The 2021 Split Gate renewal solidified that the valve-style portal and the old-fashioned arena shooter game are two great flavours together with great flavours. Splitgate 2 starts in a good place as it carries the same big fusion of run and gun action and tactical tricks that helped the original plant support the genre’s flag. However, adding character classes and a wider range of weapons helps Splitgate 2 bring a new promise threshold, but some of the other shots you take through the glass you’re looking at have come back biting it and not been a bit optimistic about the time spent in this free-to-play follow-up.
Visually, there are quite a few changes to the original. The muted, more industrial look of the battle venue is no longer replaced by many vibrant colors and bright lighting, and no longer looks like many games that are catching the eye of Fortnite players. In trading ups from dirty metal walls to refined surfaces of cleaners, Splitgate 2 is also less interesting than the more interesting features that make the original map interesting and memorable. The desert and wood-like features in the middle of the map (like one of my favorites) are relegated to the background decoration, and every surface and gun that actually runs feels the same with 15 map options.
Now called Lab, the Return Map Creator Mode is powerful enough to be already powerful, along with fan-made recreation of big games’ famous PVP maps made with dozens of fans and more interesting original user-creation that serves as a great sideshow for main action. But they are often too gimmick to consider as a good alternative to developer-created maps, as long as they have a consistent, competitive round of standard modes (as far as possible given that there are no currently available ranking modes); I had a pretty hard time getting strangers to queue up some of the weird looking options. Often I sat alone in the lobby for a long time, hoping that other curious split gators would stumble. I was often disappointed.
However, Splitgate 2’s biggest win is gameplay adjustments that have a big impact on pacing from match to match. The Signature Portal is still an X-factor, so you can create a path between two points on the map. They are the perfect tool for setting ambush, tricky vacations, manipulating physics and making things shots on the map. I used them mostly here like in 2021, bringing out one side with jerks trying to achieve team goals. However, this time, I use only one button to create both ends of my personal wormhole when I shoot in succession, making it much more convenient to use. It is offered at a small cost in that one of the enemy portals is the only way to close theirs and that it can force you to close your own route. But after logging for 10 hours this week, I prefer this minor flaw over last year’s anti-portal rena bullet.
The movement was always smooth and fast, felt fast and fast, and controlled by Splitgate thanks to its fast (but not too fast) sprints and limited jetpacks. In Splitgate 2, both of these combine with the new slide mechanic to allow you to avoid the map, and it feels like you remember the best rounds of Titanfall. Jetpack is more powerful and appears to have more lifts before the cooldown than the original version. Staying higher for longer means that shootouts often start or end in the air, adding a level of dynamism that makes every skirmish a challenge at every angle.
The Arsenal isn’t that different from the original, but that’s a shame as it’s not very imaginative. Most weapons have smooth future curves and color schemes, but they work exactly the same as the assault rifles, SMGs and carbines that you’ve equipped in other games. They really just want to sprint to grab a power weapon, and it spawns with some fanfare to neutral points during the match as soon as possible. These returning superguns have got some notable additions to the lineup, including my favorites. A pair of machine pistols that can form long machine guns when aiming for a sight. These are all great game-changing weapons worth the effort to protect each time they are available.
Mechanically, the biggest change to how Splitgate 2 plays is the addition of three character classes, and the avatars of competing corporate entities that solve the differences in this futuristic gun-hitting portal slipping. Sabrask, Meridian, and Eros all have their own active capabilities like Sabrask’s smartwall. This props a one-way bullet shield that protects anyone standing behind it while shooting freely at the enemy (like the portable version of Reinhardt’s Shield on Overwatch). Each of them has a passive effect that allows them to grant an entire team by encouraging the team to be present and to play at least one of each. This means that active is clearly more influential than passive. This is mainly because they are not playing games where all the teams involved have not received boosted Health Regen from Meridian, respectively, and therefore are not playing faster abilities and equipment charging from Eros and Subrusk respectively. If it’s basically standard, is it really a “boost”?
I think there is a debate that the choice to abandon the design of a class-based hero shooter is a keystone of the memorial of the past, simple shooter, that the original Splitgate was building. That meant that all players had to start with the same base feature and gain all the advantages during the match. I sympathize with this old-fashioned Hello Style mentality, but I’ve come to prefer the diversity of these three new classes.
Matches are mostly more fun on small maps, regardless of which suite of return mode you are playing. This may not be as interesting as Splitgate, but it is built to get the most benefit of portalization in a way that is not far from the action at least. Like what was found in the new 3 teams, the 24-player onslaught game type that surpasses team deathmatch and Hotzone, the larger maps can feel almost lonely as they have to run quite a distance to find other players before plotting the portal game. It’s a shame that all of these new modes are increasingly isolated and relying on larger play spaces.
Overall, I think it’s strange that maps seem to emphasize the benefits of using portals. So many goals sat in a place completely hidden from the portal wall, and I found it much more difficult to use the portal for aggressive pushes. Fortunately for me, anyone who mainly uses portals to set up traps and wants to escape felt that Splitgate 2’s layout firmly established that a more passive approach is the right way to play. First, I appreciate the 1047 game, but second, this means that offensive strikes against targets, particularly those lurking like firecrackers and domination, occur on the jetpack attacks and high-energy aspects. Even modes that require many movement and rotational targets, such as split balls and hot zones, do not have the opportunity to use the feature in ways that you wouldn’t be able to do without it. The worst realization of this happened when I was playing one of Portals’ unlimited playlist maps and realized that without the game the game didn’t feel much different.
Finally, the big new marquee feature in Splitgate 2 is Battle Royale mode. At the time of writing, I haven’t spent much time (and therefore this review is still ongoing). But from what I’ve played it, it works almost as expected. A team of four falls into a semi-random zone on the map, fighting each other, standing on the final team. The wrinkles added to the genre (besides the portal) are that the larger map consists of four smaller maps connected to each other by jump paths and tunnels. The Storm version of Splitgate 2 is closing one of these regions and forcing all surviving teams towards each other in a shrinking room. These maps are styled as a variety of environments. For example, there are snow zones and lava zones. It’s easy to communicate what you’re talking about when planning with your team. However, I didn’t realize whether these zones differ too much from each other from the outside of their appearance. Does lava burn you? Does ice slide you out of control? I’ll report back next week when I put together this review.
