‘I actually don’t think [the market is] as competitve’

Splitgate 2 is scheduled to launch this year, and it’s yet another live-service shooter game that’s attempting to break into the market. The sequel follows the launch of the first game in 2021, which spiked in popularity and offered unique gameplay in the form of an arena with portals.

Surprisingly, when talking about the shooter landscape, Proulx believes it’s not as “ competitive as people think it is,” and that we’ve been mostly playing the same games for the last five years, including Fortnite, Call of Duty, VALORANT, Apex Legends, and more. While those games are fun and consistently provide new content, they’re still the same games that you’ve been playing for multiple years when it comes down to it. “The way I look at it is, I see there’s a huge interest for something new,” Proulx said, and Splitgate 2 fills that void on multiple levels.

First, there aren’t that many four-vs-four arena shooters that bring the feeling of good old Halo days. The Splitgate team is confident in this format and believes it fills an “underserved market.” At the same time, there’s the eight-vs-eight-vs-eight multi-team mode, showcased in the second alpha, that scratches a different itch. On top of that, there are two more major parts of Splitgate 2 that are separate experiences yet to be revealed.

Eventually, though, any game ends up being the same game that you play for multiple years, and Splitgate 2 is no exception. When asked how the team plans to tackle that post-launch life cycle, Proulx noted there were two options for the team, as he saw it. “ One of those ways is just have a lot of content, right? Which we didn’t do the first time around,” he admitted. “This time, we do, but there’s also more to it than that, but that’s where I’m not necessarily ready to share the details.”

Although Proulx wasn’t ready to reveal all of Splitgate 2‘s secrets, we got a few hints. “ Every week, there should be small new things. Every month, there should be medium new things. Every quarter, there should be big new things. And every year, there should be massive new things,” he said. “ That’s kind of how we’re looking at it, but every single month, there needs to be considerable new content.”

Meaningful progression can also at times be a struggle for live-service titles. Progression sets a goal for the player to keep playing the game after trying all the base content, and ideally includes elements outside grinding ranked/competitive modes. According to Proulx, progression was one of the key factors when thinking about what Splitgate 2 looks like—mentioning that some progression, like progression paths for each of the three classes, is already available in the second alpha. Other than these progression systems, the team also wanted to improve variety and post-launch/live ops to keep players engaged.

Right now, Splitgate 2 is hosting an open alpha test that features the eight-vs-eight-vs-eight multi-team mode, and the team is focused on getting feedback from players. “The first thing we’ll do is just kind of learn from the whole experience. I mean, I think we’re feeling really good about it going into it, but I’m sure there’s gonna be surprises that we don’t anticipate,” Proulx said.

The game is looking strong heading into the second alpha, especially considering it’s only half of the game. As long as it can deliver on the post-launch content promises, I can see Splitgate 2 sticking around for a while with its easy-to-learn but hard-to-master gameplay.