Lack of Splitscreen in AAA PC Games is a Wasted Opportunity (Gears 5 and Borderlands 3)

PeterVenkman · Sep 13, 2019

I play a lot of games couch co op style. Sure, I've got plenty of indie PC games that fit my needs; recently, For the King has been great for myself and two friends. But I just don't understand the lack of AAA splitscreen support. It's disappointing that two huge games - Gears 5 and Borderlands 3 - both have splitscreen on console but inexplicably lack the option on PC.

Gears 5 is baffling because it has some splitscreen, just not everything. In fact, while you can play the campaign, incredibly replayable modes like Horde are purposefully omitted. Cool.

Borderlands 3 is especially disheartening because of its loot heavy nature. This is the exact type of game I'd want to play repeatedly with friends dropping in and out on PC. So even though it's a feature on console, for no explicit reason it is not available on PC.

Not only is this a shame because the feature already exists on other consoles, it's also a completely wasted opportunity for more creative uses of splitscreen. Why not include the feature and allow me to throw Player 2 on to another monitor? My GPU can definitely handle it. I know Borderlands 2 eventually got a splitscreen mod and it was fantastic. I played through most of the game that way and, while a little unstable, it was a ton of fun.

I've been on the fence about both of these games but recently, this disappointing news has put me squarely in the "wait and see" camp.

Mullet2000 · Sep 13, 2019

I was literally trying to get split screen horde working last night for me and my GF in Gears 5 and thought that I must be an idiot for not being able to figure it out. Glad to see it wasn't me lol.

Deleted member 388 · Sep 13, 2019

What is the reason for this? They just figure no one on PC has friends or loved ones in real life and it's not worth putting in the effort to add split screen? My PC is hooked up to my living room TV and I'm sure others have a similar setup. It's not just for hunching over a keyboard alone.

Wanted to pickup Plants vs Zombies: Battle For Neighborville on PC but it has no split screen while its console counterparts do. Went from being an instant buy to "I'll wait for a black friday deal and get it on Xbox." It's disappointing that I have 200+ games on my PC but when my fiancee wants to play something together I end up booting a Nintendo console.

YourFriendLevi · Sep 13, 2019

Yeah, my dad and I play Gears Horde together a lot and he doesn't have a working headset, but we have to play in separate rooms since there's not split screen on PC, so he just yells across the apartment during play sessions, lol

Crayon · Sep 13, 2019

Not following either of those closely, i would have figured they had split screen from my experience with the past games. I havent played much bl or gears, but when i did it was split screen so i guess i think of it as a highlight feature.

Mecha Meister · Sep 13, 2019

If a splitscreen feature already exists on a console version then it should also be available on PC, it really sucks when PC versions lack this feature.

SunBroDave · Sep 13, 2019

Action Burger said:
What is the reason for this? They just figure no one on PC has friends or loved ones in real life and it's not worth putting in the effort to add split screen?

When games are already doing everything they can to get every drop of performance out of a particular machine, splitscreen is an incredibly difficult feature to add

cheesekao · Sep 13, 2019

I'm inclined to believe that the number of people who want to use split-screen on a PC is incredibly low, which is why it isn't something devs prioritize.

PeterVenkman · Sep 13, 2019

ClassicLevi said:
Yeah, my dad and I play Gears Horde together a lot and he doesn't have a working headset, but we have to play in separate rooms since there's not split screen on PC, so he just yells across the apartment during play sessions, lol

this is hilarious and tragic all at once.

Crayon said:
Not following either of those closely, i would have figured they had split screen from my experience with the past games. I havent played much bl or gears, but when i did it was split screen so i guess i think of it as a highlight feature.

I felt similarly when I was looking to buy one of these the other day to play with a friend. It started out as "maybe I'll by both," then "maybe I'll get whichever has splitscreen" to "fuck it."

Deleted member 388 · Sep 13, 2019

SunBroDave said:
When games are already doing everything they can to get every drop of performance out of a particular machine, splitscreen is an incredibly difficult feature to add

Even when their counterparts on weaker machines have splitscreen? Plants vs Zombies has splitscreen on PS4 and XB1.

NoKisum · Sep 13, 2019

Can the PC version render 8K visuals four times over and still stay 120fps?

SunBroDave · Sep 13, 2019

Action Burger said:
Even when their counterparts on weaker machines have splitscreen? Plants vs Zombies has splitscreen on PS4 and XB1.

