Splitgate 2 Director Refuses to Apologize for ‘Make FPS Great Again Hat’, Then Apologizes Anyway

Splitgate 2, 1047 Games’ “Halo with portals”, launched just last week, marked by a celebratory announcement of a battle royale mode at Summer Game Fest. But while this should have been a triumphant moment for the studio and the community, the launch has instead been marked by not one, not two, but three different controversies that have led to mixed Steam reviews, disappointed fans, and a game community divided between those who support the studio’s actions and those who have been put off from playing Splitgate 2 at all.

First, at the game’s big battle royale reveal at Summer Game Fest, Proulx wore a hat that read, “Make FPS Great Again” onstage, which drew criticism for its reference to U.S. President Donald Trump’s signature “Make America Great Again” hats, which come with significant political baggage. Then, Proulx called out Call of Duty in his speech onstage, saying he’s “tired of playing the same Call of Duty every year,” which drew ire from developers and fans of Call of Duty. And then on top of that, as the game launched, fans immediately called out a $145 microtransaction bundle on the game’s store that seemed to fly in the face of everything 1047 Games claimed it stood for.

I spoke to game director Ian Proulx in the wake of all this, and found him surprisingly sanguine for a company leader currently in the spotlight.

“So, I am surprised, to be honest, to dive right into it, we didn't expect this to be nearly as controversial as it was and we didn't intend for it to be,” he said. “In terms of the numbers, there have been good numbers, there's been a lot of negativity, but also positivity to match that people love the game. We just crossed the two and a half million player threshold, we tripled our player count. So there's good and bad, I think time will tell mixed emotions for sure, but overall feeling good.”

Obviously, I had to start by asking him about the hat. What was that all about?

“I'll start by saying, we talked a lot about this, we did not intend for this to be any sort of political statement,” Proulx replied. “I mean, I think we meant for it to be taken at face value, which is, we're not happy with the state of FPS games. I myself, as a gamer, my friends and I, we talk about how bored we are. We thought this was... It's something that's been meme'd to death. Even three months ago, Hideo Kojima had a hat that said, ‘Make TV great again.’ And his hat was red and there was no controversy there, so we talked about it, and we thought, okay, maybe some people will take it the wrong way, but it's been meme'd to death. It kind of says what we feel, which is we want to just make an awesome game and we're not happy with the state of FPS.”

I pointed out to Proulx that the MAGA hat and its message have become associated for many with feelings of discomfort and even fear due to current political events. I also noted the protests going on just a few miles away from Summer Game Fest, where Los Angelenos were taking to the streets to defend their immigrant neighbors from ongoing raids by ICE under President Trump’s orders, and where the National Guard is being deployed despite protests remaining largely peaceful. What does Proulx say to Splitgate fans and community members who felt genuinely emotionally distraught seeing the hat, in light of all that?

“I think the best I can say is we're not trying to send any sort of political message and we're moving on from this,” he replied. “Our intent is, we just want to make a great game, we want to listen to the fans, we've always been all about the community. And that's not just community in terms of listening to feedback to make the game better, but it's also in terms of making a community that people want to be a part of where the devs are engaging with the players, it's a positive community and so that's our ambition. Obviously, right now, it doesn't feel that way but we're getting back to our focus and that's what our focus is. So we're putting this behind us, we're moving forward, we're just going to keep listening to the community and making a great game.”

I pushed one more time on this topic, noting that in a tweet Proulx said he was “not here to apologize”, and here he seemed to be deliberately avoiding apologizing as well. He confirmed that was the case.

“I don't regret what I said to be candid. I think that I stand by it and my intent is I'm speaking my truth and my intent is to make a great game for everybody.”

My interview with Proulx, where he committed to not apologizing, took place on Sunday. Today, however, Proulx posted another video… apologizing.

“I want to apologize. And genuinely, you don’t have to believe me. But the truth is I am sorry. And the reason I am sorry is because of what this has done to the community. The most important thing to me right now is I want to have an amazing community… I hate seeing division. And that’s what I’m seeing now, on both sides. There’s division in the community, and for that I am truly sorry. And again, I’ll reiterate, I do stand by the intent of this, which is, the intent truly is, take it at face value. We do want to improve this genre. We do feel that the genre is in a bad state. And we want to make FPS games as amazing as possible. But I also understand that it’s not just about intent, it’s about impact, and the platform that we have had has had a negative impact, and for that I’m truly sorry.”

No excuses, I'm sorry. pic.twitter.com/4dgOxrSXUJ— Splitgate 2 (@Splitgate) June 10, 2025

Back to our interview, we moved on to the second part of the controversy: Proulx’s comments on the shooter genre and specifically his mention of the Call of Duty franchise. During his speech onstage at the event, Proulx said, "I grew up playing Halo. And I'm tired of playing the same Call of Duty every year, and I wish we could have Titanfall 3." In response, he’s received criticism from Splitgate fans, Call of Duty fans, and developers both for using his platform at the show to disparage other video games, as well as for calling out Call of Duty when Splitgate 2 contains many of the same features, including the free-to-play battle royale mode Proulx revealed onstage.

