Halo Split-Screen Combat Is Coming Back

Megalith

Megalith

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Was there a reason for dropping this feature other than pure laziness? If you were a Halo player from the beginning, you would know that split-screen was one of the foundations for the game’s appeal and popularity. I guess they assumed that everyone would be happy with online play only, but the backlash is making them do things differently going forward. Personally, I am just happy we will finally be getting a proper Halo game on PC again—although the story in the last one was such garbage that I should care a lot less.

2015's Halo 5: Guardians was a peculiar release in the series for a few reasons, but one stands out to the couch-combat fans at Ars Technica: its lack of split-screen combat, either in four-player local versus modes or in its campaign, which revolved around four-player co-op battling (as opposed to many prior games that limited campaign co-op to two players). While the game was in development, a 343 developer told fans via Twitter that Halo 5 would include split-screen modes, but the studio eventually walked that statement back. Ross admitted that fan outcry over the feature was significant, telling the DICE crowd, "it was incredibly painful for the community and for us." She added that the removal "eroded trust" with the game's fanbase.
 
I always assumed because the consoles were too weak for it. Halo 5 already struggled with FPS online, I can't imagine rendering 2 or 4 independent views.
 
It's funny, you'd think split screen would be even more viable on the massive hi-def TVs available these days. I was playing CE with my friends, on a 27 inch TV back in 02, and having a blast. This move never really made sense to me.
 
I guess they got my email. ;) Thats the reason we have not gotten the xbox one at launch.
 
I hate split screen. Everyone in my home has their own TV, consoles and PC. No fighting over stuff that way.
 
Definitely an issue on the rare occasions my buddy comes by. We have to play either older Halo games or Gears of War games to get our split screen on.

Of course the other issue is that Halo 5 just wasn't that good of a Halo
 
Youn said:
it's the same number of pixels either way, shouldn't be that much of a difference...
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It still requires more processing power to render additional view points. Try playing Mario Kart on the Wii U with and without split screen, the difference is night and day. I know in Halo 3 they got around this issue by lowering texture resolution and view distance for split screen.
 
Playing multiplayer split-screen Halo on the original xbox, with my roommates in college, was a blast. One of my top gaming memories. Easily rivals splitscreen Goldeneye 007 on the Nintendo 64. Stack with Power weapons FTW.
 
I hate splitscreen. It's like I'm constantly trying to see more even though it's impossible.
 
Making America Great Again baby!

Get the couch out, the bands getting back together!

couch-4.jpg
 
I always assumed they dropped split-screen because they wanted Halo 5 to run at 60fps in all modes and couldn't achieve that fps with split screen.
 
What do you mean they eroded their trust with halo 5? They eroded their trust with halo 4!! I stopped caring after that!
 
Among other issues Halo 5 had, lack of split-screen was a major dealbreaker for all the Halo players I know. I don't buy Halo games, but I always play them, and most of the time that means in split-screen (as well as borrowing the games and doing single-player runs). I have friends who refused to buy or even play Halo 5 due to the lack of split-screen support. For many of them, co-op was a major reason to play Halo. It really fucking pissed them off when Halo 5 didn't have split-screen. There's no LAN support either, so in order to play any kind of co-op, in addition to everyone having their own system and their own display, they each have to have an XBox Live Gold subscription, and that was the most serious issue. I've never been a fan of setups where everyone is in the same room on the same network, but we all have to connect to each other over the Internet instead of through the LAN. That shit was annoying at my last job. I used to work for a company that did freelance game and software testing. We had all kinds of equipment, all kinds of high-end HDTVs and monitors, so we would bring our systems and hook all our shit up and play games together after our shifts. I did 4-player Halo ODST co-op and Halo Reach co-op that way, among other games. We were all in the same room, but we still had to use Live Gold subs (or free Gold trials) to connect over the Internet through Xbox Live for co-op, cuz there was no LAN support. Fucking bullshit.

Funny how N64 and Dreamcast have 4 controller ports, and PS3 supported up to 7 controllers, but we seem to be regressing in terms of local multiplayer. Split-screen would work out so much better with these giant-ass HDTVs we have these days. If you got a 4K screen and you split the screen 4 ways, that's four 1080p screens. Well, hopefully Halo 6 will follow Gear of War 4's example, providing split-screen support on both PC and console, as well as local offline LAN co-op, and even cross-system co-op. As someone who spent many, many years having PC LANParties with my crew, the appeal of having your own system and your own display is well understood. But those were events we had to plan well in advance for, and make time for. Split-screen co-op is for the other 90% of the time when you roll over to a buddy's house (or they come over) and you guys want to get some good gaming sessions in. And of course, what made LANParties possible was fucking LAN support. Like manual transmissions though, LAN support sadly seems to be going the way of the dinosaur. So mad props to The Coalition for supporting it with Gears 4.

Remember when StarCraft and other old PC games let you use one fucking copy of the game to make spawn installs for LAN play? Guess we're not gonna see that type of shiznit anymore either.
 
NickJames said:
I always assumed because the consoles were too weak for it. Halo 5 already struggled with FPS online, I can't imagine rendering 2 or 4 independent views.
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I think part of the reason is that over the last 10 years or so console games have been made with ever more focus on graphics at the expense of all else. I think they might hopefully be reaching a turning point now and turning back towards game play a little bit.

But it's possible it's just a matter of turning down the shading and textures a little bit until it can handle 2 views smoothly.

"Hey! No looking at my screen! Cheater!"

"How am I supposed to not look? It's right there in front of me."
 
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