Well yeah if the console version has it but the pc version doesn't, then yeah its likely because as you said, the perceived size of the audience for such a feature doesn't justify the costs to implement it.

Youngfossil · Sep 13, 2019

cheesekao said:
I'm inclined to believe that the number of people who want to use split-screen on a PC is incredibly low, which is why it isn't something devs prioritize.

I dont think this is true, just something dev say so the can be lazy

Saikyo · Sep 13, 2019

They dont want to do QA testing all combinations of 2 keyboards or 1 keyboard/1 pad...also pc games being cheaper they want you to gift to a friend than they getting nothing playing all coop modes "for free"

PeterVenkman · Sep 13, 2019

To be sure I understand that implementing any feature takes time and resources, even if something like splitscreen already exists in one version of the game. I get that. It's just a frustrating feature to cut given how fun those features are and how great they could be on PC natively.

Dictator · Sep 13, 2019

Mecha Meister said:
If a splitscreen feature already exists on a console version then it should also be available on PC, it really sucks when PC versions lack this feature.

Yeah there is absolutely no reason for split screen to not be on PC when it will run SOOOOO much better there.

Xiaomi · Sep 13, 2019

Saikyo said:
They dont want to do QA testing all combinations of 2 keyboards or 1 keyboard/1 pad...also pc games being cheaper they want you to gift to a friend than they getting nothing playing all coop modes "for free"

Doesn't really explain the Gears 5 situation where you can do exactly those kinds of control setups in campaign, but Horde has no splitscreen.

ArnoldJRimmer · Sep 13, 2019

And with ultra wide screens on PC it would also work better on these types of setups.

The lego games support this and it's soooo much better playing with my son on an ultra wqide splitscreen than on a 16:9 screen.

Takamura-San · Sep 13, 2019

I don't want split screen. Let me play multiplayer with one PC and 2 screens. That's the evolution of split screen.

PeterVenkman · Sep 13, 2019

Takamura-San said:
I don't want split screen. Let me play multiplayer with one PC and 2 screens. That's the evolution of split screen.

That's literally what we're talking about. I mentioned that in the OP. And here:

ArnoldJRimmer said:
And with ultra wide screens on PC it would also work better on these types of setups.

The lego games support this and it's soooo much better playing with my son on an ultra wqide splitscreen than on a 16:9 screen.

This is the exact kind of benefit splitscreen would have on better hardware. Would love for gears or Borderlands to take this approach.

Bede-x · Sep 13, 2019

PeterVenkman said:
I play a lot of games couch co op style. Sure, I've got plenty of indie PC games that fit my needs; recently, For the King has been great for myself and two friends. But I just don't understand the lack of AAA splitscreen support. It's disappointing that two huge games - Gears 5 and Borderlands 3 - both have splitscreen on console but inexplicably lack the option on PC.

Gears 5 is baffling because it has some splitscreen, just not everything. In fact, while you can play the campaign, incredibly replayable modes like Horde are purposefully omitted. Cool.

That is annoying, but PC has some other advantages when it comes to split-screen: It uses the entire screen in two player campaign, where the Xbox version has large bars at the sides. It can also run at better settings and higher framerates, with my 4 year old GTX 980Ti being able to hit almost locked 60fps, as long as I lower settings and stick to 1080p. There are some quite major rendering bugs, that aren't in the console version, as I mentioned in the Digital Foundry Gears 5 thread, which hopefully will be fixed, but console version has its own problems, with the game on the original Xbox One being almost unplayable in campaign split-screen, when I tried it, due to the audio cutting out constantly.

Box · Sep 13, 2019

Dictator said:
Yeah there is absolutely no reason for split screen to not be on PC when it will run SOOOOO much better there.

Yeah how cool does 4 x pixel perfect 1080 splitscreen look on a 4k tv?!
Oh yeah. I have no idea. I've never seen it.

Baffling continuation by PC devs of the old 'PC players don't want couch MP' crap from yonks ago.

ArnoldJRimmer · Sep 13, 2019

PeterVenkman said:
That's literally what we're talking about. I mentioned that in the OP. And here:

This is the exact kind of benefit splitscreen would have on better hardware. Would love for gears or Borderlands to take this approach.

And particular on those lego game,s split screne performance on consoles tends to be abysmal. I made a thread about this a while back, but it's buttery smooth on PC (most of the time, the lego games cna be buggy at times).

evrythngwastakn · Sep 13, 2019

Takamura-San said:
I don't want split screen. Let me play multiplayer with one PC and 2 screens. That's the evolution of split screen.

