Splitgate has had a complicated history trying to establish itself in the gaming scene and the FPS genre. After its somewhat controversial marketing campaign and its unsuccessful launch of Splitgate 2, 1047 Games Splitgate: Arena Reloaded still hasn’t hit the mark.
A Relaunch That Couldn’t Hold the Momentum
Splitgate: Arena Reloaded was initially re-released on Steam and Consoles on December 17th, reaching a peak player count of 2,297 on Steam alone before plummeting to under 1k players. Yet initially, Splitgate 1’s Beta numbers peaked at about 67k players before plunging to under 1k within a few months.
Of course, these numbers don’t account for the number of players on consoles, but it still isn’t looking good for 1047 Games. Yet despite this, in an official blog post, the devs stated that “We had over 150,000 players try SPLITGATE: Arena Reloaded in its first five days, and we are excited to share that retention is the best it’s ever been.”
While this might be true, these numbers are clearly not what the developers had hoped for, especially after their controversial “Make FPS Great Again” marketing campaign. Still, the developers are clearly feeling the weight of these lackluster numbers and have posted about it.
A Portal to Nowhere
Along with this minor post reflecting their Steam Charts numbers, the developers have also announced that Splitgate: Arena Reloaded plans to continue content updates. Some of these updates will include a new map, the Arena Royale, the One in the Chamber mode, and other additions.
To top it all off, alongside these updates, they are continuing to market the game with a 5,000 tournament with Splitgate content creators, as well as a $25,000 community challenge. But the revival attempts aren’t stopping there. Splitgate is also having a welcome back event to earn the T200 character skin, which was a popular item from the original Splitgate. Plus, a recruit-a-friend event. That’s right, if you can manage to recruit two friends, you can earn the current Battle Pass for free.
Yet, despite all of this, is it enough to revitalize Splitgate? It’s free-to-play, has fast movement, and offers many elements that many FPS fans love. But something is missing that even some fans can’t quite put their finger on.
For more news and updates, keep an eye on our Other Games section.
