Vidjama Gmaes Work

The complete idiocy of one man.

Let’s get one thing straight; getting your foot in the door at Summer Games Fest is not cheap. We’re talking six figures for any reasonable amount of time to get on stage and pitch your video game. It’s a presence that indie games can only dream of without some fat-wallet backing your title. So when you get that opportunity, you kinda want people talking about your game.

Seems logical to me.

Splitgate 2 made an appearance at Summer Game Fest, and thanks to the speech by CEO Ian Proulx nobody is really talking about Splitgate 2. You could spend hours reading the feed on Bluesky and have no clue what the game is about. Not a fantastic outcome on launch day. Even the reviews of Splitgate 2 are having a hard time talking about the gameplay.

If you looked at the header image you already know where I’m going with this. Proulx decided it would be a great idea to go up on stage wearing a “Make FPS Great Again,” which would be a terrible choice in and of itself if he didn’t also opt for the Elon Musk themed black color hat.

But like an onion soaked in lighter fluid and roasted to the point of charcoal, Proulx’s speech at SGF has layers of inedible slop. In attempting to endear himself to the crowd, Ian name-dropped Halo and Titanfall 3, and then complained about how he doesn’t want to play “the same Call of Duty every year”. And then we can get into their big surprise announcement.

It’s battle royale, an announcement so uninspired it legally counts as a blood thinner. Announcing battle royale for your game is roughly on par with a new restaurant making a big deal over the free plate of bread they put on your table. Actually I take that back, restaurant bread is a much bigger reason to celebrate.

I’d screw on the first date for endless cheddar bay biscuits from Red Lobster or a few loaves of bread from Outback Steakhouse. Hit me up, fellas.

Since we’re already this deep I suppose I can mention the Imagine Dragons remix used in the trailer.

This comment from the trailer is going to haunt me.

“Maybe don’t have a guy walking out looking like a highschooler from the early 2010s that really wants to start a podcast revolving around the annoying orange.”

There’s a hundred reasons to shit on Proulx for coming out and talking about making shooters great again and then giving us Splitgate 2 and its battle royale mode, but again nobody is talking about the game itself. Dude’s company spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to have the internet talk about his $40 hat.

Money well spent.