Sam (He/Him) is the former Managing Editor of DualShockers and is now Senior Reporter at TheGamer. He’s been in and around games media for six years now and has held a variety of roles within the industry, including staff writer, SEO editor, managing editor and global head of gaming content.
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Splitgate 2’s launch was a disaster. It failed to attract players, was forced to reduce an $80 (!!) cosmetic bundle, and its creator bound onto the Summer Game Fest stage wearing a hat that mimicked the controversial MAGA slogan. It all culminated in developer 1047 Games laying off staff, its co-founders taking no salary, and the game being taken offline for major reworks.
After promising to relaunch in 2026, Christmas came early for the 1047 team and Splitgate 2’s waning fan base, with the game launching early, on December 17. Apparently, absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder, though, as Splitgate 2’s relaunch, now called Splitgate: Arena Reloaded, has failed to attract even ten percent of the players it did when it launched earlier this year.
Splitgate: Arena Reloaded s Launch Has Been Even Worse Than Splitgate 2 s
You have to imagine the Splitgate team was hoping for big things with the launch of Splitgate: Arena Reloaded. If not big things, they’d have been expecting more than 2,300 players on day one, but unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
According to SteamDB, Splitgate: Arena Reloaded peaked at 2,297 players on the day it went live. The troubled Splitgate 2 hit a peak of 25,785. That’s less than 10 percent of its peak player count.
Of course, with a raft of improvements, including new maps, modes, and weapons, Splitgate: Arena Reloaded has time to rebuild its audience; it’s just not off to a stellar start.
The sentiment from those who did play following the relaunch seems to be relatively good, however. Over the last 24 hours, the game has received 140 positive reviews, compared to only 61 negative ones. One reviewer said, “The devs took an amazing experience, cut off all the bloat and fat, and left us with a clean, fast shooter with movement to rival Team Fortress 2,” while another added, “The updates made to Arena Reloaded are an enormous improvement over Splitgate 2. This feels much better and more tightly designed, much closer to the evolution of Splitgate that the game should’ve been to begin with.”
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Only time will tell if Splitgate: Arena Reloaded can reach the player base it needs to survive, but the early signs are decidedly mixed.
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