Splitgate 2 is the sequel to the surprise sleeper hit Splitgate, an arena shooter that combined elements of games like Halo and Portal. It was a fun game, and the thought of a sequel that built upon that formula sounded incredibly enticing. Splitgate 2 officially launched last week, and after playing it in the pre-launch beta and post-launch window, I have some thoughts about how the sequel has turned out. Let’s get into it.
Solid Foundation
The reason to play Splitgate is its gameplay. It feels like an extremely well-made game, and by a development team that understands what makes modern shooters feel good. The gunplay is tight, the movement is fast and frenetic, and it’s a genuinely fun game to play. From a relatively small team of developers, it’s genuinely impressive to see Splitgate 2 go toe to toe with shooters on a much larger scale. I wouldn’t say it’s a better feeling game than games like Halo, Call of Duty, Apex Legends, etc, but it’s not far off.
The main differentiator for Splitgate when comparing it to other games is the use of portals. You can use portals in specific areas of the map that allow you to strategically traverse to those areas. In my experience playing several matches, I never had games where these portals felt significant in the outcome of the game. They were most prominent at the beginning of the game when they were used to quickly traverse the map, but after the initial spawn, they never felt essential to doing well in any match. In many ways, portals feel less essential than they did in the first game, and as will come apparent in the rest of the review, are just one of many areas of the game that feel underbaked.
Underwhelming Features
While Splitgate 2 has a really solid foundation to build off of, it currently falters in the surrounding areas. The game features 3 classes: Aeros, Meridian, and Sabrask. Aeros is the fast class, giving you the ability of a speed boost, which can help you move through the map a little faster. Meridian, my favorite class, allows you to scan through walls and see enemies as an ability on a cooldown timer. Sabrask gives you a shield that you can lay down and helps with defense for a few seconds. I felt like Meridian was by far the most useful class in the game, with the other 2 class abilities feeling pretty useless. That means for me, there was only one useful class in an already small slate on offer.
Each class has 5 main weapons, which are different aesthetically but primarily function the same, as well as a variety of side pistols. You’ll see the typical automatic rifle, single-shot rifle, burst rifle, shotgun, etc. They’re fine, but nothing stands out.
The game borrows from Halo quite a bit in the map layouts and game modes. Each map has a suite of power weapons players have to fight over, including a Rocket Launcher and Sniper Rifle that feel ripped right from Halo.
Game modes include deathmatch, capture the zone, a “capture the ball”, and more. Nothing featured here feels particularly original, unfortunately, and I would have liked to see at least one game mode or weapon that felt uniquely Splitgate.
Each class also features perks, but they’re so uninspired that you’ll often forget they are in the game. A perk to reload slightly faster? Another perk that makes your mini-map range slightly larger? Faster equipment charges? None of these perks feel like they bring anything meaningful to combat. It feels like these perks were added to check a box rather than something added to enhance the gameplay.
The maps here at launch are okay, but unmemorable. They are your standard arena-style maps. I wouldn’t call any of them bad, but I can’t recall a map that felt added a unique element or looked aesthetically intriguing.
Unreal Engine and Aesthetics
Splitgate 2 runs well on my Series X and is a technically impressive game running on Unreal Engine 5. These are two things I look for when playing an FPS. Unfortunately, the art style present in the game doesn’t do the technical achievement on display any favors. It doesn’t look bad, it just looks painfully generic. None of the maps stand out or have any spice that makes me feel like I’m playing in a cool or interesting sci-fi world. It gives me Unreal Engine tech demo vibes, where I feel like I’m playing a game meant to evoke an Unreal Engine demo of a generic-looking sci-fi arena shooter. The characters you play as don’t look any more original. Temu Tenno’s from Warframe? Discount Spartans from Halo? These thoughts ran through my mind while trying to find interesting-looking cosmetics in the game.
I’ll talk about the micro transactions in the game later, which encourage you to of course spend money to buy cosmetics for your characters, but unfortunately, none of the aesthetics in the game made me even consider spending real money on the game.
A Battle Royale in 2025?
One of the biggest surprises of Splitgate 2’s launch is that the game added a Battle Royale mode when the game officially launched on June 6th.
After playing a handful of rounds of the Battle Royale mode, I genuinely question why it was included at all. It adds almost nothing to a genre that felt worn thin years ago. Outside of letting players respawn more frequently than other Battle Royale modes, it simply presents as a bog-standard Battle Royale, with no innovation, inspiration, or flavor. Sure, Splitgate’s frenetic movement can make for some fun moments, but if you’re going to tackle a genre that feels completely tapped out at the moment, you have to come swinging harder than this. You might think there’d be at least some innovation or an idea that was thrown in to make it stand out compared to games like Fortnite, Warzone or Apex Legends. Unfortunately, there’s just nothing to the Battle Royale in Splitgate 2 beyond the very basic features of looting, taking down enemies, and surviving until the final zone. I don’t see any reason to play this mode over its competitors unless you just really love how the game feels to play on a fundamental level.
Splitgate 2 presents as a fun and competitive arena shooter, and that’s where the game shines. The addition of a Battle Royale, especially when it’s not doing anything to move the genre forward, feels like an odd attempt to grab attention for the game when the time for new Battle Royale games feels like they were over at the beginning of the decade.
Microtransactions and cosmetics
I’m not someone who is automatically opposed to microtransactions, especially in a free-to-play game. I’m not blind to the fact that games that are free to download have to make money on the back end, even though I often wish we could go back to the time when cosmetics were completely free. I’ve spent money in games for cosmetics I find appealing, and have also put hundreds of hours into games I’ll never spend a dime on.
Having said all of that, I could have been open to spending money on a game like Splitgate 2, but the cosmetics on offer are so underwhelming I never once considered spending money. One of the most egregious bundles as of the time of this writing is going for 59.99$ and features a slate of dull-looking skins and charms.
I think if you’re going to charge the price of a full game for cosmetics, they need to be at the very least inspired, but unfortunately, these cosmetics can’t even cross that low bar.
Conclusion
Splitgate 2 is solid mechanically but underwhelming in nearly every other area. For a sequel, a game that the studio had to stop all production of the first game to focus on, it doesn’t seem to do much more to improve on the original. The inclusions over the first game, like the Battle Royale, feel tacked on and don’t add anything new to the genre. Maps, modes, weapons, abilities, and perks all feel uninspired and wholly unoriginal, and I somehow think they made portals less effective in the sequel than in the first game.
While there are worse shooters on the market than Splitgate 2, there are a ton of better ways to spend your time as well. The game is free, so it’s worth a download if you’re curious, but I’m not sure you’ll end up wanting to spend a ton of time on the game as it currently sits.
Splitgate 2
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- Fun Moment to Moment Gameplay
- Performs well and is technically impressive
CONS
- Uninspired Weapons, Maps, Aesthetics
- Uninspired Modes and Battle Royale
- Greedy Microtransactions
