Growing up, I couldn’t afford Xbox Live, so those hours were spent on split-screen and LAN parties with my boys. I skipped buying the Xbox One and Halo 5 altogether because it didn’t support split-screen at all.
As an adult, my primary device for local multiplayer is my PC. There are some incredible indie games for PC players out there and the Steam Controller and Steam Link make local multiplayer an absolute breeze… Except for the one game that needs it the most: Halo. The only shooter I have that supports couch play is DOOM. The one from 1993 and 1994.
I have so many friends who can’t afford a game system but want to play Halo, there are mods out there I’d like to play with friends, I want to play Edge and Icebox because I can’t find them in matchmaking, not to mention the potential of modded Forge variants. If I want to play with friends, they have to bring their own system and TV, and I have a tiny home where that’s not realistic. And all that’s not including the network bugs and crashes preventing my friends from beating Halo 2 online together.
Any improvements and tweaks would be fine, like 4 player split-screen support across all gametypes, or options between vertical or horizontal split-screen, I know there are issues Xbox players are having that should be dealt with, but I don’t care, even if it’s the crappiest in the world, I just want split-screen. I have split-screen games where the UI is wrong across the four screens, but it was still one of the most fun experiences I’ve had despite being horribly broken. Even if the FPS and graphical fidelity tank, it’s something I still want to experience again. That’s not something I can do with a broken Xbox 360 and a high-end PC.
A while back, I had assumed that split-screen on PC was being canceled, a 343 representative stepped in to say otherwise, and would be at least addressed in one way or another. That hasn’t happened yet and I’ve been more and more disappointed by the lack of anything in this.
Time to install Nucleus Co-op. The other functions we’ve had across the years are cool, but please just let me play games with my boys.