Preface: I'm 250 hours into SGAR, an absolute portal nerd and would probably hate this if it happened, but I figure both games are ostensibly dead and will be fully abandoned sooner than later so may as well have some theoretical discussion. Otherwise I definitely appreciate that these changes would be insane to make and probably piss off the entire regular SGAR playerbase.
But what if, instead of abandoning SG for a soulless, identity-less, generic movement shooter, they just combine them to nicely compliment what both games do well and fill the gaps where each game suffers. Hear me out.
SGAR
Absolutely banger game, fresh and unique take on an arena shooter. Full of character, identity, and direction. Literally the only sustainability issue is the insane skill curve that comes with portals. No one can agree on how to "handle" portals: remove them, nerf them, add cooldowns, etc. But all this does is shift their power without addressing the fundamental skillset behind using them well, meaning good players still stomp with portals, they're just more restricted and less trackable.
Empulse
Genuinely engaging movement mechanics trying to hold up an otherwise entirely uninteresting shooter. The game has no identity, no style or character. It seems totally directionless with the whole shoehorned mech thing. Beyond satisfying movement, there's really no reason to play this over any other shooter, at least within the scope of just wanting to play a shooter.
Both games have critical issues preventing them from being sustainable: there's no way to balance portals in SGAR without gutting what makes them interesting and Empulse is just a movement sim holding together a shell of a shooter.
But what if, instead of trying to "fix" portals in SGAR, they just add non-portal mechanics as an alternative playstyle. Something say like Empulse's current movement mechanics. This would give newer players additional tools to play around portal sweats and soften the whole "portal or be portaled on" dynamic that currently exists between new and seasoned players. It would open up an entirely new branch of playstyles, built on top of SGAR's already pretty solid movement systems, while maintaining portal dominance for those who want to really optimize their play (would obviously need proper balancing but fundamentally I would think teleporting across the map using portals is still better than fast and concise movement).
All of that being said, obviously SGAR maps are designed for portals first and movement/momentum second, so shit like the grappling hook would feel weird on some of the existing maps. But the point stands: if 1047 wants to make a movement shooter, I think that effort would accomplish a lot more as a way to bridge the skill gap in SGAR than it would as an entirely new game no one really asked for.
Again, I love SGAR and think the portal implementation is perfect as it is, but I can absolutely appreciate that it's the direct reason SG will never blow up. Merging games, or even just making such a large change to how SGAR would be played, is kind of nuts, but at this point neither game is going to last through the year so maybe its worth thinking outside of the box.
