One of the reasons players loved the original Splitgate game was its fast-paced, highly kinetic gameplay that relied as much on positioning as it did gunplay and tactics. Despite its somewhat rough start to life, Splitgate: Arena Reloaded, featured many of those same mechanics. In a recent video announcing Splitgate: Arena Reloaded Season 2, Ian Proulx, CEO of 1047 Games, announced that "a small section of the team" has started working on a new movement shooter that takes inspiration from Titanfall and Call of Duty Black Ops 3. While he doesn't share much more beyond that, Proulx did ask the community for feedback on what players would like to see from a game like that and has published a form for play-testers to apply to test the new game. The fact that the studio is already recruiting play testers suggests that the game has been in development for a good while. The studio was also sure to follow up the announcement with a post on X clarifying that 1047 Games is not abandoning Splitgate: Arena Reloaded now that there's another game in the works.

Proulx says that part of the reason for pursuing a new game is that 1047 Games has always had the dream of being a multi-game studio, and the timing of the announcement suggests that a second project may have been partly motivated by the recent backlash against 1047 Games following the middling launch of Splitgate: Arena Reloaded. For its part, Splitgate: Arena Reloaded Season 2 will launch before the end of March and introduce a number of new features, many of them based on community feedback, including a more cohesive theme, a new battle pass and accompanying skins, three new maps, a new biome that's a twist on a biome from Splitgate 1, and a classic Splitgate 1 TDM gameplay starts, which have been heavily requested by the community. Season 2 will also reintroduce time trial races from Splitgate 1, replete with user-created maps with their own leaderboards. Players will also be able to buy all of the Splitgate: Arena Reloaded Season 2 battle pass with the Splitcoin in-game premium currency instead of needing to spend real money aside from Splitcoin they may already have.

Splitgate: Arena Reloaded is meant to be the culmination of 1047 Games's efforts in both the original Splitgate and Splitgate 2, having launched shortly after the latter was received exceedingly poorly and taken offline. Since that relaunch, Splitgate: Arena Reloaded has seen a number of updates mostly centered around adding content, expanding the player base, and retaining existing players. The latest in the game's update cycle, Update 2.2, continues on this trend, reintroducing the battle royale mode that was axed from Splitgate 2, although with significant changes, community maps, two new arena maps, and rewarding players with a new weapons mastery skin.

According to the update notes, the new Arena Royale battle royale mode aims to keep the intense, fast-paced gameplay Splitgate is known for while also expanding the map and scale of the matches. Arena Royale is a 24-player game mode made up of six teams of four players, and it is designed to have the same pace as a regular Splitgate arena match. 1047 Games says the core philosophy with the Arena Royale rework is "Less looting. More shooting," and that is emphasized by the design of the game mode. Each Arena Royale game mode will take place in one of four biomes—drought, glacier, fracture, and the newly introduced urban Outskirts biome—and players will start in a new warm-up space instead of in a drop-ship. Players then vote on which map the round will take place in, and they are then dropped into the map. Like most other games in the genre, the Arena Royale game mode allows for players to be revived as long as there is one player remaining in their squad, but as the match progresses, the playable area shrinks, and once players are in the final circle, revivals are disabled in an effort to keep gameplay fast-paced and snappy. Arena Royale will feature on-the-fly weapons upgrades in the inventory, which players can access at any time during the match to spend cash they earn during the match.

The launch of Splitgate 2 has been a bit of a mess, with the game initially launching to criticism from fans of the franchise earlier this year. In response to the negative reception, 1047 Games, the studio behind the fast-paced FPS pulled the game from Steam Early Access, where it was available at the time and announced that it would be going back to the drawing board and re-releasing Splitgate 2 in December this year. Now, 1047 Games has delivered on that promise, shipping Splitgate: Arena Reloaded as the full-fledged 1.0 release of Splitgate 2. The game studio has published a long list of changes that have been implemented for the full release, but the gist of it is that Splitgate: Arena Reloaded aims to keep the identity and some of the unique gameplay that made the original Splitgate special while also modernizing the game, "add the features people consider standard today," and tighten the gameplay loop to focus on the arena shooter mechanics more than the original Splitgate 2.

