Dunno if anyone cares at all, but, I care!

I don't have an Xbox One yet but for years Halo has been my go to for long, hilarious Co-Op campaigns. A piece of my heart broke today and no amount of heart containers can put it back together. Halo to me is the modern birth of co-op. Riding a packed jeep through those rolling green hills the very first time is a memory I cherish.

Co-op isn't my only interest in Halo 5, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it was the major interest. Playing with my brother, with my friends when they come over, with my girlfriend even... all of that is gone now. I like Halo but it's just always been a social game for me.

Co-op has been getting rarer and rarer it seems but I always looked to certain franchises to keep carrying that torch. Black Ops III for example will have 4 player co-op on PS4/XB1/PC and 2 player co-op on PS3/360. To be fair, this is the first Call of Duty to have campaign co-op in a little while.

So what say you?

PS. Drew and Alexis. :'( sorry guys

Link to IGN UK article which pulled the info from the Game Informer July issue.

Notes

• There is 2 player split-screen competitive multiplayer
• The Campaign Co-Op is truly online only, but there's a twist: you don't need Xbox Live Gold and another twist: the developer who made that statement has now clarified it in a blog post. You do need gold, but they will be giving out 14-day trials with the game.
• All DLC maps will be free for all users

I never owned an Xbox, so all my experience with Halo is entirely through splitscreen coop. In short, this sucks. Splitscreen is a staple of this series and it just seems wrong to take it out. I hope they have the numbers to back up this decision, because this seems pretty dumb.

I'm guessing this is more of a technical reason than anything else. They just weren't happy with the performance of splitscreen in campaign so they made the decision to cut it. And of course they're doing their best to make up for that fact by making online co-op free for all (although, how you own an Xbox One without being a Gold member is beyond me).

Co-op Halo with one of my oldest buddies has been a consistent thing for almost 15 years. Hmm...

I guess this time I'll actually pay attention to the story during my first playthrough.

Split screen co-op was the only way I played any of the Halo games because I never had a 360 so I would go over to my friend's place and played Reach and Halo 4 with him. It's sad to hear they're taking it out.

There is so much more to that article...

No split screen campaign is a deal breaker for me. There's currently a thread 45 pages deep on the Halo forums for any who would like to speak up about the issue. Also a Hashtag has popped up if you want to speak out about this.

#Halo5Splitscreen on the Twitters for anyone interested.

Of course we all know the only thing MS listens to these days. So here's my message to them:

@zzombie13: yeah I feel at this rate a co-op patch in the future will be assured all too soon :) well I hope!

This would be my hopeful guess but it's still a bit weird. I bet the vast majority of people who would play couch co-op couldn't care less if they had to reduce the resolution or the framerate. It's not "perfect" co-op, but it's fine. I feel we're used to this as co-opers.

About splitscreen? Please share! I thought I had the major details? I wasn't trying to be sensationalist with this thread or anything, just legitimately bummed about no couch co-op.

That's so shitty. My girlfriend loves Halo but I'm not interested in buying a second Xbox one for this game. I'm already hesitating about getting ONE Xbox one.

Wow. All dlc maps will be free, the only thing u talk about about is the lack of splitscreen? Just, wow. I guess I just don't understand ur anger. Again... wow!

That fucking sucks, I've had so much fun playing the Halo games with a buddy beside me and not over a mic. 343, dudes, come on. Make this split screen thing work.

It is unfortunate, but in all honesty, it's not that big of a problem to me. I think if the game is superb as is, I don't need it. It has a history of splitscreen, that's for sure, and I felt Bungie taking it out of Destiny was a real shame, and I felt that due to Titanfall not having it, it really made the game have less replay value, but here, everything aside from the splitscreen, I am super interested in, so really, I couldn't care less. While I enjoy Halo's co-op, I much prefer playing it on my own anyways. That said, it not having splitscreen multiplayer is a bigger shame, since I enjoy the Halo multiplayer, but I wouldn't really play it on my own. I'll play multiplayer mainly when the game has splitscreen, otherwise I'm rarely interested, and those that I might be interested in, I'll hardly play.

Wow, that sucks. 343 Industries, seem to be giving off a funny feeling. I don't know how excited to be for Halo 5. I'm looking forward to the campaign and enjoyed playing local campaign multi-player with my roommate in Halo MCC, but I don't know if the multi-player aspect matters much anymore. It seems like that crowd plays CoD or some free to play games; I'm not a huge competitive

It seems like that crowd plays CoD or some free to play games; I'm not a huge competitive multi-player so I could be way off base. It seems like other podcasts are making Halo 5 out to be some huge release, I'm sure it will be big for Xbox, but I'm not sure if its still CoD, Battlefield, or AC big type game. I could see it getting thrashed by Battlefront (Star Wars hype) or CoD (Black Op games have been well received and last year's game generally okay to good). I know all the free dlc move is suppose to get people more excited, but after MCC it feels more like desperate please pay attention to use type move.

