Splitgate 2 pushes the series in new directions but will this please fans of the original? Ian Higton finds out in this preview based on the Splitgate 2 Alpha.
The shift from “we’re making a fun and relatively casual arena shooter with a neat gimmick and extremely rewarding fundamentals” to “we’re making a generic e sport shooter” was swift and, frankly, uncalled for.
Their trailer with esports people had me going who even are these people and why would I believe anything coming out of their mouths when they are the equivalent of infomercial sales people with them being paid to be in it. Is it really the best way to market a game?
My friends and I all LOVED the pick-up nature of SG1. We’re all adults with busy lives, so hopping into a ~5 minute casual match was just so easy. And the casual nature made it feel like we could have success without “grinding” the game. I guess that is explicitly not the intent of SG2.
Nope it’s not…
Another live service with a never ending treadmill of rinse repeat and spend on micro transactions…oh and be sure to play as long as possible for engagement metrics.
The biggest problem to me is, that they will shutdown the previous game. I think its different enough to keep it, but probably not many people play it. What is the current Don’t kill videogames campaign called again?
I guess they don’t want to a) split the user base of similar games, b) force people into buying new stuff from new game, c) can’t or don’t want to maintain multiple live service games at the same time. These are guesses by me, not saying its the case here or always the case, just giving a few ideas why this could happen.
It does, however, become very finite solution in the scenario that the new game flops. It’s having two baskets, putting all your eggs in one and burning the other. So now their entire income is dependent on that one metaphorical basket carrying the weight.
4v4, objective based gameplay with a slight hero-shooter twist
This sounds awesome to me! Add the portal mechanic to the mix and its a unique hero shooter with objectives. I played the first game back when it was new, but stopped playing because lack of content, playing the same thing over and over again. It got boring. Hopefully they learned their lesson this time.
I appreciate your enthusiasm! I think a lot of folks are a bit burnt out on hero shooters at this point, given the market saturation. On the other hand, you are correct that Splitgate 1 was a bit thin, and they needed to do more with it. To me, it feels like they looked at that problem, and just went “what if we made it more like every other multiplayer shooter on the market right now?”, which strikes me as…lazy? Uninspired?
While it’s not ideal there is something actively played out there, with plenty of custom maps and kind of recent…
I’ll copy-paste a previous comment about it here:
Though development is long dead, the servers were taken offline recently and it was delisted by Epic, people are still playing the Unreal Tournament pre-alpha (commonly called UT4) which you can get here: https://www.ut4ever.org/downloads
The download should come with the unofficial update which gives access to the private servers, I play on the Unreal Carnage servers regularly which often gets 8-15 players at a time, more than enough for some deathmatch. Would love to see some more people around!
(Mind I’m in New Zealand, which is why my ping is so high, the netcode handles it well somehow)
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The shift from “we’re making a fun and relatively casual arena shooter with a neat gimmick and extremely rewarding fundamentals” to “we’re making a generic e sport shooter” was swift and, frankly, uncalled for.
Their trailer with esports people had me going who even are these people and why would I believe anything coming out of their mouths when they are the equivalent of infomercial sales people with them being paid to be in it. Is it really the best way to market a game?
Passion project vs corporate venture
Yeah it bums me out to see the shift. I hope it’s more accessible than it seems on the surface, SG1 really clicked with me for a while there.
My friends and I all LOVED the pick-up nature of SG1. We’re all adults with busy lives, so hopping into a ~5 minute casual match was just so easy. And the casual nature made it feel like we could have success without “grinding” the game. I guess that is explicitly not the intent of SG2.
Nope it’s not… Another live service with a never ending treadmill of rinse repeat and spend on micro transactions…oh and be sure to play as long as possible for engagement metrics.
The developers officially sold out
Yeah… Kind of bummed on it. I’ll try it out with some friends but I doubt we’ll play it for long
The biggest problem to me is, that they will shutdown the previous game. I think its different enough to keep it, but probably not many people play it. What is the current Don’t kill videogames campaign called again?
Literally just “Stop Killing Games” haha
I don’t get why sequels now have to come at the cost of the originals death.
I guess they don’t want to a) split the user base of similar games, b) force people into buying new stuff from new game, c) can’t or don’t want to maintain multiple live service games at the same time. These are guesses by me, not saying its the case here or always the case, just giving a few ideas why this could happen.
I think you’re right on all three accounts.
It does, however, become very finite solution in the scenario that the new game flops. It’s having two baskets, putting all your eggs in one and burning the other. So now their entire income is dependent on that one metaphorical basket carrying the weight.
This sounds awesome to me! Add the portal mechanic to the mix and its a unique hero shooter with objectives. I played the first game back when it was new, but stopped playing because lack of content, playing the same thing over and over again. It got boring. Hopefully they learned their lesson this time.
I appreciate your enthusiasm! I think a lot of folks are a bit burnt out on hero shooters at this point, given the market saturation. On the other hand, you are correct that Splitgate 1 was a bit thin, and they needed to do more with it. To me, it feels like they looked at that problem, and just went “what if we made it more like every other multiplayer shooter on the market right now?”, which strikes me as…lazy? Uninspired?
For god’s sake, I just want a shooter with simple deathmatch!
Swear to Jah, all we need is a proper modern, moddable Unreal Tournament.
While it’s not ideal there is something actively played out there, with plenty of custom maps and kind of recent…
I’ll copy-paste a previous comment about it here:
Though development is long dead, the servers were taken offline recently and it was delisted by Epic, people are still playing the Unreal Tournament pre-alpha (commonly called UT4) which you can get here: https://www.ut4ever.org/downloads
You’ll also need to register an account here and merge it with an Epic account: https://ut4.timiimit.com/Instructions/UT4UU
The download should come with the unofficial update which gives access to the private servers, I play on the Unreal Carnage servers regularly which often gets 8-15 players at a time, more than enough for some deathmatch. Would love to see some more people around!
(Mind I’m in New Zealand, which is why my ping is so high, the netcode handles it well somehow)
Oohh, I heard about that. I’ve just kept playing the community maintained UT’99 and a little bit of 2k4.