Splitgate: Arena Reloaded Is A Ghost Town After One Final Desperate Rebrand
Watching 1047 Games try to resuscitate Splitgate is like watching someone try to jump-start a toaster in a bathtub.
I really wanted to believe that the portal-toting shooter had a second wind in it, but the numbers coming out of the "Arena Reloaded" launch are grim enough to make a reaper blush. We were promised a game that would make the FPS genre great again, and instead, we got a case study in how to alienate a fanbase through layoffs, expensive skins, and a total lack of identity. It is a fucking shame to see such a clever mechanic wasted on a project that seems determined to trip over its own feet.
The Numbers Do Not Lie
If you want to know how a game is actually doing, you look at the people actually playing it, and for Splitgate: Arena Reloaded, that list is getting shorter than a Jigsaw victim's life expectancy.
Steam and Twitch Collapse
When the rebrand hit on December 17, the game managed to pull in a modest 2,297 players on Steam, which is basically a rounding error for a major shooter. As of right now, that number has shriveled up to 390. That is not a community, that is a crowded elevator. On Twitch, the situation is even more pathetic, with barely 130 people watching a game that once boasted six-figure viewership. Nobody wants to play it, and even fewer people want to watch it die.
A History of Fumbles
You cannot point to just one mistake here because 1047 Games has been stumbling since they pulled the plug on the successful first game to chase a sequel that nobody really wanted.
Too Little Too Late
We have seen two rounds of layoffs in six weeks and microtransactions so expensive they should come with a mortgage application. Pulling Splitgate 2 back to beta in July was a massive red flag, but the rebrand to "Arena Reloaded" feels like a frantic paint job on a car that does not have an engine. The sentiment is lower than ever, and while some recent reviews are trying to be positive, the general consensus is that the ship has already hit the iceberg and the band has stopped playing.
The Final Fade Out
There is only so much "reimagining" a studio can do before the audience just stops caring entirely.
I honestly thought they might just go back and fix the first game, which actually worked, but instead they doubled down on a sequel that has become a black hole for player interest. It is a failure that feels earned, despite how much I enjoyed the original's loop. At this point, it feels like we are just waiting for the server lights to flicker out for good while the remaining 390 players wander through empty hallways. It is a quiet, lonely end for a game that was supposed to be the next big thing.