Halo 5 was a really great multiplayer shooter. However, it was missing one key feature that had been a part of the franchise since its inception on the original Xbox in 2001. Split-screen gaming has been on the way out for a while, with most games moving toward online play to get people together, but Halo had remained steadfast with the feature, until Halo 5. Now, the head of 343 Industries, Bonnie Ross has seemingly admitted that the loss of split-screen was a mistake, promising that Halo 6 and all future shooters from the developer will have the feature.
The news came from DICE 2017, where Ross was giving a talk about the Halo series. During the speech she mentioned how 343 learned from their previous mistakes, and how they planned to rectify them going forward. This included the massively broken launch of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, which to this day has remained fairly unstable in its online multiplayer components. However, the big news for split-screen fans came right after.
“We’ve also had a lot of learnings along the way. When we fell down with the multiplayer launch of MCC (Master Chief Collection), or when we didn’t put split-screen in with Halo 5. I think it was incredibly painful for the community, and for us. And I think it erodes trust with the community, as the community is part of our world building. A lot of learnings from that, and I would say for any FPS going out, we will always have split-screen in going forward.”
So the loss was painful for many, and it seems like 343 listened to their fans and have learned from the mistake. You can’t ask for much more from a developer than that, so hopefully we see a true resurgence of the local multiplayer Halo community when the inevitable release of Halo 6 comes far off in the future.
Published: Feb 23, 2017 03:23 pm