On this front, Proulx admits his studio went too far in a response on Twitter to a Call of Duty developer who criticized his remarks. The developer tweeted, “‘make fps great again’ and its splitgate”, prompting the official Splitgate account to quote tweet it with, “Which Call of Duty does your team make again? I can’t tell them apart.” Both tweets have since been deleted, and Proulx said he was not the person behind that particular remark.

“Yeah, so I will say there was a tweet that we put out that we have since deleted, and I will apologize for that one. I mean, everything is on me of course as the CEO, that was not my post. My posts are me, right? They're videos of me, I try to be really just honest and off-script and just talk to the fans directly, but there's no excuse for that one and we did take it down.”

Regardless, Proulx stood by what he said onstage. He said he doesn’t have a specific beef with Call of Duty, but misses the “good old days” of the game. I asked him what that means, and he said he misses the “newness and the innovation”, citing Call of Duty 4. “And then Modern Warfare 2 taking it to the next level, whether it was the campaign, the multiplayer, all the skins to grind for, the lack of skill-based matchmaking where you just felt like it was very organic. And it feels like there's sort of a lack of innovation now that they're putting out quality and polish, but they're not necessarily pushing the bar forward.”

Finally, there’s the microtransactions. Splitgate 2 is free-to-play with microtransactions, and when it launched on June 6, players immediately began expressing their displeasure over one particular microtransaction: a $145 bundle, discounted to $80 for launch. 1047 Games cut the price dramatically down to $40 almost immediately, along with the prices of a number of other items.

Then, in a video published just before our interview took place, Proulx apologized for the pricing situation, saying he only learned about the bundle pricing shortly after he got offstage at Summer Game Fest. He attested that 1047 Games’ former head of monetization, who “happened to come from Call of Duty”, had been “very aggressive on the pricing,” and that prices had been even higher before. After his departure from the company, Proulx claimed 1047 leadership did a reevaluation of the pricing and lowered most prices, but “things slipped through the cracks.”

Why we went from $80 to $40. pic.twitter.com/8VC7Ku1qHQ— Splitgate 2 (@Splitgate) June 8, 2025

I asked him how he, as head of the company, was unaware of the pricing of bundles for the game he was launching. Proulx reiterated that he took responsibility for what happened, saying he had been “very focused on getting through the beta.”

“We got through beta, we had other fires to attend to so I was focused on servers and just trying to get us through that. I was not thinking at all about monetization because I was just like, we're not going to make any money, it doesn't even matter if people can't play the game. And so that was where my head was at for the last two weeks was like, we got to just make sure this game is great, fix the servers, keep the lights on, fix the issues. Okay, we've made it barely, now we've got to go launch this game. And then it was a kind of, what the fuck moment, like how did we not catch this?”

I pointed to Proulx’s comment in the video that the person he alleges is responsible had previously worked on Call of Duty, which seemed to fit with accusations that he was taking shots at the game. Proulx replied that it was “a funny coincidence, but a hundred percent the truth.”

We talked a bit more about what happened, with Proulx reiterating that 1047 Games never intends to do anything like that expensive bundle ever again, and that they’re refunding players who already purchased it.

“Whether you like my original statement or not, that is what I am trying to accomplish here, and I don't need to talk about the statement anymore,” he says. “What I'm trying to accomplish here is I want to build a brand, and a community, and a product that people want to support where we are listening, that's the best way to do it. That's not how it's done anymore, and that is how I want to do it. You tell us your feedback, we're going to take that to heart, we're going to iterate, and we're going to actually take action quickly. We're not going to sit around and wait for the proper PR statement. That's why a lot of times when we talk to the players, I don't have a script, I just turn my phone on and we just find out what comes out of my mouth and that's what we go with.”

To wrap it up, I asked Proulx if he’s learned anything from this trifecta of incidents. He’s made it clear 1047 Games doesn’t intend to offer expensive bundles in the future, but what about the Call of Duty comments and the Make FPS Great Again hat? Will this incident inform how he presents himself in the future?

“Yes,” Proulx said. “So I'd say the biggest lesson, just kind of realizing the platform that we have, it's got a lot more weight than we realized and also just the seriousness of everything in this day and age. We intended to put out a meme, we intended to put out something that summarized how we feel, truly, but also it was a joke. It's a joke that's been done to death and has literally been done by Hideo Kojima, and we thought, well, this is a good data point for how a similar reaction will occur. We also specifically chose to do a black hat instead of a red one, not that that, I don't know if that makes a difference. So I think I've just kind of learned just the impact that little things like this can have on people and so we're trying to be very thoughtful about it going forward. And we're trying to get back to focusing, there's all this stuff in the air I just want to move on, I want to make a fun game. That's what we're going to do.”

Despite all the criticism, Proulx doesn’t feel that any of the issues over the last week have impacted Splitgate 2 as a game. “I think there's so many games that have done well over time that have had controversies, whatever it is. I think it did get us a lot of attention, whether good or bad and now it's on us as developers to improve and actually act on feedback. And so if we do that, I think we're going to succeed. And if we don't, I don't think any of this would've mattered.”

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.