On Steam, the portal shooter Splitgate has become a big hit in recent weeks. The title is currently in a beta phase and is postponing its release indefinitely. Apparently, the developers are trying to get everything right.
What’s going on? The new free-to-play shooter Splitgate has unexpectedly achieved great success on Steam in its beta phase over the past few weeks. The mix of Halo and Portal is very well received by testers and has led to a tremendous influx on the servers. The surge was so great that a large part of the development work after the beta launch went into expanding server capacities.
Studio CEO Ian Proulx even stated that “110%” of their focus is on improving server capacity (via play3.de). This has already led to the postponement of the next-gen version, and now it has also affected the full release on PC – the release date for Splitgate has been completely canceled for now.
Splitgate without a release date – But you can keep playing
Why is there no release date anymore? Like with the first postponement of the release, this time it’s also about server capacities. In a press release provided to the American site Screenrant, CEO Proulx says:
We are focusing on keeping the game stable for the fans and gradually adjusting capacities for simultaneous players to the demand in order to minimize player wait times. We want to do this the right way, and we want to be prepared for massive influxes at the official launch, while continuing to enhance the quality of the beta with frequent updates, additional features, and improvements to server capacities.
via screenrant.com
Proulx further explains that the beta phase of Splitgate has been extended indefinitely due to the new developments. So you can continue to unleash yourself on the battlefields, but the 10 million downloads in the first 30 days after the launch of the open beta were simply too much for the small studio.
The current hype and the expectations for a full release are likely another reason. If Splitgate scales down the servers now and comes out with the “finished” game in a few weeks, many players would probably expect that the beta issues have been resolved. However, that currently seems unfeasible.
If you haven’t seen the crazy portal shooter yet, we’re embedding a gameplay trailer here:
How successful is Splitgate? The beta started back on May 27, and by early August, the developers had to process around 4,000 simultaneous players on the servers. After the hype launched, there were up to 175,000 simultaneous players on the servers or trying to get into matches, according to a statement from the developer studio 1047 Games.
The all-time peak on Steam is 67,724 simultaneous players, and on top of that, there are also the console soldiers. They still can’t compete with the big players on Steam. Games like Valheim, CS:GO, or PUBG have already accommodated several hundreds of thousands of simultaneous players. Nevertheless, with this all-time peak, they surpass prominent competitors like Destiny 2 (67,461 players), Final Fantasy 14 (65,329), and even almost reach the dino hit ARK (73,618) (via steamcharts – as of August 19).
What happens next? Splitgate is continuing to develop the beta and wants to leverage the current influx to grow the game. The full release is currently not a priority, and the developers of the next-gen versions for consoles are also not focusing on that right now. Enjoy the current version of the game, apart from the queues, and you can continue to unleash yourself in the portal battles.
By the way, for the full release, not only enough server capacities are to be available, but also new arenas will be added. A major announcement is planned during Gamescom next week.
If you want to check out some other games in early access that are already worth the money, take a look here: 5 co-op games in early access on Steam that you should try right now.
