The Coalition is one of those few remaining studios implementing split-screen in their games. I mean yes, there’s now also Halo Infinite as well. One thing about the split-screen in Gears of War games were the notorious black bars. A fan took to Twitter asking the Coalition if they could get rid of them. While Gears of War 5 split-screen is confirmed, the black bars will also be returning.
Here’s the Twitter reply from the official Coalition Twitter handle. It was in response to a fan asking whether or not the black bars can be removed.
Now while this isn’t the best news to hear, there’s a good reason for it. Gears of War haven’t had the amount of staff you would usually see in a AAA game. The fact that Microsoft puts most of their resource into Halo is another reason.
The Coalition has still consistently put split-screen in their video games regardless. Putting Gears of War 5 split-screen into the current visuals of video games is very time consuming. It’s also complex and especially difficult for the slightly understaffed studio.
That being said, with the right amount of time between releases, it can be implemented. Furthermore, a lot of people prefer 1080p split-screen to 4k resolution. Thing is that we live in a day and age where online gaming has taken over. Of course people still do like to relive the glory days of couch gaming.
The implementation of split UI and aspect ratio is another thing. The main point is that there are a lot of variables within split-screen. It’s bad enough that you won’t be able to admire the game’s visuals in their entirety.
This isn’t to say couch gaming is dead though. What I am saying is that split-screen isn’t the way to go. Take games like Cuphead or Castle Crashers for example. Even Mortal Kombat and the fighting game genre as a whole.
Gears of War 5 will release in September 2019 for the Xbox One and PC.
Source: Reddit