EDIT: I never understood why local split screen modes couldn't just display at a lower resolution like 720p or 640p to help keep up the framerate and performance? Would that require all the assets to remade?

@nashvilleskyline: added to the OP. Chill out duder. I ain't mad, just sad.

This was like the last bastion of couch co op. Nothing lasts forever, not a dealbreaker even if it is a little crappy. This is a nice contrast to how annoyed people get when games have no online multiplayer.

The decision to keep split-screen multiplayer is the weird part to me. It might just be mechanically much harder to render two scenes *and* adapt the AI to two player targets, but I mean, I'm not a developer, so from the outside looking in it sure is a strange decision.

@geraltitude: The dev in the GameInformer article misspoke when he said there would be no xbox live gold requirement for co-op.

really?

Well dang.

op edited.

After playing some Halo 4 split-screen with a friend a few days back, I've become increasingly frustrated with the knowledge that Halo 5 will be dumping this feature. Even though playing Halo at 60fps during the beta was a great experience, I just don't think the visual gains justify dropping one of the key features of Halo.

I'd like to say that I won't but the game because of this, but of course I will. However I'm sure that even post-launch I'll be playing more of the Master Chief Collection than Halo 5 purely because of the ability to do split-screen.

I'm seeing this again after a month and I still feel the same way. Not that they have anything to do with each other, but I'd pay for DLC maps, gladly, if it meant I get to keep split screen co op. Many of the best moments I've had in Halo campaigns have come from playing with people near me - not on the other end of an internet connection, right next to me - and I would much rather see that preserved in every Halo FPS than get free DLC, or a higher resolution, or even 60FPS. Anyone who has seen me write about how much I value 60FPS will know that valuing something above that means it's worth a hell of a lot to me.

I think it's fucked up. My earliest memory of playing the OG Xbox was playing through the Halo campaign with my brother on Split-Screen CO-Op. Even arguing with eachother after getting lost in the goddamn Library for an hour or something is now a fond memory to look back on.

It's seems like a really weird thing to do.

Isn't this simple economics? The feature is so niche. I am sure they ran the marketing and figured the outcry and lost sales be little to none. Most will accept playing coop online with their friends or taking turns in the case of a single house hold.

It's 2015, who has real life friends to play games with?

E-sports!

I get the idea that split screen gaming has died down over the years but this kinda sucks for me. Have a buddy that I play through these games split screen with. Almost like a tradition at this point. Fucking dumb that an option like this is being taken away.

@iloveyouprismo: or maybe the reasoning behind the idea of split screen being a niche way of playing games is because how heavily these consoles want us to be online all the time. Also the idea of all games needing to be 1080p 60fps no matter is fucking stupid but so many people yelled about how important it is so now these developers need to hit that mark no matter what.

I don't even remember the last FPS that was co-op or multiplayer split screen and having that feature pretty much cut the system resources in half performance hit is the result, split screen was a hot feature back 20 years ago(Toejam & Earl was mind blowing when I first experience splitscreen), people trying to say that halo not having it now being a deal breaker seems pretty dumb to me.... CoD, Battlefield, etc all don't have local campaign or multiplayer I believe, I could be wrong, But I feel its silly that this is even an issue for the iPod generation.....

@maddman60620: Call of Duty has always had splitscreen multiplayer, and some games have included co-op missions as well.

Most of my friends love playing split-screen Halo, but very few of them own an Xbox One. It's much easier to call a friend over for a few hours of Halo than convince him/her to invest around 400 euros towards a console, game and Xbox Live subscription.

true true to both reasons - a bullet point of having split screen coop on the box is less impressive then saying it runs fast and looks real good - also forcing online users is always a thing they like to see, which is why the fact they have kept putting in the coop this long since xbox live inception has been impressive to say the least

@isomeri: So this being the first Halo game made for the One what features or improvements out of the stuff we know of would you like to scrap to keep local co-op, would you like dumber AI or squad-mates, less and lower textures worlds and objects, or 540p screen at 30fps.... one machine only has so much graphical and processing power so add another local play and it will take a hit... I don't think as a creator or a fan I'd be happy to cut newer features to support something that only a few may want, if they cut those newer aspects all to save something no a lot of people use wouldn't the outcry be "they just made halo 4 up rez'd on the bone".... isn't the point of making a game is to not only please the fans and bring something new but to get friends of that guy who has the game to buy said game so they can make the next game??

Bummer, I have played through few Halos with my girlfriend... I guess I won't be playing 5 then.