343 says Halo had to 'move forward' from split-screen
by Gaetano Prestia 2 Comments0 Likes236 Views15 hours ago
Back to Xbox One newsHalo 5: Guardians
Halo 5: Guardians will be getting plenty of
post-launch support, but it won't offer the one thing so many older
Halo fans have cherished for years: split-screen multiplayer.
Xbox boss
Phil Spencer stepped around the issue a few weeks ago, and fans are still bewildered as to why it was removed.
343 Industries design director,
Kevin Franklin, has attempted to fill gamers in on the decision, and it's clear that the studio -- and Xbox -- doesn't want to deter players from
Halo's bigger, more demanding online experiences.
"It was tough for the team to drop split-screen," Franklin told
MMGN.
"You probably have gone through all of the details, what’s been said about the decision and all that. Let me give you some details, one of my perspectives on it. When I started looking at the campaign, I was so excited about how much of a co-op focus they’re putting into the campaign. So I’m going to be playing the campaign completely co-op, and I really appreciate all of the team mechanics. It’s really just a strong strain for a campaign mode, and it’s mixing things up a lot."
Franklin iterated that many of
Halo 5's multiplayer additions more than make up for a lack of split-screen multiplayer.
"You know we’ve got Blue Team in there, which a lot of fans are really excited about. On the Warzone side, you’ve got such a massive, massive battle going on. 24 players. It’s quite the experience to get into Warzone and just have that epicness on screen -- you can have up to 20 vehicles on the screen at one time. On the Arena side, you’ve got a strong team experience, so it’s four players. And we’re seeing these players build their eSports teams online, and that’s something we want to see supported."
Franklin insisted he "wasn't trying to dodge the split-screen issue", but admitted that it was time the
Halo experience branched out.
"It was really difficult for the team to let it go, but we needed to make some decisions and move forward," he said.