Splitgate was one of the most surprising and exciting new releases of 2021, topping charts and getting grassroots praise from its player base and critical acclaim from the press, even though it's still in its beta testing phase. A recent developer Q&A session revealed not only that the game will be getting its Season 1 content in short order, but a few neat details about other upcoming goodies, too.
Essentially a combination of Portal and Halo, Splitgate lets players frag one another across arena-like maps using both guns and portal technology. This unique mish-mash of features let the game stand out in an otherwise oversaturated market, and the release of Season 1 promises a significant expansion of that same experience, with improvements applied across the board.
Slated for a simultaneous launch across all platforms that Splitgate is available on, Season 1 content is going to be coming out on January 27, and will last for three to four months. One of the flagship features included as part of Season 1 will be the release of Splitgate's promised "Forge" mode, where players get to build their own custom maps and play them in live multiplayer, should they choose to do so.
As exciting as the presence of a fully-fledged map editor may be, Splitgate is also getting two major new game modes with the release of Season 1. One-Flag CTF is self-explanatory, with the developers claiming that this is going to be the best iteration of the game mode in Splitgate yet. Evolution, on the other hand, is based on the game's existing Showdown mode, where the losing team advances to a better loadout tier with each round loss, eventually leading to losing players getting their hands on the best guns in Splitgate.
Being a skill-focused shooter, rather than one that would rely on continuous unlock-based progression, the constant and consistent introductions of new game modes and gameplay options are precisely what allows Splitgate to thrive. Now that the community has access to an impressive array of Splitgate's baseline maps, as well as a powerful map editor, the game should be livelier than ever before.
The developer Q&A has also referenced significant changes to how the game's playlists and modes are grouped together, which should lead to improved matchmaking times, as well as the presence of more players, rather than bots. As for the long-awaited next-gen patch for Splitgate, it may be coming out as part of Season 2 content. Developers are also hoping to be able to deliver an AAA-tier experience with Splitgate by the time the game is fully released, which may or may not include a Nintendo Switch version as well.
Splitgate is currently available in open beta on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
