After just 14 days, the beta for Portal-inspired shooter Splitgate was downloaded over two million times. Thanks to the popularity of the beta far exceeding the expectations of developer 1047 Games, they’ve made the choice to delay Splitgate into August to work on server capacity. Until that time, it will remain in an open beta status, allowing the development team to scale server capacity ahead of the official launch, which doesn’t yet have an official date beyond sometime in August.
1047 also announced a new partnership with Human Capital, who has invested $10 million in cash into the company in order to help with the plans to scale the servers and expand the team of engineers to support the massive surge of interest the game has seen. The current team of four engineers spent the cross play open beta period addressing the growth from 400 concurrent players to over 75,000 in just days.
1047 CEO and Co-Founder Ian Proulx commented on the reception to the game and the technical challenges that it has caused:
Our team has been blown away by the incredible reception the Splitgate community has shown us. With the steep and sudden increase in players trying to access servers, we’re having to sort out a myriad of technical issues that come with this level of insane growth. We’ve worked hard to provide a high-quality game and experience, and our biggest challenge is simply to have enough capacity to serve the entire community.
He also talked about the partnership with Human Capital and how it’s helping them meet those demands:
That’s why we’re excited for Human Capital to lead this latest funding round. In addition to providing capital necessary to increase server capacity and stability, they’ll help build the engineering team we need to create the best possible game for our players.
Human Capital seems to see a lot of potential and promise in 1047 Games and Splitgate as well. Baris Akis, Co-founder and President of Human Capital said:
I vividly remember Ian sharing his vision for gaming five years ago, and it’s amazing to see millions of people now experiencing that early idea with Splitgate. But it’s just the beginning for him and the team, and we’re excited to be a part of what’s next for 1047 Games.
While the official full launch may be delayed, tomorrow will still see an update with some of the planned launch content into the beta, though players may be met with server queues as they get on and try to play. This will include the three new maps, customization options, mouse and keyboard support and an FOV slider on console, and customizable controller layouts.
A free-to-play game, Splitgate takes inspiration from both Portal and Halo for a unique first-person shooter experience that is clearly quite a popular idea. The Splitgate open beta is still running now, with a full launch now scheduled for sometime in August once they can expand server capacity. You can download the pre-release Splitgate beta and play now as a kind of soft launch, with all progress carrying over once the game launches in full next month.
