Splitgate is officially extending its Open Beta status “for the foreseeable future” as studio 1047 Games continues to work on the game and plans to release content updates throughout this year. Unlike the Splitgate’s initial rocky start—which was only because of its unexpected popularity—the extended open beta offering features an increased server cap to support the overwhelming demand. Downloads for the beta have reached over 10 million in its first month post-release. 1047 Games also plans for “a significant announcement for players” at gamescom 2021 later this month.
The Portal-inspired first-person shooter has seen a significant increase in players, going from an initial 4,000 concurrent players to more than 175,000 in just a few short days. It became so popular that the initialopen beta had to be taken offline due to servers reaching their max capacity. 1047 Games would later go on to delay the official launch of Splitgate to work on the server capacity. An official release date for Splitgate has not been announced as the beta gets extended.
According to studio CEO Ian Proulx, the team has been working to “create a stable platform where fans can expect to find a server to play on relatively quickly.” Notably, server congestion and long matchmaking times had plagued the open beta after its initial opening because of this massive interest. However, the studio notes it has rolled out daily and regular “minor upgrades and bug fixes” in order to solve these issues. Proulx states:
In looking at the issues facing the scalability of the game’s backend, the process includes far more than simply dealing with server capacity. We are focused on keeping the game stable for fans, and iterating on the game’s concurrent capacity in order to minimize player wait times. We want to do this the right way, and we want to be prepared for massive scale when we officially launch, all the while continuing to improve the beta with frequent updates, additional features, and improvements to server capacity.
1047 Games has also added a new Ranked Duos mode to Splitgate today, along with the extended open beta and new server rollouts. Splitgate is currently available on the PS4 and PS5 via backwards compatibility, with a native PS5 version planned at a later date, once these server hiccups have been ironed out.
