Splitgate 2 will add bum slides and time-altering bubbles to its portal-hopping shootsing

rockpapershotgun.com:

The first Splitgate was a cracker mash-up of Halo multiplayer gunfights and Portal's nifty spacetime windows. It was a gimmick that made flanking fun again, at least until you died to a distant rifle that was right next to you all along. Its sequel, Splitgate 2 is continuing that gimmick but is also sprucing up the free-to-play arena shooter with a few modern additions, like bum-sliding around corners and big deployable bubbles called "time domes" that slow down your enemies yet speed up your allies. All this and more comes from a gameplay trailer that went up yesterday.

There you have it. Basically, the 4v4 arena shooter is adding character abilities, which you can mix and match according to faction. One faction, Aeros, is all about moving fast with a speedy sprinting ability and a faster reload time, popping stims to keep themselves alive. The bulky Sabrask faction get sticky grenades and a pop-up "smart shield" that blocks enemy bullets but allows their own to pass through. And the healing-focused Meridian can briefly spot folks through walls. There's also a "health grenade" suggesting you'll be able to blast buds with feel-good sparkles from afar. Plus that "time dome", which speeds up friendly player movement (and shooting) while they stand inside. Enemies who enter will feel the opposite effect, slowing down noticeably, which I imagine makes it a decent area denial tactic as well as a support option. Cool.

As you can probably tell from the trailer, it seems to be taking an esportsy angle. I'm more of a casual bullet basker, so seeing a cadre of Twitch streamers doing call-outs does nothing for me in terms of excitement. And if this is the approach, I can't help but fear some of the scrappy fun of the first game will be sanded away in favour of clinical and competitive match-ups. I know it's early days for this sequel (we've only seen one other cinematic trailer) but there are no signs of daft stuff like the rocket launchers and baseball bats that made the