STANFORD, Calif. — 1047 Games developers explained today that their video game Splitgate draws influence from the Bungie Halo games as well as the Portal games for its gameplay, but draws from the nightmares of painter Pablo Picasso for its menus.
“We didn’t want to reinvent the wheel with Splitgate, which is why we went to the things we love. And for the gameplay, that’s obviously Halo 2 through Halo: Reach combined with the physics of Portal,” said 1047 Games co-founder Ian Proulx. “But for our menu system, we wanted to draw from something a little more surreal and complicated. At first, we were inspired by the menus of Final Fantasy XIV, but that seemed too easy. That’s why we chose to read from a dream journal of late painter Pablo Picasso, specifically searching for his nightmares, to find the sort of inspiration needed to come up with a rewards system that makes you click like fifteen buttons just to unlock a green skin for your assault rifle.”
Fans of the game, which is still in beta, were quick to spot Splitgate’s influences.
“Yeah, I don’t know if anyone has pointed this out yet, but the gameplay really reminded me of Halo meets Portal. Because the guns and stuff remind me of Halo, but the portals definitely seem pretty similar to the portals from Portal,” said streamer Janine Rankin. “The menus, however, didn’t remind me of Halo or Portal. They seemed dark and confusing — reminding me of something familiar, but not quite right — some sort of surrealist cubism, but more paranoid… I don’t know, maybe they reminded me of Skyrim?”
At press time, in an attempt to capitalize on the trend being created by Splitgate, 343 announced that Halo: Infinite would launch without any menus at all.