[2024] Splitgate 2 AMA with 1047 Games CEO - Ian Proulx

Thanks for the great questions and feedback! I'll start by answering your last question about intention. Our intention has always been to make the most fun game possible. We don't really think of things in terms of what specific genre of FPS it is. We really just want to make the best game we can and something we at 1047 and our community love to play!

As for the classes/abilities comparison to Halo, I totally get where you are coming from. I love OG halo and was also one of the people complaining when they added abilities (although I did love Halo Reach, just not 4). I think candidly we probably didn't exactly convey what we were trying to build very accurately and that our trailers over-emphasized the abilities (because that is some of the new stuff). Our intent with the abilities is to add that icing on the cake and to add more variety, but we still want to make a game that is all about gunplay, portals, and movement. To me, there is nothing inherently wrong with abilities if they are done right, but clearly they can definitely be done wrong, which is exactly why we are doing an alpha this early so that we can get feedback and adjust accordingly!

As for TTK, we have experimented with a range of different TTKs. Internally, we were (and are) leaning towards a longer TTK that is closer to Splitgate 1, but for an alpha we always lean towards testing big changes and then iterating vs playing things safe. We would rather make big changes before launch so that we get more meaningful feedback and test more and then get everything dialed in by launch.

Thanks again for the kinds words. This alpha was a VERY small sample of what is to come (like maybe 10%). We want to make a game for people like you and the rest of our community, and I think that will become a lot more clear as we continue to iterate based on your feedback and show more of what we have coming!

Thanks for the question! And yes to your point, Splitgate 1 did not fail, it was a big success for us when we were a very small team! We view it as a stepping stone towards our larger goals, but a stepping stone we are very proud of!

That said, it obviously did not sustain itself and this really boils down to 2 major reasons. One of course was the servers and code base not being scalable. We were a team of 4 engineers at the time, so we really did not have the resources to handle that many players. But we also did not have things structured in a way where we could quickly iterate and pump out new content efficiently with a larger team. Our codebase and workflows worked perfectly well for a small team where everyone knew everything, but we needed to refactor and start over (especially since we are also in a new engine with UE5 now) to be able to have 175 people working on the same game at the same time without stepping on each others toes.

The other big reason was that we did not have enough people to push meaningful updates frequently. You look at other successful f2p shooters and there are always new things coming out, whether its a new map, gun, mode, etc. and we just simply did not have the team or tech to do this. And of course we have more coming with our live ops plan to share at a later date, but you can definitely expect a massive increase in the frequency and amount of content coming.

In terms of making sure we don't lose what made Splitgate special, that's exactly what tests like this are for! We wanted to lead with our more controversial changes (like hotzone being shared progression, TTK being shorter, and showcasing smaller simpler maps) because we wanted to see how the community would react early on so that we could adjust accordingly based on our community's feedback. But also, to answer your question in a different way, I think the biggest strengths of Splitgate were its awesome gunplay and the amazing plays you could do with portals, so that is what we are trying to preserve and emphasize while adding an extra layer (and significantly more content) on top of that. Thanks for the great question!

Yes! And larger maps too. Ozone and Zenith are probably the smallest and least vertical maps in the game just for perspective.

Actually, basically none tbh. We are lucky to have amazing investors who are in this for the long run and are very supportive in sharing our vision of remaining independent. Also fwiw, our board consists of 5 people with 3 being members of 1047, so even if they do have input, we are still in charge :) But in all honesty they are really supportive and have been great to work with! It also helps that they are gamers themselves so they get it.

Thanks for the suggestion! TBH we haven't decided yet on this but its definitely been discussed and we hear you. And we want to hear what the community has to say and continue to get feedback. Right now our focus is to test the core gameplay, get feedback and iterate on it. That said, I always emphasize to our team that we need to be community first and listen to our players. If this is something that becomes a common request, we will act on it. But again, right now we are really just focused on testing and iterating on the core gameplay.

Appreciate the question! I think our new announcers are closer to our original vision. Our vision (even in splitgate 1) was always to make a game that was a positive sporty future (I'm a huge NBA fan and my cofounder Nick loves formula 1 so we want to bring some of that energy to our game!) and I think the new announcer and in-ear coach is a bit closer to that vision. As for the old announcer, we have considered having some customization here (as well as for hitmarkers), but it's not something we have gotten to or committed to yet as it would require us to re-record everything and all the new lines with the previous announcer who we haven't actually talked to in years (so I'm not even sure he is still doing voice work). That said, as is the case with everything, we are always listening to as much feedback as we can and acting on it. I try to always read the comments in reddit, discord, etc. and so if this becomes a common request, you can expect it to jump higher on our priority list!

