"Halo 5: Guardians" won't have split-screen support and for this, developer 343 Industries received massive criticism. Just recently, the game studio broke its silence in the middle of the ongoing backlash.
Frank O'Connor, 343 Industries franchise development director, responded via Twitter to a fan who called them out to bring the split-support back.
He replied, "If we could do it, we would do it. But it is what they call 'nontrivial.'"
While this won't likely silence gamers who have been protesting against the removal of the favorite feature from "Halo 5: Guardians," it doesn't look like split-screen will be a thing in the latest iteration of the long-running shooter.
Last month, studio head Josh Holmes already explained that although it was taken out, it took a lot of pondering before the developer did. He admitted in a Halo Waypoint blog post that it "was one of the most difficult ones [they've] ever had to make."
The absence of the split-screen support doesn't define "Halo 5: Guardians" and the company has learned some lessons from the previous "Master Chief Collection" fiasco. In an interview with Gamingbolt, 343 Industries production director Chris Lee explained what makes the game great.
"'Master Chief Collection' was a great learning opportunity for the entire studio and for 'Halo 5: Guardians' we had the 'Halo 5' arena beta earlier than we'd ever done a beta for a title," he said. "We really wanted to get it out there so we could both get feedback from the community but also make sure we're testing the game with an actual live public beta test. So that way we could find those issues and then make sure we could resolve anything before we launch."
Learning their lesson, Lee said that 343 Industries teams "have been hard at work and I am positive we're going to have an awesome offering for fans when we release 'Halo 5: Guardians' later this year."
"Halo 5: Guardians" will be released Oct. 27.
