Mario Bautista
Splitgate 2 launched a battle royale mode live at Summer Game Fest today. 1047 Games CEO and co-founder Ian Proulx took the stage himself to announce the news while slamming the state of shooters. Almost immediately, reactions to the segment weren’t as much about Splitgate 2 as Proulx’s peculiar fashion choice: a black “MAKE FPS GREAT AGAIN” hat.
In response to negative reactions to the CEO’s donning of the Trump slogan riff, Proulx said to take the hat at face value.
“I’m not here to apologize but I am here to clarify. This is not a political statement, it is quite literally what it says, so take it at face value,” Proulx said via the official Splitgate X account. “The state of multiplayer FPS games is tragically stale. We hope to fix that, whether you want Arena, Battle Royale, Onslaught, or Map Creator.”
Alongside the statement was a photo of a smiling Proulx with the MFPSGA hat and a thumbs up, which strikes me as a cavalier response to the suggestion from critics that invoking the decade’s most politically-charged combination of words has significance beyond face value.
Meanwhile, players were surprised to find that today’s Splitgate 2 battle royale update also included a shop refresh with an $80 skin bundle, far in a way the most expensive item sold in the free-to-play FPS yet. An influx of Splitgate 2 players checking out the battle royale also caused XP to break again. 1047 says it’s working on a fix.