Much like the original game in the franchise, Splitgate: Arena Reloaded is a free-to-play arena shooter that spices up the gunplay with portals for sneaky tactical moves and increased mobility. It claims much of the same vertical mobility and fast-paced gunplay as the previous Splitgate game, and it features 20 arenas, 18 primary weapons, 9 secondary weapons, and almost dizzying number of game modes for multiplayer PvP and co-op gameplay. The biggest changes to Splitgate: Arena Reloaded appear to be the removal of factions and abilities to focus on the portal mechanics and gunplay and clean up the gameplay loop. Players can also now deploy both the entry and exit portals on a wall to block other players from using it, and the Arena Reloaded also features EMP grenades to deactivate portals from an area and control the space. The developer also says that the game has seen performance optimizations, specifically focusing on frame rate consistency on low-end PCs and last-gen consoles. At the same time, Spligate: Arena Reloaded has received a visual, UI, and audio overhaul to make the game feel more like a classic arena shooter.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Splitgate 2 Beta! On December 4th, the Beta Season & active Battle Passes will be ending, alongside your seasonal "rank" progress. We will also be taking the Beta servers offline on the 4th to prepare for relaunch later in December. This is it. Our last playtest of the Splitgate 2 Beta is available now, and it's packed with fan favorite Karman Station, a new power weapon, and party modes. This is your final chance to shape what Splitgate will become on relaunch day.

Six Months of Evolution
Since launching the beta in May, this game has majorly transformed. We started with factions and abilities, and we've rebuilt the entire foundation around what makes Splitgate special: portals, movement, and pure gunplay. Here's what's changed. We removed factions entirely and reimagined abilities as power-ups. We brought back classic roundless modes like King of the Hill, Domination, and Team Deathmatch. We added Classic Arena, an even-starts mode that captures the spirit of original Splitgate. We've introduced new maps, new weapons, reworked the menus, and refined systems constantly based on your feedback.

We recently reported about a round of layoffs at 1047 Games, the studio behind the free-to-play shooter, Splitgate 2. Now, 1047 Games is once again facing more layoffs, and the studio has once again not mentioned the exact number of employees that will be let go. However, the layoffs seem to be affecting the studio's development capabilities, since it has officially announced on Steam that Splitgate 2 will be returning to beta, with a number of updates planned for the re-release of the portal-based shooter. According to the announcement, "That means reworking progression from the ground up, adding more portals to our maps, simplifying monetization, refocusing on classic game modes you've been asking for, and more, which we'll share soon." Splitgate 2 will remain in a playable state in the meantime, and the studio will still release Chapter 3 as planned, but there will likely be a number of playtests and changes to the game during the rework period.

In addition to Splitgate 2 being retracted, the original Splitgate will also suffer, with servers apparently being taken offline next month due to cost-cutting measures. In a statement to Polygon, 1047 Games CEO, Ian Proulx said that the studio is dedicating 95% of its development capabilities on the relaunch, and that it is planning to relaunch the game as early as possible in 2026. Curiously, and especially so in light of the recent Stop Killing Games movement's success, Proulx said that the development team is looking into implementing an end-of-life plan for Splitgate in the form of per-to-peer matches.

1047 Games, the developer behind Splitgate and the recently announced follow-up, Splitgate 2, has just announced a round of layoffs to an undisclosed number of "valued 1047 Games team members," according to an announcement on LinkedIn. The studio says that the decision was made at a time when the company is "redirecting resources to build the best game for our players." In addition to the job cuts, 1047 Games's co-founders, Ian Proulx and Nicholas Bagamian, are not receiving salaries at this time. The announcement claims that the studio is working on the next phase of Splitgate 2 and using community feedback to perfect the gameplay experience.

Adding insult to injury, the company's CEO was recently criticized online for wearing a hat that said "Make FPS Great Again" to the Summer Game Fest event shortly after releasing Splitgate 2, which faced a somewhat negative reception because of generic battle royale gameplay mechanics and aggressive monetization tactics. Currently, the game has a "Mixed" review rating on Steam just over a month after its initial launch into Early Access. According to an X post by Proulx, he was unaware of the game's aggressive monetization and $80 launch bundles, which were also part of the reason the game was heavily criticized at launch. The first Splitgate game also had a somewhat mixed response at its initial Beta launch in 2019, so it would not be surprising to see the game and developer bounce back from this hit, however, some of the original Splitgate community seems to have been burned by the rocky launch and CEO's recent statements.

