Split-Screen Multiplayer is Dying

[Assassin of Purity]

Hello. I want to ask you all something. What was the best multiplayer experience of your life? Was it winning against many players online? Chatting with them? No. It was sitting on the bed or couch with your brother, sister, or friend next to you and having a good time. Well, that's all gone thanks to online multiplayer and greed. It's really sad to me. Graphics are also a reason split-screen multiplayer is non-existent. I don't care about visuals, gameplay is the most important thing to me. I'm wondering, does anyone here think that split-screen should return? I think so.

[wildweasel]

Hello. I want to ask you all something. What was the best multiplayer experience of your life? Was it winning against many players online? Chatting with them?

it was the one where there were no other players

[Hellser]

Sounds like you were trying to play Grant Theft Auto Online... would you like some help with that?

[insightguy]

This is a first, 2 mods derailing the thread before it even starts.

To answer the questiom: not in Indies. There are a surprising amount of indie games that has split screen gameplay or at least that couch coop feel

[Chris]

I never liked split-screen multiplayer. I hated the screen size being cut in half (or worse, quarter), and in competitive games it was too easy to peek at the other player's screen. It was also often accompanied by a reduction in framerate and responsiveness. I very often wished it was easier to set up a second system and TV to play with.

Generally better was same-screen multiplayer. Games like River City Ransom or Streets of Rage were a bit more fun since you retained the full screen and it didn't suffer from slowdown, nor did it matter that you could see what the other player was doing (indeed, it was a good thing as it was easier to team up against the same enemy). The only annoying bit was when you moved far apart you'd be blocked from going further until the other player moved over with you. Beyond that would be fighting games like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, which were also single-screen. Though I more often enjoyed going through the campaign with the progression in opponents, rather than fighting the same person over and over again just with different characters.

[Matt]

Big name console games still supported splitscreeen as of 2016 at least.

[Kinsie]

Yeah, between indie games and the Switch I'm not seeing this death-of-local-multiplayer you're going on about.

[Assassin of Purity]

Sounds like you were trying to play Grant Theft Auto Online... would you like some help with that?

What? No. What made you say that?

To answer your question Kinsie, there are barely any games with local multiplayer on PS4 and Xbox One.

[JadedLexi]

Sounds like you were trying to play Grant Theft Auto Online... would you like some help with that?

What? No. What made you say that?

To answer your question Kinsie, there are barely any games with local multiplayer on PS4 and Xbox One.

Just because they aren't on those two consoles doesn't mean local multiplayer is dying/dead. As far as I can tell, both Sony and Microsoft focus on online multiplayer.

[edward850]

Just because they aren't on those two consoles doesn't mean local multiplayer is dying/dead. As far as I can tell, both Sony and Microsoft focus on online multiplayer.

Can't speak for the PS4, but the Xbox One has a good chunk of splitscreen/couch co-op games. Here's some: https://www.gamespew.com/2018/04/best-c ... -xbox-one/
Also additional note the platform company (Microsoft or Sony) usually has little to nothing to do with the feature, it's up to the development teams. And notably two of Microsoft's published big hitters, MCC and Gears4, had splitscreen. Heck as a weird twist, Gears4 had splitscreen in the Win10 version. You don't usually see that.

[Kinsie]

To answer your question Kinsie, there are barely any games with local multiplayer on PS4 and Xbox One.

Rocket League? Towerfall Ascension? Borderlands: The Handsome Collection? Broforce? Minecraft? Diablo 3? Resident Evil: Revelations 2 (which is BUILT around splitscreen co-op)? Spelunky? Various COD games? The many Jackbox Party Pack games?

Heck as a weird twist, Gears4 had splitscreen in the Win10 version. You don't usually see that.

It's not common, no.

Technical director Mike Rayner told me adding the feature was a “labor of love,” and that they decided to do it after hearing feedback that people wanted it in Gears of War Ultimate Edition this March.

“From a development standpoint, it is quite difficult to support,” Rayner said, “we have to deal with multiple inputs, we have to deal with focus, we have to deal with UI placement.” That extra work—especially when having to also consider all the resolutions and aspect ratios a PC can have—may be why most big games nowadays don’t typically support split-screen co-op. Rayner continued by saying that “developers have got to put some effort into it to do it right, it’s not just something you can tack on.”

Further info on the technical difficulties of implementing splitscreen in a game can be found in Edward850's posts in the copy of this thread you posted on Doomworld.

[JadedLexi]

Just because they aren't on those two consoles doesn't mean local multiplayer is dying/dead. As far as I can tell, both Sony and Microsoft focus on online multiplayer.

Can't speak for the PS4, but the Xbox One has a good chunk of splitscreen/couch co-op games. Here's some: https://www.gamespew.com/2018/04/best-c ... -xbox-one/
Also additional note the publishing company (Microsoft or Sony) usually has little to nothing to do with the feature, it's up to the development teams. And notably two of Microsoft's big hitters, MCC and Gears4, had splitscreen. Heck as a weird twist, Gears4 had splitscreen in the Win10 version. You don't usually see that.

That's interesting. I thought the publisher did have something to do with it as some games have had shoehorned multiplayer for the sake of it.

[edward850]

That's interesting. I thought the publisher did have something to do with it as some games have had shoehorned multiplayer for the sake of it. Could that be because of behind the scenes feedback, though?

It can do if they are the publisher for a particular title and that's what was negotiated, but it doesn't apply to every game on the console. I'd be surprised to find any examples of games that had splitscreen removed on publisher request, though. Outside of things like the publisher suggesting its removal if it was having problems in the current iteration of the engine or something, however that can happen to any developer with out without a publisher.

(I probably should have wrote platform company instead of publishing company)

[Chris]

I'd be surprised to find any examples of games that had splitscreen removed on publisher request, though.

Such a feature need not explicitly be removed by publisher request. But publishers can and do require particular features (or anti-features) in games, like online multiplayer, recurring monetization, "live services", etc, which leaves less time for offline features that don't have recurring revenue. Thus effectively losing such features because of the publisher, even if the publisher never explicitly said to remove it.

[Assassin of Purity]

I'd be surprised to find any examples of games that had splitscreen removed on publisher request, though.

Such a feature need not explicitly be removed by publisher request. But publishers can and do require particular features (or anti-features) in games, like online multiplayer, recurring monetization, "live services", etc, which leaves less time for offline features that don't have recurring revenue. Thus effectively losing such features because of the publisher, even if the publisher never explicitly said to remove it.

Don't you just hate greed...well it's nice that a publisher would accept to keep offline multiplayer in a game.