Halo 5: Guardians will not feature split-screen co-op for gamers playing on their couch. Gone are the days of being able to play through the game’s entire campaign with a friend.
Phil Spencer, Microsoft’s Xbox gaming boss, says that the decision was made to axe the feature because not enough people were into it. Speaking to GameSpot, Spencer said that the “vast majority” of gamers on Xbox One consoles were connected to the Xbox Live service and playing their games that way, not locally as they used to.
Spencer explained that the team had to make its decision based on how complex they could make the game to run on a single box.
"We see the robustness of what Xbox Live is today and where people are playing across Xbox Live–you at your house, me at our house. We know that's the vast majority of the co-op play. With Halo 5, the team really wanted to focus on making that experience great, both visually on the screen that you're looking at, and all the systems in place."
He adds that while Halo’s multiplayer was born from local co-op play, times have changed and that not as many gamers are doing that these days.
He says that he believes the team at 343 made the trade-off based on what they see happening in the market today and what they wanted to do with the game.
343 previously said that implementing splitscreen co-op was a “non-trivial” thing to work on, and that they would have added it—if they could.