Splitgate: Arena Warfare Review

 When I was 12 in 2008, I played Portal for the first time, specifically the Still Alive XBLA Port. I loved the game but at the end of it I thought, how cool would it be for someone to mod a game to allow portal guns. It's something i never looked into, a mere idle curiosity if anything, I was more obsessed with going "The cake was a lie." until everyone got sick of it. It would be 11 years before anything came of it with Splitgate: Arena Warfare, a new First Person shooter from indie studio 1047 Games that borrows from Portal and combines it with Halo. So if you play on PC and want a Halo fix, this is it unless you wanna try that awful PC port of 1 and 2 or try the unoffical Halo Online, well at least until Microsoft drops Halo the Master Chief Collection on PC. But is Splitgate good enough to stand with the big boys, or is it doomed to obscurity?

On a graphical level, this game looks about on par with most games of this generation, nothing fantastic, but it's not trying to be. The baseline is "not fucking awful to look at," and it achieves that quite well with a variety of enviroments. However, this is also a pretty obvious Halo clone, and I'm not talking the suits. Just looking at weapon types it's obvious that Halo was an inspiration for Splitsgate. Most of the weapons in Splitgate are Halo weapons but redesigned and slightly tightened up, even the rail gun which while not in the OG Halo trilogy was in the newer games. Actually with the jetpack and sprint, Splitgate plays a lot like Halo 4 now that I think of it. But here the maps are more vertical and take advantage of the jetpacks and portals, allowing you to basically fly out of a portal running, gunning, and flying so it works unlike Halo 4 where the design was all over the place.

Also unlike Halo 4, there are no classes, perks, unique abilites, nunya. It's just your guns, nades, portal gun, and jetpack, a lot like earlier Halo games if I'm to be honest. Controls are very tight and responsive too, using the portal guns becomes second nature thanks to their position on the keyboard. It also helps that when you first boot the game, a tutorial video plays showing you how the portal mechanics work and if that's not enough there's a training area to hone your skills before heading into battle. Though, if you played Portal you'll pick Splitgate up real quick, it's very easy to get into, even easier if you bind the portals to the side buttons of your mouse.

On top of that, before reaching Rank 5 you'll be stuck in a beginners area to make sure higher ranks don't crush you before hopping in (which was added as I was wrapping this up, thank god). It's actually an idea from Halo 3 and one I wish returned in more games. Sure I won't need it, but who knows, someone else might, like the guy who spent an entire match trying to loop through portals and nothing else. When you get through that you'll find a wide range of game modes waiting, most taken from Halo but some are taken from Call of Duty and one is a tad unique. Actually let's talk about that new mode, Teabag Confirmed, because the rest outside of Domination (ripped from COD) are ripped from Halo. Teabag Confirmed plays a lot like Call of Duty's kill confirmed but instead of stealing dog tags, you have to teabag the enemy after killing them. It's fun and worth a chuckle to see a mad frenzy of teabaggers. A nice way to take an old tradition and incorporate it into actual gameplay.

 

Video unrelated....

That said, I do have some concerns, namely about identity, Halo is tied to Splitgate's identity big time and I fear that, when Halo MCC launches this summer/fall on PC that Splitgate will be doomed to obscurity. Because portals, while they add a lot, I fear don't add enough to desperate it's identity as an arena shooter from Halo. Halo has more to do with larger maps, Forge, Campaign, and Theater... but Splitsgate is free on the other hand so I feel it balances out. I'm just afraid Splitsgate will be buried by 343 Industries like 343 was buried by pizza. But only time will tell if I'm right or not, I look forward to being proven wrong though. I want to see Splitsgate succeed and 1047 Games go on to do great things, I think this was a good first outing.

Now, there is one thing to mention as a disclaimer, there are microtransactions in this game, the ability to buy (humorously enough) Disco Balls with which to buy Overwatch style loot boxes. But where in Overwatch and Battlefront II I hated them, in Splitgate it's pretty tolerable because the game is already free to start. This is also why I don't mind Apex Legends and Fortnite doing lootboxes. It's when you ask me to drop $60 on the game in the first place that I go, "Okay, what kind of fuckery is this?" Looking at you Halo 5, Destiny, Division, Battlefront II, Call of Duty's past 2013, Halo Wars 2, etc, etc.

Splitgate is a fun game that's a great Halo clone, even if that raises concerns about it's ability to stand against the king itself. But even if condemned to obscurity Splitgate will still stick out for it's idea to mix to iconic playstyles to make something new. Check out Splitgate on Steam if you're a fan of Arena shooters, I mean it's free, you have no good excuse not too, even if you wind up not liking it, you lose nothing.


(PS, Add a score to win in the scoreboard, I like to know how much I have to score until I win or lose.)