Splitgate 2 getting first playtest since return to beta, no more factions or abilities
After a tumultuous launch in June, 1047 Games decided to go back to beta for Splitgate 2 in July. After a few weeks of development, the game is making a comeback with a public playtest to gauge player response and get feedback for all the changes they have made. And there are quite a few major changes in response to player feedback from the initial launch.
As described by 1047 Games through an update on Steam, the Splitgate 2 August playtest will be live on August 29 between 3 pm and 6 pm PT. On August 30, it will kick off at 10 am and end at 1 pm PT. It will only be available on Steam and players can download the ‘aug-playtest’ by opting into Betas from the Steam library.
Here’s what you need to do to get access to the playtest:
- If Splitgate 2 Beta is not already installed, download it from the Steam store.
- Find Splitgate 2 Beta in your library.
- Right-click the game and select Properties.
- In the left menu, click Betas.
- In the dropdown “Select the beta you would like to opt into”, choose aug-playtest and close the window.
- Steam will automatically download/update the game.
- Once finished, click Play to launch the beta branch.
As for the changes, 1047 Games has decided to get rid of the factions and the abilities to focus more on precise gunplay, map control, and portal movement. After the initial launch, a lot of players were annoyed by the weapons being locked to certain factions and abilities like Hypersight giving players unbalanced advantages. This, along with the technical issues, microtransactions, UI issues, and the ‘Make FPS Great Again’ debacle, player count quickly dropped by 93%.
Another complaint that has been addressed for the playtest is lack of sufficient portal opportunities in certain maps. Academy, Core, Eden, Frontier, and Grit arenas will now have more spots for portals. Some other changes include adjusting time-to-kill, weapon recoil, and using portals in Splitball game mode.
