I played splitgate 1 and 2 since the beginning (and I am still checking it out sometimes).
My feeling is that they launched too early and they wasted too much time on their battle royale mode, probably trying to attract compulsive spenders kids.
Linux got added shortly after launch, before BR got added if I remember right, which is fair for a beta/early access. But IMHO it went out of beta way too quickly, before they fixed many of the complaints. When they realized they fucked up, they went back into beta and tried to relaunch later (weird move, and probably turned off many of the remaining players).
IMHO the game problem is that they made it revolve a lot around BR, with not enough map variety for normal arena modes. They clearly wanted BR to be the mode everyone plays most. The arena maps had a distinct lack of portal surfaces, and BR was also weird with a limited amount of portals available, which defeats the game’s selling point. The fans of the game also wanted an arena shooter, not another fortnite.
Nowadays arena is much better with more maps (they brought back some of the splitgate 1 maps), progression is no longer locked in strange ways and more modes are there.
It’s a shame they failed so badly that they had to lay off people.
Yes, such a shame. I really wanted them to succeed.