After the underwhelming launch of Splitgate 2, which it pulled offline to retool, 1047 Games has announced Splitgate: Arena Reloaded. Available on December 17th on Xbox Series X/S, PS5, PC, Xbox One, and PS4, it’s free to play and promises to fuse the “best” of both titles. Check out the announcement trailer below.
The biggest hook is that there are no longer factions or abilities. Players can customize their loadouts without restrictions or opt for the same playing field. Team Deathmatch, King of the Hill, Gun Game and Shotty Snipers will be included alongside six revamped arenas and five new additions.
There are also three new primary weapons, one new Power weapon, an overhauled Ranked system, and revamped progression that promises rewards “with every match.” This is on top of the dozens of other new features fans can look forward to.
Design director Josh Watson said in a press release that, “Splitgate has always been a love letter to the arena shooters we grew up playing. We’ve been hard at work rebuilding the game from the ground up, taking the best of Splitgate 1 and Splitgate 2, removing what didn’t work, and refining what did.” Studio CEO Ian Proulx also credited the community for this approach as they “led us back to the arena.”
Whether it will rekindle interest in the series remains to be seen, but it is fascinating to see a developer remove long-in-development features like battle royale and whatnot in a bid to return to basics. To learn more about Reloaded’s development, a “mini-documentary” will be released on December 9th, so stay tuned for details on that.