GeForce NOW is turning up the heat this summer with a hot new deal. For a limited time, save 40% on six-month Performance memberships and enjoy premium GeForce RTX-powered gaming for half a year. Members can jump into all the action this summer, whether traveling or staying cool at home. Eleven new games join the cloud this week, headlined by the highly anticipated launch of Capcom's Onimusha 2 and Netmarble's Game of Thrones: Kingsroad. That's not all - Honkai Star Rail's latest update is available to play in the cloud this week.

Level Up for Summer
With the Performance membership, gamers can stream at up to 1440p resolution, experience ultrawide support and play in sessions of up to six hours - all without the need for the latest hardware. For a limited time, gamers can get all of these premium features for just $29.99 when signing up for a six-month Performance membership.

More than 700 games and applications feature RTX technologies, and each week new games integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex, and advanced ray-traced effects are released or announced, delivering the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX players. DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation, our GeForce RTX 50 Series performance multiplier, is now available in over 125 games and apps. Today, at Computex 2025, we revealed that another 10 games are launching with day-one support, 7 of which will be released this month. In each, DLSS Frame Generation and DLSS Super Resolution are also available, ensuring every GeForce RTX gamer can accelerate frame rates and receive the best possible experience.

Additionally, we're announcing that the critically acclaimed DOOM: The Dark Ages is adding immersive path-traced effects and DLSS Ray Reconstruction in June, further enhancing image quality for PC gamers. And NARAKA: BLADEPOINT, one of the top 10 most played Steam games each and every week, is doing the same on May 22nd. So keep on reading to learn about the DLSS and RTX technologies coming to DOOM: The Dark Ages, F1 25, FBC: Firebreak, inZOI, LIGHT OF MOTIRAM, MindsEye, NARAKA: BLADEPOINT, Portal with RTX, RoadCraft, Splitgate 2, WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers, and creator apps Chaos Enscape and Autodesk VRED.

Six years ago, developer 1047 Games released the free-to-play Splitgate, an arena-based first-person shooter that allowed players to place portals around maps, adding a fresh strategic layer. Now Splitgate 2 is set to double down on this unique idea with bigger maps, a new class-based system, and the introduction of The Lab, a player-facing version of the team's map creator. Ahead of the open beta opening up on May 22, we sat down with Ian Proulx, CEO and co-founder of 1047 Games, to talk about Splitgate 2's new mechanics and how community feedback and rigorous playtests are helping deliver a sequel that hits the right notes.

Making a sequel to a free-to-play shooter in 2025
When asked how the team is doing in the weeks leading up to the open beta, Proulx's response was succinct and to the point: "It's definitely a bit of a crazy time for us." Splitgate had a team of around 15 people. In contrast, there are about 200 developers working fulltime on Splitgate 2, plus 50 or so outsourced contributors. "We've definitely put a lot of thought and effort into making sure that we have a process that works versus the first game, where everybody was doing a little bit of everything all the time," Proulx added.

Splitgate 2's next open beta will take place stating on May 22, with the developer, 1047 Games, announcing the free-to-play multiplayer shooter's new beta test in a new YouTube trailer. The open beta is free-to-play, just like the game will be when it launches, and it's seemingly open to all, as well. The Splitgte 2 open beta will be open to gamers on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam and Epic Games. Splitgate 2 is planned for a full release sometime in 2025, but an exact date has not yet been confirmed.

Like the first Splitgate game, Splitgate 2 will feature the same portals-based combat, fast-paced gunplay, and high vertical mobility. However, the developers have apparently been working on some new tricks for the latest installment in the series, with the open beta boasting over 25 weapons, more than 10 game modes, and "infinite" maps. It's not clear how the new map system will work, but it's likely that some sort of tile-based procedural generation will be used to spawn a new map each time a new match starts, which is similar to how games like Warframe keep things interesting in what would otherwise be a repetitive gameplay loop. The new open beta announcement teaser trailer also seems to suggest that players will be able to create and edit their own maps, likely for custom games.