ask? The Battle Royale mode introduces a literal split world map where you can enter different, well, what I’d say dimensions, but essentially there are different biomes, which are: Drought, Fracture, Inferno, Glacier and Sanctum. These different areas are gained entry to via portals on the map, which brings a whole new way to play a Battle Royale game. While your team is fighting for their lives in Sanctum, you’re frolicking in Fracture collecting weapons. I love the idea it brings, and I won’t lie. At first, I was thrown off. However, once I’d gotten used to the idea, it felt natural and actually made me reignite the old love I had for Battle Royale games and Online shooters alike.
Here is what I will dive into. Splitgate 2 seems to draw on other popular franchises for inspiration (yes, I know, as do a lot of titles). However, you can see where 1047 Games cut, sliced, blended and grated other ideas and made this cocktail where you sip it and go “Hell Yeah”. As someone who grew up around the FPS shooter scene and especially FPS Online shooters such as COD, Battlefield, Team Fortress, you name it, I’ve played it. This FPS online shooter really scratched that itch for me, Recently I found myself wanting a fresh online shooter where I can really play it for a few hours before falling into a pillow which comes in the form of a single-player story game, and this title just might be the one for me. Splitgate 2 seems to deliver a smooth, exciting and just downright fun experience where no gun takes the shine from the next one. You have to be good with the weapons you use, and you really have to lean into the advantage each weapon gives you.
Now let’s not get it twisted. As much as I love the game and how well it does its own thing, there was a gripe or two I had, one of them being how at first, I couldn’t actually quite get into a Battle Royale game, and it just threw me onto the title screen with no explanation (however this did only happen twice that I tried). The other main gripe I had was how, in some games, I feel there are bot players being added to some of the teams to bulk the games out. As we all know, bigger titles do this, such as Fortnite, PUBG being the likes. However, with there being a rough active player count of 7000+ players right now, I’d feel there should be more active players in the games, but I suppose the Bot players bulking in speeds up game loading times and what I did notice was the bot players phase out as games go on with active players joining midway into a match-up.
As we come to the end of my article here, what would a humble man rate Splitgate 2? Taking everything into account how smoothly it runs, the ideas it pushes within and ways to play the game with an intriguing system. My score for Splitgate 2 is a solid 8.5/10. It would be a strong 9. However, we can’t get too excited just yet, as the game is in its infancy and not just that with the bug I encountered and the downside of a few bot players here and there it loses .5 of a score for me. The game gives me the excitement of an online shooter with the high-octane energy that I used to feel when I was a teenager, and honestly it makes me excited to play more of the game and to see how this game develops along its maturity! Splitgate 2 is out now on Playstation, Xbox and PC! Please for me, get your hands on this game and give it a try even if it’s just for a one-time play!
