As everyone knows, Halo 5: Guardians is being released at the end of next month (October 27, 2015) and it is sure to be a massive iteration within the Halo franchise. However, fans of the franchise are certainly excited but yet disappointed for H5, and the game hasn’t even been released yet. The Halo version of ADS (Aim Down Sights)/Smart Scope and Sprint had a large amount of the multi-player community experiencing an aneurysm and now, most of these community members have either succumbed to the new mechanics or ended up enjoying the H5 beta. Currently, all corners of the Halo community are having a frenzy due to the announcement that there is “No split-screen in Halo 5: Guardians”. Why is that though?
> “To move Halo’s game play forward and deliver a true next-gen experience, tough choices had to be made” ~Josh Holmes
Translation Assumption: The Xbox One was and is unable to hit 1080p@60fps during split screen tests; not meeting 343i’s scope for H5.
All one needs to do to find an opinion on this, is venture to YouTube, the waypoint forums or anywhere where people can have a voice and search “Halo 5 no split-screen”, and with out a doubt you will be flooded with angry fans ranting about the news. Everyone knows that split-screen is dying in modern games (at least in first person shooters) and halo has been keeping it alive for many players, until Halo 5; hence damaging the machinima community, fans of LAN parties or others who use Halo as a party game with friends. I personally will be buying H5 despite this, I’ve already pre-ordered the collectors edition but I know for a fact that this game won’t sell as well for the first few months as it could if it had split-screen.
Unfortunately, there is no work around to hardware and software limitations, well not now at least. Maybe Direct X 12 is a solution? For those who don’t know much about Direct X, I’ve left information in the spoiler tag below.
What is Direct X? DirectX is a set of low-level Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that provides Windows programs with high-performance hardware-accelerated multimedia support. DirectX enables the program to easily determine the hardware capabilities of your computer, and then sets the program parameters to match.
Why does it matter to the Xbox if its for windows? The Xbone is getting a new dash board this fall! It contains a new guide, a new home, faster loading times for the dashboard, a new design, Cortana (Win10 voice assistant) and new xbox avatars. Source: (http://news.xbox.com/2015/06/xbox-xbox-one-transforms-this-fall-with-a-new-user-experience). It is believed that the new dashboard is a version of windows 10 and will contain Direct X 12 with it.
DX12 is going to improve Xbox how? Well Direct X determines how the application is rendered and for PC, Direct X 12 will be bringing up to a 300% FPS boost for DX12 applications. However, the Xbox will not have a drastic change with DX12 at first, unless the game is patched from its current API to DX12 (even then the change won’t be 300% better due to the systems hardware, but it will improve nonetheless).
If 343i decide to or are able to patch DX12 into H5 it may push the Xbone’s power just enough to allow it to posses split-screen H5’s multiplayer and campaign to run at 1080p@60fps, leaving the Halo community appeased. Although the lack of split-screen at the launch of H5 will most likely put a large dent in the sales of H5, the addition of split-screen and DX12 will please the fans of Halo and improve the longevity of Halo 5.