Following its surprise launch in June, Splitgate 2 is now \u201cunlaunching.\u201d The multiplayer first-person shooter will remain online in a beta state and continue to get support through a season 3 update and bug fixes, but developer 1047 Games is otherwise pausing its planned roadmap to overhaul the project ahead of a relaunch in early 2026. The studio is also cutting an unspecified number of staff members and shutting down servers next month for the original Splitgate as cost-cutting measures.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically, I feel like we missed the mark, and I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a secret,\u201d 1047 Games CEO Ian Proulx told Polygon in a video interview ahead of today\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n
Splitgate 2 launched on June 6 following a controversial announcement at this year\u2019s Summer Game Fest<\/a>, in which Proulx took to the stage wearing a \u201cMake FPS Great Again\u201d hat. While that moment generated heat for the studio, the game itself was met with negative feedback of its own from its community who voiced criticism of its bugs, its lack of a ranked mode at launch, expensive cosmetics, and more. Today, 1047 Games released a statement addressing those concerns and detailing the future of Splitgate, its sequel, and the studio at large.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve heard your feedback, and we agree with you: we launched too early,\u201d the note to the game\u2019s community reads. \u201cWe had ambitious goals with Splitgate 2, and in our excitement to share it with you, we bit off more than we could chew \u2026 So, we\u2019re going back to beta.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking with Polygon, Proulx pinned some of Splitgate 2\u2019s problems on a lack of community involvement in areas. Despite holding extensive playtests before launch, modes like Battle Royale were kept close to the chest to surprise players. 1047 Games intends to work closer with players moving forward, returning to the original Splitgate\u2019s more grassroots development cycle.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a giant Reddit thread that we literally read every single post,\u201d Proulx said. \u201cI read everything on the Reddit, everything, any tweets, Discord, all that stuff. We have a good sense of what needs to get done, what are the problems. Still tons of details to figure out, but I think the big change we\u2019re going to make this time around is we\u2019re going to actually do it alongside the community, get their feedback, playtest, and then when we feel like, all right, the game, it\u2019s in a great place, it\u2019s what it needs to be, that\u2019s when we\u2019re going to relaunch as opposed to just doing things in secret and then surprising them.\u201d<\/p>\n 1047 Games has a list of feedback that it\u2019s planning to add in the overhaul, including ranked leaderboards and more mode-specific playlists. It will add more portal walls to arenas, following criticisms that the sequel had deemphasized the series\u2019 central mechanic. A game mode revamp is coming too, as 1047 will put less focus on round-based modes to recapture the original Splitgate\u2019s flow.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of things Splitgate 2 does extremely well,\u201d Proulx said. \u201cI think we have a very polished actual core experience in terms of gun gunplay movements, graphics, et cetera. But I do feel like we bit off more than we could chew, and we have three games in one between Arena and Battle Royale and our own Map Creator. And so we tried to do a lot with a little, and I think we ended up with a game that\u2019s kind of like 80% of the way there times three instead of a 100% of the way there on fewer things.\u201d<\/p>\n Proulx noted that monetization will be reworked as well. That comes after the game drew criticism for including an $80 skin bundle<\/a> at launch, among other pricey cosmetics. (\u201cObviously that one bundle \u2026 I mean, I\u2019m not here to make excuses \u2026 Yeah \u2026\u201d Proulx trailed off when I asked about the response to monetization.)<\/p>\n I\u2019ve made many, many, many mistakes \u2026<\/p>\n \u2014 Ian Proulx, CEO of 1047 Games<\/p>\n That controversy dovetailed with another surrounding the launch: Proulx\u2019s now infamous Summer Game Fest stunt<\/a>. The CEO came under scrutiny for sporting a hat that referenced U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d slogan, a move that happened as the current administration ramped up its deportation efforts with a wave of ICE raids<\/a> \u2013 some mere blocks away from the YouTube Theater, the venue that hosted Summer Game Fest. <\/p>\n After initially standing behind the stunt as a non-political statement in an interview with IGN<\/a>, Proulx has since apologized for it. Despite the scrutiny the moment generated, he affirmed that it didn\u2019t have anything to do with the decision to unlaunch, though he still believes that that first-person shooter genre is not \u201cin a great place right now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cObviously the vibes are worse because of the hat, but, I think that if it was a 10 out of 10, feature-complete game that delivered on everything the community wanted, they would be playing it right now,\u201d Proulx said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve made many, many, many mistakes since we started this in January of 2017, and that\u2019s one of them. And I\u2019ve made so many more that the world doesn\u2019t know about,\u201d he added. \u201cSo, to me, it\u2019s really just about moving forward, and I believe in this game, I believe in this team, and there\u2019s tons of things I would do differently, that being one of them. But I\u2019m focused on the future.\u201d<\/p>\n As for what the \u201cunlaunch\u201d means for the game as it stands now, Splitgate 2 isn\u2019t going away. The studio will forge ahead with a planned third season and will still run a few special events. Bug fixes are in the works, as well as quality-of-life improvements, like adding a playlist featuring player-made maps. Still, Proulx said that \u201c95%\u201d of the studio\u2019s efforts will be spent on the relaunch. The team is targeting a rerelease window \u201cas early as possible\u201d in 2026, but Proulx said that an earlier window could be possible if the team was ready.<\/p>\n The studio will see layoffs as part of the change, but 1047 Games would not confirm the number of roles being reduced or say what departments would be impacted when asked by Polygon. This is the second wave of layoffs<\/a> for the studio in the past two months, as the studio parted with a \u201csmall group\u201d of staff members in June that included members of its art team.<\/p>\n The original Splitgate is getting caught up in the studio\u2019s cost-cutting efforts too. 1047 Games will take the shooter\u2019s servers down next month, though in the statement sent to its community today, noted that the studio is \u201cexploring the possibility of supporting offline or peer-to-peer matches.\u201d<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t the first setback in Splitgate\u2019s history. The original game first launched to middling reviews in 2019. 1047 Games would retool it over the next two years and pull off a successful relaunch in 2021. After staffing up<\/a> with the goal of reworking the game from the inside out, the studio would then abruptly halt its plans one year later<\/a> and pivot to developing a full sequel instead. Proulx is hopeful that Splitgate 2 will be able to retain the trust of a community who has seen the series\u2019 direction morph several times in the past six years.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been here before and we are as determined as ever,\u201d Proulx said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had much darker days with Splitgate where we almost quit, and I\u2019m really glad we didn\u2019t because 99% of this has been living the dream. So, we\u2019re not going to quit. We are going to just absolutely grind this out and keep doing it and keep listening and make this game as amazing as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n