Not having local co-op is a big mistake.

[Irion]

If this is online multiplayer only, and there is no option to play local coop its gonna be bad...

[Ktumo]

Yes it is a bad decision

[Shep]

I don't think split-screen is really all that feasible for this one. You'd need a pretty beefy system for it, and considering the PS5 hardware target, I don't think it could be accomplished without some serious technical compromises.

Shared-screen co-op worked in the original due to the top-down format and relatively low spec requirements. It was designed around PS3/Vita, after all. I wouldn't expect this one to do the same.

[Jester]

I'm not sure if this will be a good move...I play local co-op with my kids and since it doesn't appear to be top down...

[Mad Danny]

Originally posted by Shep:

I don't think split-screen is really all that feasible for this one. You'd need a pretty beefy system for it, and considering the PS5 hardware target, I don't think it could be accomplished without some serious technical compromises.

Shared-screen co-op worked in the original due to the top-down format and relatively low spec requirements. It was designed around PS3/Vita, after all. I wouldn't expect this one to do the same.

Earth Defense Force says hi! Those games have all done 2P splitscreen going back to the PS2 – the trick is having a good method for horde LODing and then it's actually a lot more viable than online multiplayer because you're mostly splitting the render detail two ways instead of trying to constantly sync a buttload of physics interactions affecting all manner of gameplay.

[Squaul]

Based

[Irion]

Also i just wanna add that PS5 and modern PCs are powerful enough to be able to handle splitscreen 4 player co-op

[chrisruns02]

Unless I've missed something, we do not know yet whether or not split-screen is supported. I would wait until we get more details before making that assumption. (I hope it's included too!)

[PhineasJack™]

Jokes on you, I don't have irl friends to play on the couch with

[BlackjackGT]

Helldivers allowed "same screen" local co-op, but it was pretty pointless on PC because only the 'host' player's PC was logged in to Steam and had character progression -- all other players are just "clones" of the "hot seat host PC"'s character, and their progression goes away when the session ends.

So if they have some magical way to let 4 people log into Steam on one PC for hotseat co-op, that's the only way local co-op would have any point on Steam imho.

More than likely on the PS5 version, because the console (presumably as PS4 did for Helldivers local co-op) lets all local players be logged into the PlayStatation network for character progression, you'll have local play character progression/saving on PS5, so that's probably the platform you'll want to hold out for as far as local play goes.

That's assuming Steam never figures out some way to have 4 different players logged into Steam while doing local hotseat/same screen co-op on the same PC.

I doubt Arrowhead would offer LAN play, fwiw, though I'd assume Unreal engine supports that if implemented? I don't pretend to have a clue. :)

[Dr. Sinistar M.D.]

Do people actually play couch co op on pc?

[Arath Hunter]

Originally posted by Dr. Sinistar M.D.:

Do people actually play couch co op on pc?

Yes, yes we do. And considering steam link is a thing, long as others have a decent connection to you and you don't mind seeing eachother's screens it's a cheaper option then hoping everyone has their PC's strong enough and everyone owning the game. It's one of the only ways my girlfriend plays these types of games with me because she doesn't want to bother having it on her end.

[Mad Danny]

More of us might play couch co-op on PC if the darned feature didn't keep being removed!

Ironically splitscreen is also why some of us buy a game multiple times based on release timing and platform vs ports – so we can show off to friends and then convince each other to pick up our own copies for online play… compared to online-only multiplayer where we might then just have one person pick it up to play solo, and everyone else forgets about it until someone ends up with spares from bundles.

There's a reason why we have 50% more copies of EDF than players in our group, all of which have been played thoroughly, whereas the Halo MCC we all picked up at less than half price but still haven't bothered starting yet.

[Admiral Dinosaur]

Originally posted by Mad Danny:

Originally posted by Shep:

I don't think split-screen is really all that feasible for this one. You'd need a pretty beefy system for it, and considering the PS5 hardware target, I don't think it could be accomplished without some serious technical compromises.

Shared-screen co-op worked in the original due to the top-down format and relatively low spec requirements. It was designed around PS3/Vita, after all. I wouldn't expect this one to do the same.

Earth Defense Force says hi! Those games have all done 2P splitscreen going back to the PS2 – the trick is having a good method for horde LODing and then it's actually a lot more viable than online multiplayer because you're mostly splitting the render detail two ways instead of trying to constantly sync a buttload of physics interactions affecting all manner of gameplay.

EDF also has its brand practically based around looking like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ for the sake of being able to run split screen on anything that can turn on. not a fair comparison

[Mad Danny]

EDF actually has a surprising amount of detail for what it is in the later games, and consoles did chug a bit back in the day trying to push all the polygons and particle effects (also see Dynasty Warriors' additional troubles with intermittently blanking enemies in ports from the PS2). Yes the base creature models are often holdovers from then, but so are many of the visual tricks for optimisation (same with Far Cry's foliage billboarding), and a lot of that technical debt would be a non-issue for any new game built to current engine and system architecture.

Interestingly though, EDF is probably more than a fair comparison, because how these games look is mostly irrelevant to how they play insofar as network-syncing vs local operations, since so much of the gameplay and game-functional physics (e.g. a character being bounced in the air, but not how their hair or clothes are reacting to the bounce) would be CPU-bound. If the GPU is doing its own thing then it doesn't matter if your critters look like spiders or potatoes – just whether or not the game needs to track 10 of them or 200 of them at once.

[Teoyo]

If Borderlands can still have local coop, then Helldivers 2 should have it too.