The first Splitgate game by 1047 Games made quite the impression when it first debuted in May of 2019 as a pre-beta release. But the game really took off during 2021 when the beta saw 600,000 downloads.

Splitgate 2 is a free to play game that has improved upon its predecessor in just about every way. With a focus more towards objective based game modes, this arena shooter has something to offer everyone.

If you have never heard of Splitgate, the concept is simple. Its an arena shooter similar to Halo and offers players the ability to shoot portals. These portals work exactly like portals do in the 2007 video game Portal. There are specific walls you are able to shoot portals at. Portals can be used to transport you to a vantage point, or shoot a portal behind your enemy and shoot at them through it. If you are smart, you will use it to your advantage when delivering a splitball back to your home base. What is a splitball? Well since you asked, lets get in to the game modes.

All the Game Modes in Splitgate 2

In Arena Quickplay, you will be sent in to a slew of different game modes. I want to highlight my personal favorite, Splitball. Only 1 ball will spawn on the map at a time, it is your teams objective to secure it back at your base. However, you will need to defend as well as be on the offensive as your balls can be stolen from your base. You need to secure three balls in order to win 1 round. Whoever wins 3 rounds first, wins the match. Below is a list of all the different modes you will find in the Arena.

Core Arena Modes:

• Team Deathmatch: Classic mode where the first team to reach a set number of kills wins the round, and the first team to win a set number of rounds wins the match. 
• Hotzone: King of the Hill with a twist: teams share capture progress, allowing for strategic late-game steals. 
• Domination: Capture and hold zones to earn points. 
• Splitball:A mode where players battle for control of a ball, likely involving portal mechanics. 
• Takedown: A twist on Team Deathmatch where kills make your team respawn faster, and deaths slow it down. 
• Multi-Team: 8v8v8 modes on a larger map, Glacier, including Multi-Team Hotzone, Domination, and Team Deathmatch
• Featured Playlist: This playlist changes on a weekly basis and can consist of modes like gun game and fiesta simulation.

It is worth noting that there is a Lab mode, Similar to Forge mode in Halo. You can create your own maps in the game using this. Lastly, Splitgate 2 introduces a Battle Royale mode.

Splitball and Hotzone felt like they came up in rotation a lot. Which is good because those feel to be the strongest modes to me. There is access to certain modes so you don’t need to constantly play random game modes. But I suggest playing the Arena Playlist mode to keep it mixed up. Arena shooters can become quite repetitive fast if you keep playing the same mode over and over again. With this game, you will have fun with the variety.

Battle Royale

In this Battle Royale mode, there is 15-teams, 60-player free-for-all where teams of four drop into a large map called “Split Worlds”. Split world is split in to 4 biomes where the drop leader can choose which world your four person team will drop. As the map shrinks, you will need to travel to the biomes that are still open to explore.

You will start out with only a pistol and need to find a loot box. This game will have different colored loot boxes based on the quality of weapon that it holds. In each loot box you can get fitted with a full loadout. Weapons, armor, grenades, and well, just the whole kit and kaboodle. This makes it easy to jump straight in to the action without turning it in to a survival game and more like a fast paced arena shooter where the best man is the last standing.

Most notably, lets talk about the respawn system. This game allows players who die to simply be revived, or spawn on a teammate who is not in combat. The longer your team lasts, the longer the wait time is on revives. Whichever teammate you decide to spectate, is the teammate you will spawn on.

Between its spawning, loot, and biome systems, these are all great changes that make this Battle Royale feel like a one of a kind. I am not a huge Battle Royale player, but this doesn’t feel like your typical Battle Royale. It feels more like a huge arena shooter and that is a welcome change of pace. I don’t fear death as much, but I still feel the need for caution so that my team can continue to spawn. Even if you have a teammate who runs off on his own, when he dies, he will spawn back with your squad. This is a great benefit for having your whole squad in attendance when you reach the final rounds.

Factions

One of the new changes in Splitgate 2 is the introduction of factions. Aeros, Meridian, and Sabrask are each characters you can choose to play as. Each equipped with their own abilities and passive benefits. Below is a list of all their abilities.

Meridian

• Team Trait – Wellness: Faster health regeneration
• Ability – Hypersight: Briefly reveals enemies through walls for the entire team
• Equipment – Time dome, regen cloud, and recon radar

Aeros

• Team Trait – Taskmaster: Faster ability cooldowns
• Ability – Rush: Temporary movement and reload speed boost, and a one-time health boost
• Equipment – Stim Shot, Shock Disc, and Porta-portal

Sabrask

• Team Trait – Stockpile: Spawn with extra reserve ammo
• Ability – Smart Wall: Project a transparent barrier that allies can shoot through, but enemies cannot
• Equipment – Sticky Grenade, Sandstorm Grenade, and Proximity Mine.

Every faction you choose has a level cap of 25. With each level, you will unlock unique perks, skins, and most importantly, weapons. Each faction is given the same selection of guns. Assault rifle, Carbine, Shotgun, Burst rifle, and an SMG.

Each weapon has a level cap of 10 and offer rewards such as attachments. You can gain access to Extended mags, piercing ammo, a grip, and rapid fire. You can also customize the skins and add a charm to any weapon.

Each Faction character also has skins with some even having alternate colors to unlock. These can be obtained through the Battle Pass or Store.

