Most games skip split-screen because it means the game must draw several player views at the same moment, and that requirement shapes design, production and performance work from the first prototype. Studios that do include it treat it as a deliberate cost, not a menu option. Many teams have also put their multiplayer effort into online play, but that shift does not fully explain every omission, and no single reason covers every game.
The short answer
Split-screen is expensive in ways that are easy to underestimate. The game has to render each player’s view at once, and the team has to plan for that from the start: how each view looks, what each player sees of the interface, how the camera behaves, and what happens when players drift apart. Many studios conclude that this effort is not justified for their game, platform or schedule, and they direct it toward online multiplayer instead. That accounts for many missing split-screen modes, but the available evidence does not show that one motive explains every absence.
Why each extra view costs more
The most concrete constraint is graphics workload. Hazelight developers, speaking in an Xbox Wire interview about Split Fiction, put it this way: “Then of course the graphics side is always a challenge, since we need to render both players’ views at the same time, which imposes more limitations.” The interview is with Josef Fares, but the quoted sentence is attributed to the developers collectively, because the source does not establish which person said it.
A separate Unreal Engine interview about It Takes Two makes a related point: teams need to approach design differently when building split-screen, and they must account for technical constraints to avoid poor performance.
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Why it is not a simple “twice the hardware” rule
The cost does not scale in a fixed way. How much rendering grows depends on the game, the number of views, the platform, the resolution, the engine, and what the team chooses to reduce or optimize. The developer sources establish added demands and limitations, not a universal multiplier, so any claim that a second player doubles the workload goes beyond the evidence.
Split-screen is a design commitment
Adding local play late in development usually produces a weak fit. A team has to settle several questions early:
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- Perspective: whether each player gets a distinct viewpoint, and what each one can see.
- Interface: where health, objectives, maps and prompts sit on each screen without crowding the play area.
- Camera: whether one camera model can follow two players without leaving either one behind.
- Divergence: what the game does when players separate, pursue different goals, or need different information.
Each of these is a design decision that changes how the game is built, not a toggle added at the end.
Production has to plan around it
Production teams have to optimize and coordinate around those views. In an official development interview about Gears 5, developers of The Coalition describe performance tuning across platforms and game modes, including split-screen. Split-screen therefore becomes a performance target in its own right, tuned alongside the main game modes rather than inherited from them.
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Why online multiplayer often gets the budget
Local play sits inside a broader shift in production priorities. An academic record from IT University of Copenhagen describes shared-screen play as a design pattern made more problematic by industry transformations, and it examines how technological and economic change shape local multiplayer design. That supports a historical explanation, but it does not show that every studio made the same choice for the same reason.
Unity’s 2025 Gaming Report offers one snapshot of how developers describe their multiplayer setups:
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| Multiplayer setup category | Figure among surveyed respondents | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Online multiplayer | 99% | Unity, 2025 |
| Local multiplayer | 48% | Unity, 2025 |
These are survey categories reported by respondents. They are not the share of released games that include each feature, not the share of players who prefer online play, and they do not explain why any individual studio left split-screen out.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Games that still ship local co-op
Split-screen is costly, not impossible. The Coalition’s Gears 5 supports three-player local and online co-op. Hazelight’s Split Fiction mixes split-screen and single-screen sections. In the Xbox Wire interview, Josef Fares describes the team’s improved technical tools, a better understanding of the design, and the ability to decide early what to cut. That shows studios can build around the constraint. It does not show that every production can absorb the cost.
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How to check a specific game
When you want to know whether a particular game supports local play in the way you need, ask these questions in order:
- How many players can play locally at once?
- Is local play split-screen, shared-screen, or a mix of both?
- Does split-screen cover the whole game, or only selected modes or sections?
- Does support differ by platform or console generation?
- Does the game also offer online multiplayer?
Gears 5 and Split Fiction show that player count and implementation can differ widely. The sources behind this article do not provide a current list of titles or platform-by-platform support, so confirm those details on the game’s official store listing or the developer’s own pages before relying on them.
What the evidence does not establish
- There is no reliable industry-wide measure of how many games include split-screen, or how that proportion has changed over time. The phrase “most games” therefore describes a pattern players notice, not a counted statistic.
- There is no measured data on how much players want split-screen, so the case for or against it rests on developer testimony and survey categories.
The strongest documented explanation is that split-screen adds rendering work and design obligations that must be paid for in every stage of production. Whether a given studio finds that trade worth making is a decision the available sources do not settle for any particular title.
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