Splitgate’s new season has already started

Splitgate has technically been out for over two years, but its recent move onto console and into open beta has revived the free-to-play shooter, raising its profile on Twitch and elsewhere. In fact, two years after its early access release it’s finally getting new seasons of content. The first season, dubbed season 0, has already started and was announced on Wednesday during Gamescom’s Opening Night Live presentation.

Splitgate has had battle passes before, but this new opt-in is full of cosmetic items for players to unlock. It’s accompanied by a new patch, which contains with a few much needed balance and quality-of-life tweaks. One thing players will likely notice right away about the cosmetics in that they’re significantly better than the ones developer 1047 Games has previously released.

As for the actual changes, season 0’s first patch adds a whole new map to the game called Karman Station. This new map is a reimagined version of the game’s original Outpost map. The new season also introduces the new Contamination mode, which pits contaminated players, who can only use melee weapons, against so-called “human” players who have shotguns. Every time a human dies, they join the contaminated team until the end of the match — or until every human becomes infected.

One downside to this new patch is how hard it’s been for players to actually log in and play it. That may simply be evidence of its increased popularity. Nevertheless, ever since the announcement of the new season during Gamescom, Splitgate’s servers have had a queue time that folks have had to wait through in order to log in. While it’s a little frustrating not to be able to log in right away, there are worse problems to have than being too popular.

For a closer look at all the changes in Splitgate’s season 0, you can check out the official patch notes.

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Splitgate season 0 patch notes

New Features

New map

• Karman Station — A reimagining of the original map, Outpost. Karman Station replaces Outpost on our roster of Maps. Those of you who played before the Beta will recognize the similarities, but most importantly, the improvements!

New battle pass

• Season 0 Battle Pass — The Battle Pass has 100 Levels of brand-new items, exclusive to the Pass! Included in the Pass are: New Armors, Weapon Skins, Name Tags, Banners, and a Portal Skin! Season Challenges are fully unlocked with the BP!

New game modes

• Contamination — New asymmetrical mode with two teams. The “Contaminated” team starts with Bats only and seeks to frag the “Human” team, who have shotguns. When a Human team member dies, they respawn on the Contaminated team. Game ends when time runs out or if all players are contaminated.
• Casual Team Rumble — A new casual playlist with various game modes too wacky for normal casual! Game modes include Contamination, Big Head Snipers, Splitball, and more!

General update

• Final Kill Cam — Feature added by popular demand, you can now see the final kill of the game!

Balance changes

• Pistol Rework — Balance Changes: Fully Auto, .125 fire rate,15.5 body, 17.5 head

Quality-of-life changes

• Aim Assist slider — Some of you requested that you be able to turn off/scale down the Aim Assist for controllers. 100% Aim Assist = what the Aim Assist has been before this update.
• Overtime — King of the Hill, VIP, and Oddball now has Overtime.
• Doing all Daily Challenges gives a drop.
• New Referral Pass — 9 Levels with new items! New referrals will only count towards the new referral pass.
• Custom Games Browser — added searching and filtering.
• You can now shoot portals through the bodies of allies.
• Killcam is enabled in all modes now (ex: SWAT). We saw your petition.

Ranked Modes

• Ranks — More Elo Divisions have been added. i.e. ELO 3000 =Diamond 1, ELO 3300 = Diamond 4, etc.

Game updates

• Team switching — custom games option for switching teams during the match.
• Pickup zone text visibility improvements.
• Updated Hills and DOM points on certain maps.
• Hill Mesh updated.

Bug fixes:

• Beta BP bug fixed — You can equip items 11-15 from the Beta Battle Pass in your locker. (Beta Fish is happy)
• Footstep audio fixed.
• Numerous miscellaneous bug fixes.
• More server optimizations.