343 Explains Why Halo 5 Won't Have Split-Screen

[ZZoMBiE13]

No one loves (loved) the Halo brand more than I. But I just really can't get past this one. I've stuck by the franchise post-Bungie, but it's starting to seem like the formation of 343i was also the formation of Halo's ruin.

I cancelled my pre-order the day this news hit (don't believe me, check my Twitter). It felt less like deciding not to buy a game and more like losing an old friend. I've played every Halo game, even the non shooter ones. Read their books and comics. Watched their short films. I even spent a couple of years working on a fan comic (AHCS, if you care). But this is just a step too far for me. It's a real shame too.

 

[Areloch]

This feels like a No Win situation.

Only 30FPS and Splitscreen? People complain, make petitions and complain about the hardware.

60FPS but no Splitscreen? People complain, make petitions and complain about the hardware.

I'm on the fence about this. On one hand 60FPS is something I always want and since I rarely play with actual people in the same room it doesn't affect me. But then I think about whenever I see my cousin and we do actually play co-op Halo sometimes.

I may be the minority, but honestly, I've loathed the art direction of the Halo games ever since they had enough processing power to just start shoving pointless random details on everything (namely, Reach started this, but it was REAL bad in Halo 4). The armor designs, weapon designs - to me - all look horrendous and ALSO mindbogglingly generically sci-fi.

Them having dial back on all that pointless greebling on weapons and armor would not only make them focus on better art aesthetics rather than 100 billion polies on screen, but it'd also mean you could do more enemies at a time, larger multiplayer fights or, yes, local coop.

But that's just my opinion.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

I, like most of you, read enough of these Developer posts to develop some Bullshit Barometers.

Key phrases usually trigger it. Such as

tough choices had to be made.

We are telling a story...

I've noticed Developers normally say the story line in a response to why something is removed or left out.

the decision was difficult, they felt it was a necessary big picture determination

we can't wait for you guys to try it

But this idea gets me most of all.

In addition, they say that spending the time addressing split-screen specific issues would take focus away from building other parts of the game.

We live in a Post "Ship it out and patch the bugs out later", Batman-Arkham-Knight Climate, where we as gamers rather have it functional and working right out of the box than broken now and sitting with a 60 dollar virtual space block to be fixed later. And we are willing to wait the months to have it ready. Hell, a lot of us wait that long to have a playable experience anyway.

It is the publishers who put these deadlines that they need to be shipped now, now, now.

I'm absolutely sure if 343 put up a poll, just a simple poll and asked its fans if it would rather have split screen and wait, or multiplayer only co-op, they would have gotten an overwhelming response to take the time to give us the Halo Experience we've known for all this time. I do not want to be spun. I do not want to be lied to. And I personally don't care what you as a developer want to show.

If that sounds elitist, yes, yes it does. Because as a person who pays for a product, I either have my desires met or I don't buy. If I came to your brand because of a need I could only get from you, and you decide that you're not doing it any more, then you decided that you don't want my money. Simple as that. I don't owe you money for your artistic journey. I give you my money if your vision matches up with my wants.

 

[Xeorm]

Coming from a technical background, the amount of backlash decisions like this get always baffles me. Mostly as the outrage tends to be morally based, when it seems to me to be a simple technical problem. There's only so much they can do with the crappy tech that is the xbone, and something had to give. Choosing split-screen makes sense if there's a small enough user base for it compared to cutting something else.

Of course, what am I saying. Raaagggeee ebul corporations only care about money.

 

[Evonisia]

Halo Wars continues to be the only Halo game that can properly justify not including Splitscreen Co-Op.

Halo 4 was a laggy nightmare and that still had Split Screen Co-Op on the frigging Xbox 360.

On the bright side, Epic Games are keeping quiet about Gears 4's splitscreen status (but we have seen another character accompanying the player in the trailer).

 

[shintakie10]

Only 30FPS and Splitscreen? People complain, make petitions and complain about the hardware.

60FPS but no Splitscreen? People complain, make petitions and complain about the hardware.

Or they could've done what Nintendo did with Mario Kart 8, and run the game at 60fps in single player and 30fps in splitscreen. Pretty much nobody would've complained about this.

P.S. Thanks

Unless I'm mistaken that's not how Mario Kart 8 works.

Its 60 fps on both splitscreen and single player, however the graphics are heavily downgraded in splitscreen to keep that 60 fps.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

speaking devils advocate here it was incredibly goofy in the first halo when two master chiefs stepped out of cryostasis at the same time, however! the split screen was not what made that goofy, so if they are saying that you play as this new jameson locke character and chief in the co-op there should be no reason that split screen could detract from this. (unless it's going to pull that weird dead space 3 asynchronous co-op, in which case I might let them off the hook for that.)

