The Death of Local Multiplayer

Local multiplayer is vanishing from flagship franchises that once defined couch gaming, eroding a $2.5 billion segment of the industry. Halo 5 famously shipped without split-screen support, forcing players to buy separate consoles, copies, and a $10 monthly subscription just to play together in the same room—a trend that has spread to Call of Duty and Battlefield. This shift outperforms #10's open-world bloat in direct damage to social play: while Forced Open Worlds just wastes time, The Death of Local Multiplayer destroys a core social experience that requires no internet latency. A 2023 survey found 62% of players cite lack of split-screen as their top reason for skipping new entries in formerly co-op series. The industry has instead championed online-only models, leaving siblings and friends with fragmented screens yet zero shared physical space.