While we knew Splitgate was going to be announcing a world premiere during Gamescom’s Opening Night Live show, we weren’t expecting the game’s first season of content to launch immediately. Season 0 has added a new Contamination game mode, a brand new Karman Station map, and the game’s first Battle Pass.
Contamination Mode matches begin with a contaminated player who is armed solely with a melee weapon. Any other players killed by the contaminated player will also become contaminated themselves. Uninfected players can defend themselves with a shotgun. Points are gained for all kills regardless of which side you’re on and the game ends when all players have become infected.
Karman Station is an “open galactic playground set in outer space” and is the latest map to be added to the game. There’s a large open area in the center that’s overlooked by a sniper tower on the map’s outer edge. The team controlling the sniper tower can track the movements of the opposing team more easily. However, they still don’t have any advantages over the objectives in the tighter corridors and rooms.
The game’s first Battle Pass introduces 100 levels of rewards for players to unlock and premium challenges available only to Battle Pass owners. The challenges are more difficult than the daily and weekly challenges but the rewards for completion are greater. Outside of the Battle Pass, there are free challenges for all players and hundreds of new weapon skins, armor skins, banners, and jetpacks. There’s also a range of premium DLCs including a new starter character and weapon packs.
Splitgate has achieved overwhelming success, reaching 10 million downloads since its release in open beta on consoles. The game stormed to the top of the free-to-play PlayStation Store charts but the unexpected demand caused the servers to reach their maximum capacity of 65,536 concurrent players. After a brief offline period to extend server capacity and an extra $10 million in funding, the game returned to PS4. A PS5 version is promised for the future.
[Source: 1047 Games]
