Earlier today, we sat down with Ian Proulx, co-founder and CEO at 1047 Games, the developer behind Splitgate 2. Eager to find out more about this developing and intense shooter, we probed into the game’s development and the outlook on the title from a competitive perspective.
First and Foremost
Sitting down with Ian Proulx, we received key insights into the ongoing development of Splitgate 2, which is being tweaked at present following a recent playtest. One of our first and most important questions was about the integration of a solid anti-cheat system, which is paramount to success for an FPS title in this day and age.
It has been our top priority – a couple of years ago, we acquired an anti-cheat company called EQU8. We decided to bring these guys in-house, partly to put more resources into our anti-cheat. You kind of have two options – you can either make an anticheat that does a mediocre job of defending against all sorts of games, or you can make an anticheat that does a really good job of defending one game, and for us, we only care about one game.
As a third-party, that was their focus, they needed to make something that caters to lots of different clients, but now they’re in-house, they only have to cater for Splitgate 2.
Bringing the anti-cheat solution in-house means that the team doesn’t need to rely on regularly cracked solutions like BattleEye and Easy Anti-Cheat.
Getting Competitive
If you’ve seen the gameplay of Splitgate 2, you’ll have noticed how much it seems to feel like an esports-ready game. It takes place in an arena, like a spectator sport, and it boasts a system that lends itself to players assuming roles and competing as a team.
However, talking to Ian Proulx about this, that isn’t too high on the team’s agenda:
Our art style and our lore is that this is a sport and not a war. We’re not trying to say ‘this is esports’, we’re trying to say ‘this is the world of Splitgate 2’, it’s the sport of the future. If you look at the branding, it’s very inspired by Formula 1, NBA, NFL, and so on.
In terms of esports specifically, obviously we’ve made a game that we say is easy to learn but difficult to master, and I think we’ve hit that balance a lot better this time around. Do I think that this game would be a great esport? Absolutely. I’m not really having tonnes of conversations about that yet.
Proulx did admit that if the game is ‘sticky’ and people enjoy it, then esports with naturally follow.
Building Something Memorable
Throughout the conversation with Ian Proulx, he remained on-point with the driving message that this is a shooter that is being developed with the community in mind. He used the term ‘community-first development’, talking about forming relationships with streamers and kicking off activations to generate hype, but it always comes back to supporting that community.
Talking about the most recent tweaks to the game, Proulx walked through adjustments and balancing measures to portals and how they work, some quality-of-life changes in button mapping, and some sizeable tweaks to the game, such as the creative decision to remove EMP grenades.
Movement has been ramped up, and Proulx is particularly proud of the game’s sliding mechanic, which is the result of months of painstaking work.
Ultimately, everything that we were shown about Splitgate 2 fills us with a sense of encouragement about the ongoing development of this title. It’s sure to be a hit, just as the first game was, but this time around, there’s more meat on the bones to keep it going post-launch. It’s a free-to-play shooter (with cosmetic MTX) and it has been built with the player in mind and nothing but passion from the developers.
What more could you ask for?
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