Splitscreen will be a topic Halo 5 developer 343 Industries revisits for the next Halo game, franchise director Frank O'Connor says. His comments come in the wake of frustration felt by fans regarding Halo 5's lack of splitscreen play, with angry comments sections, forum posts, and Change.org petitions - the largest of which has just shy of 9,000 supporters - aplenty. According to statements made by O'Connor in June, splitscreen (along with some resolution compromises) was a necessary cut to keep the game and its combat simulation running at 60 frames per second.
That's why we asked O'Connor during a 12DOVE How It's Done livestream about the future of this much-requested feature:
"Realistically, for Halo 5, it's not something we can just throw in a patch," O'Connor said. "It's just not feasible with the way the engine works." Now, before you get too sad, O'Connor admitted that the blowback to splitscreen removal has been "huge," and that just because it's not in Halo 5 doesn't mean the feature is gone forever.
"Splitscreen is fun for me too. It's not something that I object to, and we would've loved to put it in," O'Connor said. "We'll talk about it for the next game, and we'll talk about it for the future."
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