Meridian was my personal favorite, being able to view enemies behind walls felt over powered. But that is the nice thing about this game, it wasn’t. Every class is well balanced with each other so that you feel you are never at a disadvantage.

Microtransactions

There are only three types of currency in the game, Splitcoin, Proelium, and Tokens. Tokens is what you gain by completing challenges and can be used to unlock battle pass items. Proelium is a currency gained through the Battle Pass or Store and is used to unlock alternate colors for your guns or faction skins. Splitcoin is the main currency you will you use in the store and to use in order to purchase the Battle Pass. 500 Splitcoins is worth $5 USD and can be purchased through 6 different bundles up to $100 USD for 11500 Splitcoins.

The Battle Pass consists of 3 chapters. You can hop in to the first chapter for only 500 Splitcoins or you can purchase all 3 chapters for 20% less. However, if you find yourself completing chapter 1, you will obtain enough free Splitcoins to pay for the next chapter. So you can essentially pay 5 dollars and get all 3 chapters if you finish each one.

All three chapters do not drop at the same time. Chapter 2 will drop roughly a month after chapter 1, and 3 will drop roughly a month after 2. I’ve played each day this week and haven’t even finished all the weekly challenges. With that said, I’m unlocking items on page 5 out of 8 in Chapter 1. So completing the chapters are relatively easy.

In a world where most free to play games and paid games offer 10 dollar battle passes that require countless hours to complete, the 5 dollar entry point for Splitgate 2 is refreshing. Not only that, but the fact that I’ve easily been able to recoup the cost with in game currency is a huge benefit. 5 dollars has essentially has gotten me a lot of content. A lot of games are fighting for my time and Splitgate 2 doesn’t feel demanding at all.

If there is anything negative to say about the battle pass or store, its that a lot of skins felt fairly bland to me. I don’t find myself super excited to unlock skins. I don’t care too much since I am having so much fun, but still, that part kind of sucks.

Performance

Throughout my time with Spligate 2, I never had any game breaking bugs or glitches. The only thing I noticed, was that sometimes when I would return to menu, my challenges wouldn’t update right away. Which seems like a simple enough thing to patch.

It ran well on my Asus Rog ALLY, Laptop, and Xbox Series X. Seamless cross-play and cross-progression using the 1047 Games website. It is refreshing to play a multiplayer game on release and it just simply works!

Gameplay

The first thing I noticed about this game is its approachability for all players. If you’ve been playing multiplayer games for a while, you will be able to spot the Call of Duty player from a mile away as they walk side to side to dodge bullets. Destiny 2 players floating in the air to gain advantage, and me being a Halo guy, hip firing for days. But with the use of portals, this game is very distinguishable from the crowd.

DarkMagicalMan aka Steve from the Gamer Social Club asked me on our live podcast,(TS 00:45:15) “do we have too many games with “fun gimmicks”?”. To summarize my answer, yes and no.

The way portals are utilized in this game is not just a fun little tool, it is a game changer. Developers work hard to make their game stick out in the crowd and can tweak their games to be different. Then there is the introduction of portal use in an arena shooter and Battle Royale. This can completely change the way you approach the game. Sure, if you tackle this game like a Call of Duty title and don’t utilize the portal, this game might feel mid. But even without the portal system, this is an extremely well defined shooter that feels great to play. So I wouldn’t personally call it mid.

The arena maps are very well designed. I never found myself getting spawn killed or getting cheesed by a camper. You can tell that this game was crafted by people who looked at the competition and said, how can we get rid of the bad from those games and keep all the good aspects?

Whenever I played Splitball, I tried to manipulate the system by creating a portal by my base, grabbing the ball, and portal back. However, when you pick up the ball, you need to create new portals. This is one of many small things the developers made sure to keep matches fair and fun.

This is at the core as to why I feel so highly on this game. Even some of the best shooters have huge negatives that you need to accept when you play them. With Call of Duty, you need to accept that you will get camped, spawn killed, and killed within seconds of starting the match. With Destiny 2, you will need to accept that someone else has unlocked way better weapons than you. Halo, you will need to accept that once you see more than 1 enemy, your chances of survival are extremely low. With Splitgate 2, I have no negatives that I have had to accept.

My highest praise to give this game, is that the game was developed with every kind of player in mind. From where you can lay down portals, to weapon balancing, and spawn placement, everything was made that way for a good reason in this game.

While you may need to play a lot to unlock certain weapons, that doesn’t mean the higher level player has the upper hand. The weapons and classes are well balanced.

In Conclusion

I had no intention of getting in to this game, but I was immediately sucked in. Its execution of Battle Royal feels more like a fast paced shooter than a typical BR mode from other games. Its vast array of game modes kept me locked in and excited to try out the next one. From map design, loadouts, game modes, abilities, and gun play, everything about this arena shooter feels expert crafted. The biggest thing from my review that I would like to highlight, is that in every aspect of this game, it is all well balanced. Nobody has the upper hand on you, it all comes down to skill. That is what makes a great multiplayer game great.

If you enjoyed games like Portal, Halo, Call of Duty, or Destiny 2, you owe it to yourself to download Splitgate 2 and give it a try. Because arena shooters simply don’t get better than this.

Splitgate 2 was reviewed on Xbox Series X – with some gameplay tried on Asus ROG ALLY, and PC. It releases on June 6th on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 4/5.