Devastating news for the Halo franchise. Halo 5 will have ZERO split screen capabilities. No local co-op campaign or online multiplayer support.

Removed one of the best aspects of Halo. Fucking morons.

Interesting.  I thought I had heard them say specifically in the past that local splitscreen co-op was in.  Wonder if it changed, or if I am thinking of another game.

I got started on the series by going to 8+ person LAN parties. This is sad news.

Me too. Halo 1 and 2 parties was my intro to gaming / half of my high school social life.

Wasn't unusual to have 3 or 4 xboxes going through a switch with everyone on and playing.

What a shame its losing the best part of it now

Good move on their part.

Honestly this day in age people just don't utilize split screen nearly enough to make it worthwhile.  The only reason lan parties were so big back thrn is because the game didn't support any other form of multiplayer and few people were hooking their consoles up to the net.

Nostalgia only goes so far.

I don't think it is very common anymore.  Most people would rather have a whole screen to themselves.  Being able to network your consoles makes this easy.  Back in the day that wasn't an option.



Halo 5 will probably push me to buy an Xbox One.  I'm getting back into gaming a little but since I haven't played in so long I get to hang out in the bargain bin at Gamestop and buy the <$20 games.  Playing Arkham Origins now.

If you want someone to play with, send me an invite.  My screen name is Crew 511A. I've been playing Master Chief Collection a ton lately if anyone wants to play that.  



I haven't done Reach on Legendary either if anyone wants to tackle that campaign.

 
You don't think people like to play games with each other in the same room anymore?


Not being able to have a friend over and play co-op or online on the same system is a tremendous loss.


And Halo has been split screen with online multiplayer since Halo 2. The game has long supported it, and it has long been one of the leading features on why people have enjoyed the game.

I think he means that the numbers of people who will actually use splitscreen with any regularity are very low, so the juice wasn't considered to be worth the squeeze by the Halo team.  I think I've been in a position where splitscreen would have been nice...3 or 4 times in the last year, of all of my play sessions (though admittedly, not playing Halo).  Otherwise, if I want to play with friends I just hop online.  My guess is that most people these days are the same, and 343 probably has those numbers and metrics to back it up.

Ultimately, they probably realized that most people just didn't use it that often.  It's sort of the same reason why (up until recently with the X1) backwards compatibility hasn't been something consoles have bothered with - as much as people bitch and moan about wanting it, when it IS available, the vast majority of people don't use it anyway.  So console makers and game makers have to make the choice - do they focus their valuable manpower, time, and money making a niche feature that a very loud, but relatively small, group of people want?  Or would it be better to put that effort into something more broadly applicable?

 
I believe this is completely incorrect.


With EVERY Halo release, 90%+ of my play time has been with other people in the room. Especially when you go back to Halo 1 and 2 when I was still a teenager. You always had someone at your house or were at someone else's, and to be able to play online multiplayer or co-op on the single console was essential.


Halo is still a tournament game as well. While it isn't on the scale of many other games, 4vs4 and 2vs2 Halo are still common practice. And will now become a huge pain in the ass to run. Instead of just needing 2 tvs/consoles to have 8 people compete, you will need 8 tvs and 8 consoles with Xbox Live.

I'm not denying that in the past it has been that way.  With Halo 1 & 2 I'm sure you are correct, and that has been my experience as well.  But that was in an era when online multiplayer on consoles didn't really exist, or was brand new and unreliable, or a small subset of people had a connection that would support it.  What are the numbers for 3 and 4, since those came out when online functionality was the norm and no longer new and unstable?  And now that you aren't a teenager, how often do you have other people over at your house that play it?  Most of the people I know, including myself, no longer do much of that as adults.  It takes too much time and energy to set up, plus people move away or have other engagements.  It's far simpler to just hop online.  You lose something for sure by no longer being in the same room with the person you are playing with, but you gain an awful lot in convenience, too.   And most teens growing up today probably don't use it all that much either, because they grew up with online play being a staple in other games like CoD and Battlefield, so it's actually weirder to play splitscreen than just playing online like they do in 99% of other games.

Home tourneys I will grant you - setting up half a dozen machines and TVs of any kind, whether they be PCs or consoles, is a pain in the ass.

You may well be right, but I really truly think that the Halo team is making the decision based on numbers.  Nowadays there are statistics sent back for EVERYTHING, and splitscreen use has to be a part of that.  If it was actually all that popular, I don't think it would be disappearing.  Again, I'd point to things like backwards compatibility on consoles, or the loss of dedicated servers on PC, or any other number of things.  A lot of people want those things, and their desires are certainly valid, but when companies look at the actual hard stats it becomes clear that there is a massive, silent majority that just doesn't give a shit.

Otherwise, why would they be doing it?  I can only think of two reasons - A) the console can't handle the extra processing needed to get the 2nd/3rd/4th person in the game, or B) an attempt to get more money by forcing frat houses and siblings to buy more copies of the game.  Which wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility, I suppose, but with the disaster that was the master chief collection, they have been giving stuff away left and right.  If it was really all about the money, you'd think there would be better ways of getting it.

horrible decision, I've been playing Halo Reach with my son on co-op, might not get Halo 5 without the co-op option. I'm not buying two Xbox ones....

 
They stated they couldn't maintain 60 FPS on split screen so they decided to go with graphics over multiplayer.

Ah.  Well, I guess that's that then.  I hadn't heard that.

They could have dropped the graphics to do it; it's not unheard of in other games for the sake of hitting 60.  I wonder why they decided not to.  I still suspect it has something to do with the numbers they were seeing.