After its 'make FPS great again' controversy, Splitgate 2 is relaunching with a humbler tone: 'The goal is to grow over time, not aim for a massive splash on day 1'

Troubled team-based shooter Splitgate 2 is coming back earlier than expected: Rather than re-launching in 2026 as originally planned, developer 1047 Games says the beta servers will be taken offline on December 4, and a full-on re-release will follow later in the month.

"Thank you to everyone who participated in the Splitgate 2 Beta!" the studio announced on Steam. "On December 4th, the beta season and 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."

A quick refresher for those who, like me, had completely forgotten about Splitgate 2: After showing early promise as a significant step forward from the original Splitgate: Arena Warfare (which we quite liked), Splitgate 2 launched into open beta in May and faceplanted hard, for two reasons. First, there was the predictable: The servers blew out when the open beta went live.

Then two weeks later came the unpredictable, when 1047 Games CEO Ian Proulx went onstage at The Game Awards in a MAGA-style hat. As PR moves go, it wasn't great, and Proulx's subsequent efforts to "clarify" the situation only made things worse. How much of an impact his ill-considered lid had on Splitgate 2's fortunes is impossible to say, but the reaction sure wasn't the sort of thing you put in an accolades trailer.

Less than two months after Splitgate 2's launch, the wheels came off. 1047 reverted the game to a beta state, laid off a bunch of people, and announced the closure of Splitgate 1 servers because they cost too much to continue operating—although to its credit, the studio rolled out peer-to-peer support in August, enabling fans to continue playing.

1047 said when it announced the beta reversion that it would be "heads down until early next year, rebuilding major parts of the game to capture the spirit of what made Splitgate special." But apparently it didn't need all that much time to get the job done. And it sounds like Splitgate 2 has been significantly overhauled: 1047 said in a blog post last week that it's "rebuilt the entire foundation around what makes Splitgate special: portals, movement, and pure gunplay."

"We removed factions entirely and reimagined abilities as power-ups," the studio wrote. "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've also added portal overloading and EMPs, fundamentally changing how map control works. We've streamlined equipment to improve combat clarity. We've tuned our controller feel. We've fixed critical bugs and made countless optimizations."

In a post on Reddit, Proulx said 1047 is taking an "intentionally different" approach to the Splitgate 2 relaunch than it had the first time around, which is perhaps why it seems to have snuck up on us.

"We aren't trying to build massive hype going into relaunch," he wrote. "We just want to put out a great game (which I firmly believe we now have) and then grow it over time. Splitgate 1's relaunch had only a few hundred CCU on day 1 and grew very organically because it was fun. We have some marketing stuff lined up of course but the goal is to grow over time, not aim for a massive splash on day one."

He also said that Splitgate 2 is not relaunching early because of investor pressure, and that despite some speculation around the timing, he won't be at The Game Awards in December.

Whether Splitgate 2's rebirth will have the juice to bring players back in meaningful numbers is a big question. SteamDB says the game hit a peak concurrent player count of just under 26,000 when it launched in June, but that number—which may have been suppressed to some extent by server woes—quickly tailed off to just a few hundred at a time three months later.

In spite of its earlier woes, Proulx is hopeful that fans will give Splitgate 2 a second chance. "I appreciate you all continuing to pay attention and totally understand those who are skeptical of this working," he continued. "I hope it works and I genuinely think it will, but of course I could be wrong. Fingers crossed regardless, and we hope you will give it a try on relaunch."