Mod activates split-screen support in Halo: Campaign Evolved PC that's just sitting there, unused

The PC is the best way to play the new Halo: Campaign Evolved remake, as well as almost every other Halo, except for one glaring flaw: no split-screen, for some reason. Xbox and PS5 get it, but PC is locked to online co-op only.

Ten years ago, that's an omission that might've gone unnoticed by most, but the rise of living room PCs and local game streaming has made split-screen more relevant than ever on the platform. It's dumb and a little insulting that Halo Studios short-shrifted us on this one, but modders are here to help.

Enter mod "Halo Campaign Evolved Split-screen Coop" by Jpurd123 on Nexus. According to the description, this tweak (which Jpurd made with AI, for the record), activates code already existing within the PC remake that enables local split-screen. If accurate, that means the PC version of Campaign Evolved does support local play, but Halo Studios didn't turn it on.

Details

Once hacked in, split-screen can be activated by a simple keyboard shortcut before starting a session. Comments on the mod page suggest it works pretty well as long as you follow the steps exactly as described.

Now, the caveats: This only supports two player split-screen for now, which sucks because 4-player co-op is a big feature of this remake. The mod was only tested with the Steam version of Campaign Evolved, so those playing through PC Game Pass or the Microsoft Store (which is where my copy came from) might be out of luck. Folks are also saying that split-screen only works if both players use controllers—trying to mix KBM and controllers makes the keyboard take over both screens, weirdly.

So yea, it's a finicky little mod. Given its AI makeup, who knows if it'll be improved over time, but it's a good sign that useful tweaks like this are popping up within a day of the remake's full rollout. It took a lot longer for folks to figure out split-screen solutions to the older Halos through Master Chief Collection (which also got left out of split-screen on PC).