The Dead Space example is a good point. If a game did have asynchronous co-op, where the already taxed Xbox One had to try rendering two completely separate areas at the same time in split-screen, it would be understandable to require an xbox per player. As far as I know, Halo 5's campaign doesn't feature anything like that.

Bull. Halo is an FPS, with a story that is barely a step above a cheap Saturday morning cartoon made to promote a toyline. And from what I've heard about Halo 4's plot, it not even as good as the Bungie games' narative.

Why do you feel like you're in a position to criticize 343 when you know nothing about Halo?

What other areas are you not-an-expert-but-also-an-expert in?

Well, I'm sorry I ruffled your feathers about something.

I've played and have been a fan of the games since the before the second game was out, and only stopped at Reach. I also fully read the first 3 books, so I guess that might give me some stupid reason to believe I can criticize a franchise I am at least somewhat familiar with.

Outside the Easter egg terminals hidden in the second half of Halo 3, the story doesn't have any more depth than something like Transformers Generation 1. You can't count the books, since the games will retcon them when ever they please and most players probably haven't read the must richer lore in those tomes. That's not an insult to the franchise nor the fanbase. The story doesn't need that depth to be interesting and fulfill its purpose.

 

[Volstag9]

Sounds like 343 screwed themselves again.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Coming from a technical background, the amount of backlash decisions like this get always baffles me. Mostly as the outrage tends to be morally based, when it seems to me to be a simple technical problem. There's only so much they can do with the crappy tech that is the xbone, and something had to give. Choosing split-screen makes sense if there's a small enough user base for it compared to cutting something else.

Of course, what am I saying. Raaagggeee ebul corporations only care about money.

It's because they spent several years telling us that we NEEDED this generation jump and that the new consoles would completely blow us away with what they could do. Ever since the new generation released though, it's been cuts this and limitations that. This was supposed to the generation without limits, but instead it's the generation that's shown us just how washed-up the so-called "Triple-A" market has gotten. It's like, if they need to cut things because of machine limitations, then fine, but then it just begs the question of why we all paid $400 for these brand new machines that don't seem to be any better than the ones we already had.

 

[Valkrex]

Okay stop hiding behind the PR bullshit. Just come out and say, "The hardware isn't strong enough to support the graphics we want with split-screen gameplay." That's ALL you have to do. We're not stupid, and yes we'd be annoyed, but at least we wouldn't feel like you're insulting our intelligence. A little honesty goes a LONG way.

 

[Erttheking]

This is one of those explanations that can only offer up vague bullshit.

As a result I'm gonna chalk it up to laziness.

 

[Alchemist08]

Typical BS answer when people get up in arms about a franchise removing its good parts and replacing it with further BS cotton candy replacements. There may be issues with the system limitations, but the idiots then decide well we only have so much power to dedicate, lets up the graphics and remove one of the major corner stone ways to play this game so we dont have to limit how shiny our lense flare is. Seriously, the real issue here I think is the continued trend of AAA game developers not being happy unless they beat CoD sales records, so allowing two people to play the game at once with a single copy? No sir, you cant enjoy the game with your friend unless you buy your own four hundred dollar piece of crap brick, then shell out another 8 dollars or whatever it is a month for live, and 60 dollars for the most basic copy of the game.

Just continuing the usual efforts to suck up more of people's money for less actual work.

 

[Covarr]

Unless I'm mistaken that's not how Mario Kart 8 works.

Its 60 fps on both splitscreen and single player, however the graphics are heavily downgraded in splitscreen to keep that 60 fps.

That's how it works for two player. For three or four player, it also halves the framerate.

P.S. Thanks.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

I like how devs and publisher use the term "next gen experience". What does it actually mean? What is the next generation experience? More of the same with better graphics or a some actually new experience? Because making the same as before, but less isn't next gen experience if you ask me, althought it's looking more and more to be the new definition of "next gen".

And suggesting that you dropped the co-op because of " telling a story at a truly galactic scale built from the ground up for co-op" certainly isn't doing you a favor for dropping local co-op.

I will go with few other people said. All the moneyz into graphics and wanting to force everyone to buy their own game instead of playing with a friend one copy. After all, it's just a soft version of the same thing MS tried with the Xbone DRM before the removed it.

 

[Veldel]

Considering iv played the games with friends on split screen more then I have by myself im going to say this game will most likely never be played by me unless ported to PC because I have no plans to buy a xbone

 

[BeerTent]

With today's console AND PC resources, this is a non-answer.