That would be so amazing.

bsigg · Sep 13, 2019

Youngfossil said:
I dont think this is true, just something dev say so the can be lazy

Great lazy dev argument.

SapientWolf · Sep 13, 2019

Takamura-San said:
I don't want split screen. Let me play multiplayer with one PC and 2 screens. That's the evolution of split screen.

That's actually pretty easy to do with CoD's split screen on PC.

You can also brute force it by buying two copies and using a sandbox app. I want to try that with Spy Party one day.

Psyrgery · Sep 13, 2019

I cannot understand how a feature that already exists on the console version of a game cannot be implemented on the pc version as well

PeterVenkman · Sep 13, 2019

Bede-x said:
That is annoying, but PC has some other advantages when it comes to split-screen: It uses the entire screen in two player campaign, where the Xbox version has large bars at the sides. It can also run at better settings and higher framerates, with my 4 year old GTX 980Ti being able to hit almost locked 60fps, as long as I lower settings and stick to 1080p. There are some quite major rendering bugs, that aren't in the console version, as I mentioned in the Digital Foundry Gears 5 thread, which hopefully will be fixed, but console version has its own problems, with the game on the original Xbox One being almost unplayable in campaign split-screen, when I tried it, due to the audio cutting out constantly.

That's why especially in Gears 5 I'd love for splitscreen to be featured in every mode like on consoles. Utilizing better hardware to make splitscreen run at higher framerates, take up an additional screen etc is exactly the kind of experience i'm looking for on my living room PC.

Xiaomi · Sep 13, 2019

I would kill for a game that did vertical-orientation split-screen (rotate your 1440p monitor into vertical orientation, get two 1280x720 screens). It boggles the mind that it hasn't been tried yet.

Raysoul · Sep 13, 2019

Better yet, PC games should also offer Split-monitor options. I'm still surprised this isn't a thing.

LuigiMario · Sep 13, 2019

Yeah I imagine the variety on input options, resolutions, and variables make this super hard so many don't bother.

thomasmahler · Sep 13, 2019

I never understood why Game Devs go the length to remove splitscreen as a feature specifically for PC games when they already have it working, especially since a ton of PC gamers play their games from their couch. Makes 0 sense to me.

Dictator · Sep 13, 2019

Box said:
Yeah how cool does 4 x pixel perfect 1080 splitscreen look on a 4k tv?!
Oh yeah. I have no idea. I've never seen it.

Baffling continuation by PC devs of the old 'PC players don't want couch MP' crap from yonks ago.

you can do it in the serious sam games - it looks awesome

Takamura-San · Sep 13, 2019

SapientWolf said:
That's actually pretty easy to do with CoD's split screen on PC.

You can also brute force it by buying two copies and using a sandbox app. I want to try that with Spy Party one day.

Sounds like a lot of workaround for something that should be a setting

mxbison · Sep 13, 2019

even console games rarely have it nowadays. the answer is probably "two people playing one copy of a game is lost profit"....

you have games that are built from the ground up for coop like the last wolfenstein and it doesnt have split screen. hell, freaking racing games don't have split screen anymore most of the time.

and the worst part is, people simply don't seem to care. it's sad, pretty much all of my best gaming memories are from local multiplayer.

Poison Jam · Sep 13, 2019

It's seriously annoying. Forza Motorsport being another prime example where split-screen only exist on console.

Imagine playing it split-screen (maybe even four player) with AI racers and every weather condition. That's something PC could have offered! It could have been awesome.

PeterVenkman · Sep 13, 2019

Poison Jam said:
It's seriously annoying. Forza Motorsport being another prime example where split-screen only exist on console.

Imagine playing it split-screen (maybe even four player) with AI racers and every weather condition. That's something PC could have offered! It could have been awesome.

damn it's especially egregious when splitscreen is missing on racing games.

SteveWinwood · Sep 13, 2019

Xiaomi said:
I would kill for a game that did vertical-orientation split-screen (rotate your 1440p monitor into vertical orientation, get two 1280x720 screens). It boggles the mind that it hasn't been tried yet.

theres gotta be some sort of tate split screen out there right

i would be shocked if that hasnt been done

thebishop · Sep 13, 2019

This is another reason I'm super excited about Stadia. The implementation of splitscreen is basically taken out of the developers hands. You can literally have 2 full game instances split onto one screen.

