EMPULSE | 1047 Games Reveals 6v6 Movement Shooter With Mechs, Wall-Running, and a $30 Price Tag

1047 Games, the studio behind the portal-hopping shooter Splitgate, has revealed its next project: EMPULSE, a 6v6 first-person movement shooter set in a post-utopian megacity. A 40-second cinematic trailer dropped today ahead of a full in-engine gameplay reveal scheduled for the PC Gaming Show on June 7, 2026.

Who Is Making EMPULSE

EMPULSE is developed by 1047 Games, the indie studio that built Splitgate, a free-to-play shooter that fused Halo-style gunplay with portal mechanics and peaked at over 600,000 concurrent players during its 2021 beta surge.

The road since then has been turbulent. In late 2024, 1047 Games began developing Splitgate 2, only to quietly un-launch the project and reboot the studio's direction entirely. Rather than iterate further on portals, the team has pivoted hard into a new genre: the mech-and-movement arena shooter. EMPULSE is the result of that reset.

The Movement Toolkit | Wall-Running, Grapples, and Holojumps

Set in the post-utopian streets of a megacity district called Freehold, EMPULSE is built entirely around momentum and verticality. Players take the role of mercenaries equipped with a full toolkit for high-speed traversal:

• Wall-running across vertical surfaces
• Grapple hooks for swinging across open gaps
• Holojumps, which function more like snowboard half-pipes than traditional jump pads, designed specifically to preserve and amplify existing momentum rather than reset it
• P.A.I.N.T. bombs for environmental manipulation and creating new traversal surfaces on the fly

The combination places EMPULSE firmly in the lineage of Titanfall 2, widely regarded as the gold standard of movement shooters. Whether 1047 can match that game's feel will be the central question heading into the full gameplay reveal.

The Mechs | A Contested Map Objective, Not a Killstreak

Here is where EMPULSE separates itself from its most obvious influence. In Titanfall, every pilot earns a titan through combat performance on a timer, creating a predictable escalation loop. EMPULSE takes a fundamentally different approach.

Mechs in EMPULSE spawn on the map every few minutes as contested, neutral objectives. No individual player earns one automatically. Instead, both 6-player Crews fight to control the spawn point, with the winning team gaining access to the mech as a shared power spike.

The developers have compared the feeling to fighting over the Rocket Launcher in classic Halo, a power weapon that can swing a match but requires your team to coordinate around securing it. The mech is a prize, not a perk.

EMPULSE Pricing | Under $30, No Microtransactions in Early Access

Unlike Splitgate, which launched as a free-to-play title, EMPULSE will be a paid game. In a recent community AMA, the 1047 Games team confirmed the following:

• Price will be under $30 at Steam Early Access launch
• No microtransactions planned during the Early Access period
• Available at Early Access launch on PC (Steam), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S

The under-$30 price point with no live-service monetization is a deliberate positioning choice in a genre that has increasingly moved toward battle passes and cosmetic stores. It places EMPULSE closer to a premium indie release than a traditional live-service shooter.

PC System Requirements | Accessible Hardware Floor

1047 Games has kept the minimum spec surprisingly low, making EMPULSE accessible well beyond the current hardware generation.

Spec	Minimum	Recommended
OS	Windows 10 (64-bit)	Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit)
CPU	Intel Core i3-6100, i5-2500K or AMD Ryzen 3 1200	Intel Core i5-6600K, i7-4770 or AMD Ryzen 5 1400
RAM	8 GB	12 GB
GPU	NVIDIA GTX 960 or AMD RX 470	NVIDIA GTX 1060 or AMD RX 580
DirectX	Version 11	Version 11
Network	Broadband Internet	Broadband Internet

The minimum GPU requirement of a GTX 960 or RX 470 is hardware that is nearly a decade old at this point. That accessibility, combined with the sub-$30 price, suggests 1047 Games is prioritizing a large early player base over technical showcasing.

Why This Matters | 1047 Games Has Something to Prove

The story of 1047 Games is one of the stranger arcs in recent indie gaming. Splitgate's 2021 beta explosion gave the studio a brief moment as a potential Halo-killer. It didn't hold. The game's population declined, Splitgate 2 was announced and then quietly shelved, and the studio went dark for months.

EMPULSE is the comeback attempt, and the early signals are genuinely interesting. The mech-as-objective design is a smarter structural choice than simply cloning Titanfall's timer system. The no-microtransaction Early Access commitment, if honored, positions the game against the industry's worst habits. And the movement toolkit on paper covers every major mechanic that made Titanfall 2's campaign and multiplayer feel irreplaceable.

The full gameplay reveal at the PC Gaming Show on June 7, 2026 will be the real test. Cinematic trailers set a tone. Gameplay footage answers the actual question: does it feel as good as it looks?

Coverage by Max DeLeonardis, Gaming Reporter at OzoneNews. Follow our video games hub for the PC Gaming Show recap on June 7.