A good shot will only get you so far in Splitgate, the new online sensation that players have been waiting hours (or more) to play. Splitgate is another type of online hardcore shooter because thinking with portals is the most important way to play. Splitgate is Call of Duty crossed with Portal, throwing you into a sci-fi arena where you can place portals for an insane shooting opportunity. Portals can be used to launch you into battle at insane speeds, for quick getaways, or for old-school camping. How you use portals will determine your performance in ranked play.
And that's a lot to understand. If you've never played Splitgate but want to get started now that the game is spreading across the internet like wildfire, we've got some tips to help you out. There's no better time to get into the game. It's a totally F2P experience, with an open beta being pre-launched right now. Some things might change, but at this stage of the game adjustments will be minor just to balance things out for competitive players. The portal meta isn't going away anytime soon – and figuring out how to portal (and where) is your best bet for success.
The Splitgate Beta is available now. You can download Splitgate for free via Steam here.
Sneaky Portal Cheats
The most important part of Splitgate is how you use your portals. The sneaky portal cheats are the most fun part of the game - so we're starting there. The portal is also the most advanced part of the game, but it never hurts to start learning the right portal game from the start!
- #1. Drop a portal at spawn. Easy escape options for later. Leave one in place and ready for later.
- #2. Use portals to create monitoring. You can drop a portal in a high place or in a hallway to get an extra view of the area. Be careful, enemies can also come through your portals – and they can shoot you. Don't just stay on your portal!
- #3. Place portals high up when camping. Why? Crouch and you can look through the portal without revealing your whole body. No need to shoot a portal directly against a wall. Make it high so you don't reveal your whole hitbox.
- #4. Create a portal that you don't intend to use. Enemies often stop to look inside. Gives you an easy shot for a steady gun kill.
- #5. Shoot any open portal. Especially if the gate is high. An enemy is probably using it for camping.
- #6. Drop a portal behind an enemy. Fake that you create a new ambush point, then push as usual for the kill.
- #7. Place a portal on a critical wall just to deny the location. If you play a portal, enemies cannot ignore it until you close it. Sometimes denying the enemy a useful portal point is more important to your team.
There's a lot more you need to know about Splitgate, and learning can be tough when you're stuck playing sweaty players.
#8. Improve your key combination on PC
Splitgate requires a lot of buttons. Determining the most efficient configuration is difficult with M+Ko, so here are some suggestions from veteran players. It's all up to you, the trick is just to find a setup you're comfortable with. The most important buttons to understand are placing portals and closing portals.
- Mouse wheel up/down: Place the portals
- Q/E: Close the portals
- Middlemouse: Grenade
Even if you play on consoles, a wired (or some wireless) keyboard can be used. If you don't want to use a controller exclusively, you don't have to, no matter what platform you're on.
#9. Training The Fundamentals
Aiming is important, but not as important as you think. Much more important is portal placement and learning where players come from (and how they move). Using portals can be tricky, so you'll need to practice the basics like basic shooting and map traversal. To do this, you can play these modes.
- Play King of the Hill / Domination to learn the cards. These modes require you to move around and explore the entire map.
- Play TO CRUSH Mode to improve headshots or use Carbine to practice.
- Play gun game to get an idea of the different weapons and moves. This mode tends to be played by less hardcore players due to the randomness, so you can get a better feel for portal movement and placement.
#ten. Survive longer as a beginner
If you die a lot, try to stick with another player. It seems obvious. Try to enter the commitment 2v1 and watch your team. Stay close and see how they use their portals. Learning where your friends and enemies place portals is key – you can pull off some pretty nefarious portal action.
Always seek blue walls so that you can quickly escape in a bad situation. Just leaving half a portal in one place can be very helpful in retreating. Don't forget to close the gate!
#11. Hotswap to shoot faster
Not so important, but still important – tapping fire while quickly swapping between your two weapons allows you to fire faster. This is especially useful with slow to recover weapons like shotguns and sniper rifles. Basically this trick will kill in Sniper fashion.
This is only a (very small) fraction of what you need to learn to conquer in Splitgate, but these tips should get you started with some great ideas in mind. Thinking with portals is too important to ignore.
