Splitgate evokes your favorite memories of the most-revered shooters of the past two decades, embracing the classic and familiar feel of arena multiplayer with a multi-directional twist. Splitgate: Arena Warfare’s world-bending portal mechanic lets players instantly create and link gateways around the map, encouraging and rewarding constant jetpack-boosted movement, strategic flanking and ambushes, and action that truly embraces all 360 degrees. It also looks really cool.

Splitgateis designed to be equally accessible to first-time and veteran FPS players, with an infinitely high skill cap that will take players hundreds of hours to refine and master. Splitgate is built in Unreal Engine 4 by 1047 Games, a passionate group of Halo fans, whose experience and love for the genre transcends the typical development team.

1047 Games announced that Splitgate Beta Season 1 launches Jan. 27, featuring an array of new features, modes and enhancements including a custom map creator. Also coming in Beta Season 1 is a completely reimagined Foregone Destruction map, bringing the arena up to an exemplary standard to which the whole game will eventually evolve. New item and weapon designs are also set to make their way into Season 1’s launch, alongside a new 100 Level Battle Pass, new characters, banners, spray and two entirely new game modes: Evolution and One Flag Capture-the-Flag.

Splitgate Beta Season 1’s introduction of a custom map creator allows players to create and play their own maps, including the ability to co-create and share maps with friends. The map creator gives players the option to create and place objects, weapons, spawns, building blocks, portal walls, and more and also allows rotation and magnetic-snapping between scenery to make placing objects easier. Featuring fully customizable controller and mouse and keyboard support, the map creator can be accessed by all players.

“Our custom map creator will continue to evolve alongside the rest of the game,” said Ian Proulx, CEO of 1047 Games. “We’re looking at the map creator as an evolutionary tool driven by the community - it’s a robust feature for fans to play with day one of our new season, and we’re really interested in hearing feedback from the community regarding the types of features and tools they want.”

Beta Season 1 is also introducing a complete reimagining of the Foregone Destruction map, which sees eye-popping fidelity and an overall design that is indicative of what fans can expect in future updates to other maps in the game, as well as what they can expect when new maps come online. Accompanying that change is a brand new Evolution Game Mode, which is a round based mode where each round, the team that lost the previous round gets improved weapon loadouts. Also being introduced with Beta Season 1 is the One Flag Capture-the-Flag mode, which is a round based version of Capture-the-Flag where one team defends the flag and one team tries to capture it. The teams take turns on offense and defense and the team with the most rounds won wins the match. Evolution and One Flag Capture-the-Flag bring the total of game modes offered by Splitgate to 21.

Rounding out the new game modes, Splitgate Beta Season 1 also unveiled a new simulation map, Hotel, which is used in 3v3 modes like Takedown, Showdown, and the new mode Evolution. 

Fans can look forward to an all-new Level 100 Battle Pass which features some free content and some paid content for fans to optimize their play styles. Fans will also be treated to new free gun skins like the Epic Starlight Shotgun which will effectively take out your enemies at close range, and the awesome Rare Glitch Launcher, which is as deadly as it is colorful.

Constant movement is encouraged and rewarded as players strategically place portals to FLY, FLANK and FRAG through the air to create incredible, previously-impossible highlights.

Players start each match with the same loadout, eliminating any unfair advantages from the start. Power weapons spawn on a timer across the map, and players are encouraged to use these powerful weapons to achieve montage-worthy killstreaks.

Standard FPS controls and intuitive portal mechanics mean beginners are up and running right off the bat. However, players must constantly evolve strategies and their ability to think with portals in order to outsmart one another. The skill cap is unlimited.

Splitgate launches with cross-play for PC (Steam), Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PS5 and PS4.