"We Want To Do This The Right Way": Splitgate Has No Plans To Leave Open Beta Anytime Soon

Splitgate is a free-to-play game that's in open beta -- and developer 1047 Games plans to keep it like that for a long time. In a recent press release, CEO Ian Proulx said that his company will be "iterating on the game's concurrent capacity in order to minimize player wait times." As such, its full release is being delayed indefinitely.

Splitgate has exploded in popularity following its release into open beta, crushing the game servers, which are now largely stable. "We want to do this the right way," Proulx said, "and we want to be prepared for massive scale when we officially launch, all the while continuing to improve the beta with frequent updates, additional features, and improvements to server capacity."

Long-time readers of MMOBomb will know that we typically consider a free-to-play game in open beta -- especially one with a working cash shop -- to have officially launched, because there's no tangible difference between the two; talk of "working with fans to create a better game" is something that goes on before, during, and after the "official" launch, and the "we're in beta" excuse is usually trotted out just to excuse bugs and poor implementation of game mechanics, both of which can still exist after "launch."

In this case, however, I'm willing to give Splitgate at least a bit of a pass. Going from a few hundred to tens of thousands of players isn't the sort of thing that any company can truly prepare for, and server instability isn't something you can just code in. Eventually, that most pressing issue will be solved, however -- and 1047 certainly has the resources to do so -- and once that happens, we'll go back to being cynical about Splitgate's indeterminable "open beta."