343 Industries has elaborated on why it decided to “sacrifice” split-screen support from Halo 5: Guardians, explaining the “difficult” decision in a post on Halo Waypoint.

“The decision to remove split-screen support from Halo 5: Guardians was one of the most difficult ones we’ve ever had to make as a studio,” wrote 343’s studio head Josh Holmes. “We know that for many of our fans, Halo has meant playing together with friends in the same room. We all have great memories of past Halo split-screen multiplayer matches.”

Holmes explained the “tough” choice was made due to the team’s desire “for scale, fidelity and focus.”

“With Halo 5 we are delivering massive scale environments, improved AI behavior, increased visual and gameplay fidelity,” continued the post. “[S]omething that truly takes advantage of a new platform.”

“Many of our ambitious goals for Halo 5 would be compromised in a split-screen setting and the time spent optimizing and addressing split-screen-specific issues would take focus from building other parts of the game.

“Game development is a balancing act of resources, time and technology, and in this case we made the tough decision to sacrifice something that’s been near and dear to us all.”

It was confirmed during this year’s E3 that Halo 5 would not feature split-screen support. The Halo franchise’s previous commitment to split-screen gaming stretches all the back to 2001’s Halo: Combat Evolved and its highly-acclaimed two- and four-player split-screen co-op and multiplayer modes.

Oh well. We still have the past 4 and the side games for local multiplayer.