I was actually having a conversation about this 2 days ago with our Lead Anticheat Engineer Andreas! The reason this is tricky is because of a lot of the anticheat stuff we do is specific to windows and would not work or be as effective at keeping cheaters out on Linux. That said, it is something that is important to us and we are actively discussing options because we definitely want to be on Steam Deck and on Linux in general. Can't 100% guarantee yet, but it is actively being discussed now and we have a lot of steam deck users in our company who also want this!

I think we probably gave a false impression that we are prioritizing esports and competitive play over casual experiences. This is not the case! We definitely plan to add all sorts of fun party game modes like we had in Splitgate. Can't share specifics yet, but just know that party modes and more casual experiences are a top priority for us! But for our first alpha demo, we more wanted to focus on getting feedback of our core gameplay.

Great question! Lore wasn't really a priority in Splitgate 1 because we didn't have the resources. That said, we always wanted the Splitgate universe to be a positive sporty future and that is no different in Splitgate 2. One fun idea we had on how to tie in Splitgate 1 to the Splitgate 2 universe is that Splitgate 1 is a video game in the Splitgate 2 universe.

I answered this about steam deck specifically above, but the TLDR which also applies to Linux is that we want to support Linux at some point and that the tricky part is making anticheat work for it as well. Keeping cheaters out is a huge priority for us, but we also have a lot of Linux users in our company and community, so we are actively discussing options! Thanks for the question. The more often we hear about this, the more likely it is to happen sooner!

yes

TBH this is still TBD. It will certainly be live through the remainder of the year at a bare minimum. But this is a lot trickier than just a yes or no. While there is a cost to leaving it up, there is also a lot more to it. There are reliances on 3rd parties that need to be maintained or could break the game. There are also security implications when we aren't actively supporting it and its on an old code base. And lastly, there are contract implications with having Splitgate 1 and 2 live simultaneously with our various licenses (like with Unreal, Sony, XBOX, etc). We want to support it as long as possible if there is demand for it, but it is a lot more complicated than just leaving it on or taking it off to save some money. I wish I could give a more concrete answer but this is a problem for a future me to figure out and there are things outside of our control that impact this.

Not able to share anything yet, but I do love forge and the Splitgate map creator ;)

Thanks for the awesome questions!

1. Thank you! I made those maps, so I appreciate the kind words about them! We definitely plan to have maps with more verticality and more portal opportunities. I think what we are trying to avoid this time around is situations like Oasis where you can camp behind a portal the entire game and see the entire map. We want it to be fun to play while you are still learning the portals, but still maintain a super high skill ceiling and opportunity for creative expression through awesome portal plays while mastering the portals. I think the maps in our alpha demo play it safer portal wise than many of the future maps that are coming (Ozone and Zenith are 2 of the smallest maps in the game btw), which is exactly why we included them so that we could get feedback on the more controversial changes early. While I do still enjoy those maps and there are lots of triple portal opportunities, I also see that they are not as crazy and vertical as some of the splitgate 1 maps. I think you'll like what we've got coming (this is not even 10% of the game), but definitely let us know and keep the feedback coming!

2. Not able to share anything yet, but I do love forge and Splitgate's map creator ;)

3. Working on it! Hoping to get it in by launch, but right now the priority is getting feedback on our core gameplay. Also if you have any feedback on our default crosshairs or what you would like to see in custom crosshairs, let us know!

We are out of time! But THANK YOU all for the great questions. We are creating a game for you guys, our community, and we appreciate all the time you spend helping us create a better game. We definitely plan to do this again. And in the meantime, please keep the questions and feedback coming. I tried to get to as much as possible and tackle all the questions with lots of upvotes, but apologies if I didn't get to your question. Even if I'm not able to respond to everything though, I spend a lot of time reading everything so there is a good chance I will see it!

This alpha demo has been a VERY SMALL sample of what's to come (like less than 10% of the final game) but it was a great start for us to get early feedback and was extremely helpful. Lots more to come, so keep the feedback coming! Thank you!