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Ubisoft Talks Splitscreen and the Division
SlappingOysters writes: Ubisoft's next entry in the Tom Clancy series is pushing at the boundaries of three genres, mixing the RPG, the squad-based shooter and the MMO into The Division. The game features drop-in, drop-out co-op in a near-future, post-pandemic New York that seamlessly allows players to transition from PvE to PvP environments without any menus or lobbies. However, despite its co-op gameplay, The Division does not support splitscreen. Finder.com.au recently ran an extensive hands-on with the game, as well as an interview with Ubisoft Massive's creative director Magnus Jansén regarding the decision to forgo splitscreen co-op.
While I don't really buy the line:
One of the biggest reasons why there is nothing like that in The Division is because of the progression nature of the game.
The other comments seemed reasonable. Sounds like current generation consoles are simply not powerful enough to do it. Many development companies are struggling to hit the 60FPS/1080p target, let alone doing it split screen.
I don't think it will drastically reduce the graphics quality. Correct me if I am wrong but with all these new deferred rendering and complex shader stuff, more and more things are done per-pixel rather than on the geometry. It should make the penalty proportionally less. We are also to the point where graphical improvements are becoming subtle : enough for people to feel the difference but not enough for most of them to say exactly why.
This should actually make split screen easier. Other parts of the game such as physics can be done once for all players.
But as I've seen somewhere, split screen is not just a feature, it is a way of life. Split screen or single screen multiplayer in general is a totally different experience from network and solo play. Reducing a very different way of enjoying a game to a question of detail in a 3D renderer is rather silly IMHO.