You may recall that a couple of weeks ago, Halo fans found a way to get local split-screen working in the campaign of Halo Infinite, and the most bizarre thing of all was that it was working really well, despite having been cancelled.
Well, our friends over at Digital Foundry took a look at the split-screen exploit this week as well, and after putting it through its paces, they came away with the verdict that it’s “excellent” and “feels so close to completion”.
Here’s a bit of what they had to say in their report:
“The sense is that the feature is very close to completion and that a lot of work was poured into it, making its omission very puzzling. On Xbox Series X at least, there are no performance issues either. It’s really smooth in the 60fps mode with the console set to output 60Hz.”
It’s even mentioned that playing split-screen on Xbox One is “perfectly serviceable and a solid way to play” although performance and resolution drops are understandably more common, especially on the original 2013 model:
“Dynamic resolution seems to top out at 720p but can drop as low as 540p, making the game look very blurry. Draw distance is compromised to the point where low poly imposters for enemies are drawn in at a very close range, while the range of Halo Infinite’s real-time shadows is also savagely pulled in.
Performance is also wobbly – in part thanks to the game’s inconsistent frame-pacing at 30fps but also through genuine frame-rate drops into the mid-20s in the open world.”
Nevertheless, the bulk of Digital Foundry’s report is extremely positive, so the outlet contacted Microsoft for comment about why the feature was cancelled despite appearing to work very well, and 343 had the following to say:
“Hearing back from the development team, we were told that they were ‘politely declining to provide comment on this occasion’.”
We’re still none the wiser about exactly why 343 Industries decided to cancel local split-screen support for the campaign in Halo Infinite, then, and perhaps it might be a while before we get more details. Let’s hope the developer can find a way to revisit the idea in the future and officially implement it – at least on Xbox Series X and Series S.
What are your thoughts on this? Let us know down in the comments below.
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