Splitgate is currently thrilling the shooter community: During the open beta, Splitgate was downloaded over 600,000 times on PC and consoles, on Steam an average of almost 10,000 players were playing simultaneously at the start and there are tons of positive reviews. Developer 1047 Games did not expect so much enthusiasm and such a huge influx of players.
Opposite to GamesDaily studio founder and CEO Ian Proulx reports that their expectations of the beta have been exceeded by far, which in turn creates pressure and overtime. Shortly before the final launch, they are trying to meet the demands of the many players – this also affects the work-life balance of the developers.
What is Splitgate anyway?
Splitgate will be released on July 27, 2021 for PC and consoles, is currently in Open Beta and is a free arena shooter. This means that you target each other on different maps and in various modes, while portals that can be fired with the weapon play an important role in the gameplay.
Accordingly, Splitgate is currently known by its fans as “Halo meets Portal”. The fast-paced, entertaining gameplay hits the nerve of many PC and console players, which is noticeable in the impressive number of players in the free shooter.
Take a look at the gameplay trailer:
1:24
Splitgate: Futuristic multiplayer shooter shows gameplay in the trailer
A hit on PC and consoles before launch
Both on Steam as well as in Playstation-Store Splitgate can be found among the trending titles, while the game has already been downloaded over half a million times on all platforms. And the feedback from the players also falls into place over 16,000 Steam reviews on average »very positive«.
The number of players is not bad either: Even during the beta, an average of over 10,000 players were playing at the same time on Steam – a goal that 1047 Games had actually only set itself for the final release.
Follow for the Splitgate team
The huge rush and the positive feedback not only bring advantages: According to the developer, they want to do justice to the many interested players, which is why the server capacities are constantly being increased or optimizations requested by fans are pending.
Pre-launch crunch for the developers: CEO Ian Proulx describes this to GameDaily as a “constant race against time”, which is currently throwing the balance between work and leisure time for many employees upside down. On some days the developers don’t get more than two hours of sleep and there is hardly any time to prepare new updates appropriately:
“We have to go live with our updates immediately [von Splitgate] and we almost always don’t have time to test things beforehand. We have a lot of “Yolo releases” as we like to call them internally, because we simply cannot keep up with the continuous increase in player numbers. “
Crunch is a sensitive issue that affects studios large and small and can have dire consequences. The overtime can have an extreme effect on health over a long period of time, so we can only hope that the small studio can quickly move from a state of emergency into a more relaxed everyday life.
More about the crunch problem, whose role in the gaming industry and what dangers this type of work culture can bring, you can find out in our big Plus report:
more on the subject
Game Crunch: Our Most Difficult Report on an Invisible Problem
Despite these circumstances, at least CEO Ian Proulx is confident and grateful to GameDaily. The Splitgate Community he describes as particularly “supportive” and “understanding”. It remains to be seen whether the situation will improve or even worsen by the final release of Splitgate on July 27, 2021.