Deleted member 388 · Sep 13, 2019

I wonder if developers fear people sharing a splitscreen game with remote desktop.

Saikyo said:
They dont want to do QA testing all combinations of 2 keyboards or 1 keyboard/1 pad...also pc games being cheaper they want you to gift to a friend than they getting nothing playing all coop modes "for free"

Gears 5's audio, on PC, doesn't work with headsets plugged into an XB1 controller. An Xbox published game. I feel like QA was the last thing on their minds.

PeterVenkman · Sep 13, 2019

thebishop said:
This is another reason I'm super excited about Stadia. The implementation of splitscreen is basically taken out of the developers hands. You can literally have 2 full game instances split onto one screen.

Aside from the streaming component, this is exactly how you brute force pc split screen for borderlands 2

SapientWolf · Sep 13, 2019

Takamura-San said:
Sounds like a lot of workaround for something that should be a setting

That's basically PC gaming in a nutshell.

Yudoken actually pulled it off with Gears 5.

Yudoken said:
If you happen to have two gpus and a good cpu (at least something like mine i7 4790k) and 16gb ram you can run on two seperate setups quite easily with Aster multiseat. Did a Gears 5 lan and we had a great time. For tonight I reduced my own settings (normally 1440p high but for today I reduced it to medium because we just wanted to start quickly) but it was quite easy to pull off.
The CPU usage was quite high at around 100% but there weren't noticable or annoying hiccups and the games ran perfectly fine.
We played online without having a noticable handicap and we had a great time. Definitly a game I will play again here.
Next time I will step it my settings to high because it ran cool enough on the 1080 (the Windforce GTX 770 is above the Strix 1080 which was heating up quickly but it was safe around under 90c).

thebishop · Sep 13, 2019

PeterVenkman said:
Aside from the streaming component, this is exactly how you brute force pc split screen for borderlands 2

I've tried to do that in the past, but was thwarted by licensing weirdness.

PeterVenkman · Sep 14, 2019

thebishop said:
I've tried to do that in the past, but was thwarted by licensing weirdness.

i never had licensing issues, but i did have a hell of a time getting whatever screen software I was using to put player 1 and player 2's screens in exactly the correct spot. I guess I must have been really desperate for co-op at the time; hopefully something easier comes out for BL3.

Green · Sep 14, 2019

Thank you for this thread. This is something I've wanted since forever. Almost no games support this and it absolutely baffles me. The one 0atformt that could arguably handle split screen the best consistently gets shafted for this feature.

Even Halo, the game that pretty much solidified split screen gaming for generations, won't support split screen on PC when MCC comes out. Like... why?

Regarding devs not perceiving it to be a wanted/popular feature... it's really a chicken or egg scenario. What game even has it? Basically none. Where's the real world data?

PeterVenkman · Sep 15, 2019

Green said:
Even Halo, the game that pretty much solidified split screen gaming for generations, won't support split screen on PC when MCC comes out. Like... why?

You're kidding me - I just assumed it would have it. Pc hardware would help split screen performance so much, and splitscreen is integral to the game; I had no idea they didn't intend to include it.

Calvarok · Sep 15, 2019

halo will probably always have splitscreen in every mode going forward since people got so on their case about it in the previous game. (which didn't have it in any mode)

would be cool for games to get all focused up on split screen and 60fps 4k right out of the gate, so the obvious difficulties with that can be surmounted as quickly as possible.

I don't play games with anyone I know in real life, so these features don't mean too much to me. I do remember doing it when i was younger of course, especially with halo. makes sense that people care about it, was fun.

having a good experience for people who just want to play online is more important imo, but that doesn't erase the value of local support.

TeenageFBI · Sep 15, 2019

Larian put a splitscreen mode into the PC version of Original Sin 2 because of course they did.

edit: And OS1!

MAX PAYMENT · Sep 15, 2019

Does borderlands have HDR on pc? That and missing splitscreen is enough to make it a no buy

PeterVenkman · Sep 15, 2019

TeenageFBI said:
Larian put a splitscreen mode into the PC version of Original Sin 2 because of course they did.

edit: And OS1!

Divinity split screen is fucking aces. I didn't expect that amount of control for both players.

Lack of Splitscreen in AAA PC Games is a Wasted Opportunity (Gears 5 and Borderlands 3)

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