Splitgate 2 Is fast. It’s the dominant thought of my hours spent trying out the sequel’s new maps, weapons, equipment, moves, abilities, and more. Although it literally stuttered on my PC (which was due to the inadequacy of my own gear, not the game’s), everything happened quickly. I barely had time to think about my loadout before I was brusquely thrust into the game. Once the action started, everything blurred a bit before coming to an abrupt halt just moments later. Bullets flew, people poured out of portals, and within about two minutes, the first round was over before I could even comprehend the changes. Splitgate 2 has been adapted to the gameplay that I loved so much about the original.

From what Ian Proulx, the game’s creative director, shared with us in our brief pre-preview briefing, it seemed like he and the team at 1047 wanted to spice things up in this way. In that regard, I would say Splitgate 2 a fairly immediate success. The Splitgate brand of rapid-fire combat and tactical portal placement is more refined than ever before. The original game always felt good enough, but the sequel feels closely. Part of me just worries that maybe the scaling up has taken away some of what made the original so stunning.

Splitgate was considered the meeting between halo And portaltwo very popular and very different series of first-person shooters. But they have one thing in common: that kind of space where you either had to find your footing, be it in an online deathmatch or in a room that you searched for puzzle solutions. halo Games are not long, but they are not over in a flash either, and portal does not impose any time constraints and gives you as much time as you need to solve its puzzles. Both were great at providing this sandbox of possibilities and experimentation, and Splitgate did a good job of channeling that spirit. This no longer feels like Splitgate 2.

The original game wasn’t slow, but it did feel methodical at times. The maps weren’t sprawling, but they had nooks and crannies that lent themselves to different types of encounters. It paid off to be surgical rather than overzealous. Splitgate was perhaps a little floating, but this was a nice alternative to Call of DutyThe focus is on jerky movements. Splitgate 2 abandons some of these tenets and joins a number of recent trends in similar games, resisting what made the original so unique in favor of attempting even wider acceptance.

I have not Love How Splitgate 2 I seem to forget what made the original game so successful for me. Team Deathmatch, for example, used to be a long round where the first team to 50 kills won. Now Splitgate 2 split it up into multiple rounds of 15 kills maximum, and the first team to 3 wins wins the whole match. This meant that matches were over in a flash. Before I could even get used to the weapon I was using or the unique abilities of my gear and class, the match was over.

Additionally, there is a death mechanism that feels particularly punishing. The more often you die, which happens quite quickly in Splitgate 2the more time is added to your respawn timer. The more I fumbled around, the less time and space I had to find my way around the game and build a flow.

The other mode available in the preview, Hotzone, is similarly fast-paced. Hotzone is a “King of the Hill” type mode where progress on the objective is shared between both teams. This means you could pass by within a second of capturing it, but if the opposing team takes you out and jumps onto the point, they can claim it for themselves after standing on it for just a second. The idea seems to be to apply some sort of pressure to act impulsively, but with no real way to counteract the possibility of a sudden takeover, it just seems like a malicious mechanism that can be manipulated to force early wins with little contention.

To move things forward, there are many smaller aspects of Splitgate have been fine-tuned in the sequel to allow for this faster and more aggressive pace. There’s now a slide function and your jetpack feels more propulsive than before, which should help you cover more ground. Portals are now tied to a single button and the game has a system that essentially guesses which portal you were trying to place, eliminating some of the thought that previously went into such a process. Portals can now also be placed on enemies’ portals, encouraging you to be brave and take the flank route more often.

On some level, these changes are absolutely welcome as quality of life features that simply reduce the number of inputs required to perform actions. However, when you consider the broader changes to the game, such as the introduction of factions – classes with abilities like a wall-hack scan, a speed boost, or a deployable shield – I worry that Splitgate 2 can be a whole different game.

I love a good competitive shooter, but I think what a lot of people like about Splitgate was how carefree and casual it was could feeling, with room for forays into the hardcore modes and lobbies if desired. Perhaps Splitgate 2 will make a similar distinction, but from what I was offered, it seemed to focus entirely on the latter, leaving out a large audience that just wants something fun to play. I don’t like feeling like I’m locked in every time I play a game, but that’s what gaming Splitgate 2 for what felt like an afternoon.

I don’t mean to say that the game is bad or poor, but it feels like Splitgate 2 was lost in this transformation. If this is the final form, which was changed in 1047 from the original Splitgatewell, then maybe the first game was a fluke. If you want another movement-intensive and highly competitive shooter with a unique central premise, Splitgate 2 certainly meets those requirements. However, if you were drawn in by the casual playfulness of the original title and expected the sequel to up the ante, you may be disappointed.