Posted in: Games, Video Games | Tagged: 343 industries, Bonnie Ross, dice, halo

343 Industries – All Future Halo FPS Will Have Split-screen Multiplayer

Published Thu, 23 Feb 2017 18:45:57 -0600

At the DICE summit, 343 Industries head Bonnie Ross confirmed that all future first-person Halo shooters will have splitscreen multiplayer. It's one of those older gaming standbys that many developers have moved away from in recent years, but it does take any kind of socialization out of gaming. To play multiplayer with your friends on Halo 5 Guardians requires that you each have your own screen, which means multiple consoles with separate TVs in a room or, more likely, you're each playing from your own house.

We've had that "gamer in his mom's basement" stereotype for so long, that even we've begun to believe it. The longstanding excuse given for games no longer supporting split-screen multiplayer on any game mode is to protect the massive scale environments, AI behavior, and visual fidelity. Split-screen has been taken from us by degrees, first it was no longer available for certain game modes online, then none for any online multiplayer mode, then no longer for campaign, and then there was no split-screen at all.

4-way split-screen in Halo 4 – the good old days

It's caused a lot of grief in the community of players who love split-screen multiplayer. There's something far more fun about being able to see your friend's screen – and yeah, some of that is for the fun of figuring out where they are and sneaking up for the perfect assassination, but mostly its a reminder that you aren't alone.

Ross's talk at DICE focused on many of the lessons 343 has learned through the problems with the Masterchief Collection launch and the lack of split-screen on Guardians. She remarked that it is "incredibly painful for the community" as well as developers when these problems happen, and so "for any FPS going out forward, we will always have split-screen."

This news comes to us courtesy of IGN who are currently at the DICE summit.

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