Sitting on the couch with a friend to tear through the Flood is a classic rite of passage for the series. However, when developer Halo Studios and publisher Microsoft Studios launched Halo: Campaign Evolved on PC on July 28, 2026, local split-screen co-op was missing from the menus entirely. While players expected modders to eventually try to bring the feature to PC, a recent discovery shows the work was already partially done.
Quick Facts
- Game: Halo: Campaign Evolved
- Developer: Halo Studios
- Publisher: Microsoft Studios
- Release Date: July 28, 2026
- Platforms: PC, Xbox, PlayStation
- Current Status: Local split-screen is omitted from PC menus, but hidden in config files.
PC Files Contain Hidden Split-Screen Code
Modder JPurd123 shared a startling discovery on Nexus Mods regarding the PC version of the game. According to the findings, console builds ship with local split-screen, and the PC build never actually had the feature stripped out of its core data.
"The PC build never had it stripped out — it ships with split-screen already enabled in config (bUseSplitscreen=True), and the split-screen HUD layouts, the sign-in UI, the split-screen VFX variants and the audio parameters are all still cooked into the game files," JPurd123 explained. "It just isn’t exposed in the menus. This mod calls the code that is already sitting there."
Because the underlying system requirements and assets are already present within the installation, players point out that Halo Studios could feasibly release a hotfix to expose the split-screen toggle in the official menus.
Player Reception and Mixed Reviews
The omission of the couch co-op feature has been a major point of contention for players. Halo: Campaign Evolved debuted in advanced access to mixed reviews on Steam, with many positive and negative reviews alike criticizing the lack of local multiplayer on PC. Community forums are filled with players expressing disappointment that they cannot play the campaign alongside family and friends locally.
As a franchise that helped pioneer couch co-op alongside titles like Gears of War, the restriction on PC surprised many in the community. While performance considerations naturally exist for lower-end rigs, benchmarks could easily alert players if their computers lack the hardware to support multi-instance rendering.
Until Halo Studios issues an official update adding the option back to the menus, PC users relying on community mods remain the only way to access the split-screen functionality already built into the game's data.