In 2017, the Microsoft-owned development team behind all things Halo began playing catch-up to the series' worst reviews and reactions in years. Halo 5: Guardians landed with a thud, and high on its list of issues was a complete lack of split-screen multiplayer modes—especially for a linear campaign that revolved around four-player fireteams. If you couldn't play that mode online, you were stuck with three dull, computer-controlled squadmates.

The critical and consumer backlash was bad enough to lead to a notable moment of damage control for the series' devs at 343 Industries. At the annual DICE gaming summit, an event centered around developers, 343 chief Bonnie Ross made a pledge: Halo first-person games "will always have split-screen support going forward," she told the crowd.

Today, after months of delays and optimistic suggestions, Microsoft and 343 Industries have walked back that pledge. The game's campaign is no longer slated to ever receive a split-screen mode for friends to share on the same couch.

Whoops! It's weird that something that games have had since, like, the GameCube is such a hard thing to include in 2022.

Maybe they should just call it Halo: Finite as this point?

Embarrassing for Microsoft but I wonder if anyone actually cares. The empty open world isn't great for co-op and your partner would have to commit to the 20-30 hour campaign compared to previous entries that you could knock out in 8-10 hours (and that had distinct levels that you could choose from the menu). Anyone that cares about Halo already played it a year ago and at least in my opinion there is very little there that I would want to go back to.

@apewins: The broader Halo community were really excited for this, and I think that in a lot of instances where it feels like there's not enough going on in the Campaign missions, more players could help a lot. I don't think accessing missions through the open-world is the best fit for Halo, but you will be able to go back and replay those levels after a coming update from 343. After promising this feature was in the works for so long, and all the existing issues with Infinite, this cancellation is hitting a lot of people hard.

No, no, the name fits - Halo: Infinite Development

Sigh... loved Halo 5. And while Infinite isn't bad, I'd be fascinated to hear about what the hell happened. Seems like we got another year or two before they can start a miraculous MCC turnaround.

I still wonder why reviewers went so easy on this game because of a grappling hook.

For my part, I think everything about Halo Infinite is bad, except for the gameplay, which I thought hard carried the whole thing. For all its faults, the actual gameplay is my favorite of all the Halo games, so if I were reviewing it I'd also have to give it a high score. And the grapple hook is a big part of that.

I'm strictly speaking about single player, I don't much care about its multiplayer. It's fine, I guess.

The thing I find most frustrating about about this is how this is supposed to be the Halo going forward, the whole "10 year plan" thing like Destiny supposedly had. I thought the campaign was incredibly poor and if the next single player Halo I have to look forward is just....more of this crap? Then I guess the only thing i'm really looking forward to is some tell all about how much of a mess it is behind the scenes given how everything has gone so far.

as someone whos best memories of halo were playing slip screen with hs buddies in halo 3 this is honestly kinda sad .