You're honestly trying to tell us that there cannot be two player controlled entities? Or two dynamic cameras? You have problems elsewhere, and Split-screen is clearly not the cause of these problems.

It's shit-for-brains programmers and execs who have no idea what they're talking about, requesting changes they don't understand be made. There's the source of the problem. Sadly, this is not a perfect world, and the dead weight will remain.

 

[Mike Richards]

It makes sense to be disappointed but we aren't talking about disappointment anymore. At this point I feel more sorry for them then us. We honestly don't really have any reason to expect the worst from them at this point. I don't recall any past egregious betrayals of trust that should raise out suspicions. We don't get something we want so our first assumption is they're screwing us over because their dicks but, guys, what if they really just are stuck in an impossible choice?

If it's really not in the technical cards right now, they only have two options. They can leave in a classic feature that would be nice to have but, by my understanding, isn't used nearly as much now as it used to be. But they have to cut down the framerate, or make the environments less detailed, or just generally hack away at the experience they would otherwise be capable of creating for everyone. And everyone will ***** because it "isn't any better then last-gen". Or they make the campaign they want to make, the one they feel is the best they can put out there, and people are still pissed.

There is literally no way they can make everyone happy, and not just with this one issue. They're gonna get the Kentucky fried shit kicked out of them for no other reason then because they made it, and because that's the way the internet talks about things. And that's got to be more then a bit demoralizing.

This again? First, they give us the technical reason: the xbone can barely even handle the single player graphics they're forcing through the 'bones chips. ("Also, please buy an xbox One and a copy of Halo 5 for each member of your household.")

Now, they're giving us the "artistic" reason: "Oooo, the story is too grand for the screen to be split." Bull. Halo is an FPS, with a story that is barely a step above a cheap Saturday morning cartoon made to promote a toyline. And from what I've heard about Halo 4's plot, it not even as good as the Bungie games' narative.

If someone really wants to experience the story, they'll play it alone first or really pay attention with their friend/roommate/relative/SO sitting next to them. Good coop takes priority over story in games like this, and 343/MS failed on that part. I don't even know which is worse, MCC (and more games, I'm guessing) needing a solid connection to Xbox Live be able to play on a LAN, or removing a feature, that has been in the series since day one, that many people relied on to be able to play with others without breaking the bank.

A "true next-gen experience" must mean buying more unnecessary hardware to get old-gen features. I've watched the situation get this bad since the early years of the previous generation.

Whatever they want to take priority takes priority. They decide what kind of game it is.

Actually, I genuinely really like the story in Halo. It has the appearance of being a lot simpler then it actually is at first glance because much of it is based in subverting, deconstructing, or exploring enough to justify the tropes in play, and more often then not it does that in a pretty fun way. There's a lot to like if you actually pay attention, and I thought 4 had one of the strongest narratives in the series due to the excellent way it reincorporated more elements from the books that had previously been hinted at the Bungie installments but never really pulled the trigger on. It's one of the main reasons I'm excited for 5. Hell, it'll be the first time we actually get to see Fred, Kelly and Linda in action, I was damn near cheering when I heard about that.

It's all about the experience they want to make, whether that's 'story' or 'atmosphere' or just the scale of the battles you get to fight. If taking it out improves the experience for everyone at the cost of inconveniencing the smaller group of people that would still use local co-op, that math makes sense to me. Needs of the many and all that.

Coming from a technical background, the amount of backlash decisions like this get always baffles me. Mostly as the outrage tends to be morally based, when it seems to me to be a simple technical problem. There's only so much they can do with the crappy tech that is the xbone, and something had to give. Choosing split-screen makes sense if there's a small enough user base for it compared to cutting something else.

Of course, what am I saying. Raaagggeee ebul corporations only care about money.

Basically this.

 

[thewatergamer]

Translation: "This game is costing us a ton of money to make and we would rather that you buy multiple copies of our game as well as pay for online subscriptions, but don't worry because the game will totally be worth it guys!"

Uh Huh your really doing a great job of earning my respect here guys... Keep up the "fantastic" job... I just hope that the exec's you only exist to serve are happy

Oh yeah can I also point out the hilarious irony of focusing this game on "Co-op" gameplay but then removing local co-op completely? You know that feature that has been in every Halo game ever made up to this point that weren't focused on Co-op?

 

[ChronoNexus]

343-Explains-Why-I-Won't-Buy-Halo-5

 

[Eyes of Avo]

Cool, sounds good to me. Even back in the day I refused to play single player co-op. I hated the hit the graphics took so my brother and I both bought Xbox's and loved system link co-op. Honestly I have to think that anyone who says this is a big deal is just looking for stuff to nitpick. Who was actually going to use this?