Last week, I had the opportunity to sit down at Gamescom with Ian Proulx, Co-founder and CEO of 1047 Games, to talk all things Splitgate 2. We’ve compiled some of that interview here, in which Proulx discussed Esports, Anti-cheat, and other updates.
But now that I’ve returned home after walking almost half a marathon a day at Gamescom, I’ve listened back to our interview again.
1047 Games is very focused on making Splitgate 2 the best game it can be (as it should be), and the sentiment conveyed in our interview was that this will be achieved through community feedback. Several times, Proulx mentioned a ‘Community First’ approach, which was refreshing and comforting to hear. You see, I am a massive fan of the original Splitgate. Its simplicity and mechanics made it fun, and after the announcement of the second game, I was somewhat perplexed about the game’s new direction.
Fortunately, I did have the opportunity to play the game a couple of weeks ago. Although my initial concerns have been squashed, I still wanted to ask those all-important questions that the community has expressed concerns about since the game’s initial announcement.
One of the most significant changes in Splitgate 2 compared to its predecessor is the introduction of Factions. After my hands-on time with the game, I found that the Faction-based system worked well, but I did want to know about Splitgate 2’s live-ops model and when, or if, that live-ops model includes the addition of more factions in the future. We often see live service games with characters, heroes, factions, or whatever you want to call them balloon into an unnecessary amount after a couple of years. For example, Apex Legends has gone from eight characters to launch to 25, and sometimes, such additions feel like they are implemented just for monetization rather than gameplay and quality. On this and on the addition of more factions, Proulx said,
I don’t think we want to go to 10 factions [for example], you know? I think like one of the problems, and one of the problems we’ve thought through is, how do we prevent bloats from happening? You know, you play a lot of games where just over the years, it gets crazy and unsustainable, and so I think that’s part of the motivation for going classes versus heroes. Is there a world where we add more classes, like sure, is there a world where we don’t? Yes.
Genuinely we don’t know which direction we’re going to take it. I think a lot of it is like, let’s launch this game and let’s see with the community wants you know? If adding a new faction is what the community wants, we are in a position where we could do that, but maybe they just want new guns, and they don’t want new abilities or equipments or anything.
So maybe we’re just building on these three factions and that’s a great thing about how we’ve structured our company and just our mindset, like we’re very nimble. Were very ready to pivot, we’re very ready to take feedback and roll with it.
So there you have it: if the Splitgate 2 community wants more Factions, it’ll happen. I did try to squeeze Proulx a little further to ask if they’ve already considered or thought about future Factions and their abilities, but for now, he said the team is entirely focused on the core game for launch.
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