In what’s come as a shock to many, 1047 Games has today announced that it is ending future development on Splitgate, its free-to-play, portal based first-person shooter.
The studio, which has undertaken several funding rounds and hired top talent from all over the industry, says it has taken the difficult decision to leave the current version of Splitgate behind in order to “build the game that the fans deserve.”
“Splitgate achieved a level of success that we could not have anticipated and that few indie games are fortunate to reach,” a message from the 1047 Games team reads. “That initial success brought an opportunity to turn what started as a college dorm dream project into a AAA game that could stand toe-to-toe with shooter from the biggest publishers in the industry.”
“But this also meant that as we’ve brought on top-tier talent from across the industry, we’ve spent a lot of time trying to rework old content and systems. We are, in a way, bailing water while also trying to keep everyone who bought a ticket to board our ship happy, while also trying to turn our boat into a rocket ship.”
However, this isn’t the end of the road for Splitgate. While the game won’t be getting any new features, the game will remain online, have weekly playlists, and weapon drops, thanks to the new free battle pass that drops next week. It’ll also remain supported with the help of its dedicated community – something 1047 Games attributes to its overall popularity.
It’s also not the end of the road for 1047 Games. The studio is now pivoting to work on a free portal-based FPS game set in the same universe at Splitgate and built in Unreal Engine 5.
Ian Proulx, the game’s creator, tells Digital Trends that the team wants to move away from the ‘Halo meets Portal’ moniker that has followed the game around since it first launched on PC, largely due to its art style. However, it’ll still be a free shooter that has portals.
Beyond that, we don’t know much else about 1047’s next game, other than the fact that it won’t be launching in 2023. But given how much success the team had with Splitgate, news of 1047’s new project certainly generate some interest.