In an interview with IGN, DICE’s Creative Director Lars Gustavsson explains why Battlefield 3 has no splitscreen multiplayer.
IGN asked him why Battlefield 3 has on offline splitscreen multiplayer. With the likes of Halo and Call of Duty games including it, what has been the reason why Battlefield games never included such a popular feature?
“Overall I would say I love splitscreen,” he admitted. “Maybe at some point we’ll do it but we have a new engine, and usually the best recipe for ruining a project is trying to do everything. We’d rather deliver a really good gaming experience and then look forward. I think, for example, our co-op is really solid so it doesn’t feel like it’s missing the split-screen and therefore I think that we’re coming out with a really strong game, and that’s number one. Then we can look down the road and see what’s up next.”
By the sounds of that, this confirms the fact that Battlefield 3’s engine wouldn’t be able to handle offline splitscreen multiplayer. The only way DICE could have achieved this is if the graphics and game engine took a deep dip in quality. Which was not one of DICE’s goals while making Battlefield 3.
Battlefield 3 is released October 25th for the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.
Sarg
October 17, 2011 at 4:46 AMSo in order words he really did not answer the question but just tried to turn it into a pr spin on how good the game is. All multiplayer games should have local splitscreen first and formost then online. In a few years time no one will be able to play this portion of the game as EA will shut the servers down and have new sequals like other companies have done on other games eg halo 2 and you will no longer have a major portion of the game to play. And yes for those who say who will play an old game, yes many people like to play older games years later eg HD remasters and online psn/xbox backlog titles, aniversay releases etc.
izit
October 17, 2011 at 10:16 AMHe is not giving a strait answer but it’s understandable. The split screen is possible but the performance hit would render it useless on consoles and make slower PC’s even slower.
A lot of people forget Battlefield is running at 30fps so that more resources is available for the enviroment destruction etc. Thats why the opposite is true for COD and many other games.
Splitscreen on it’s own consumes even more resources so by logical dictation it wont work so well for the console market at least.
brian
January 8, 2012 at 1:17 AMok yes it would take a dip. but the game is on 2 discs anyways. you know it’s not that serious. just wanted to push the game out quick because all the hype and anticipation. typical. playing it now, epic game but first off EA is involved which means all this crap set away from xbox live you have to download and play on THEIR stuff, i mean a dip in graphics and performance is the LAST thing on our minds…ijs
chris
January 16, 2012 at 11:38 AMdont kid your self dice. The only reason they do not have splitscreen is because they want your freind to have to go out and buy the game also. If they had the split screen then you and your buddy could sit there playing, when only purchased on game. but no, the greddy bastards at dice wanna make EVERYONE have to buy one. so for that i do not purchase the game.
vee
November 4, 2012 at 5:10 PMNO. SHUT UP. ADD ONE.
max
January 16, 2013 at 10:38 AMon behalf of little brothers sitting on the floor watching everywhere. d**k move
johnwuu
March 22, 2013 at 11:51 PM@chris I think you meant to say “EA”.
Fallenleader
October 1, 2014 at 5:07 PM@johnwuu, @chris is actually right. EA owns the title and the license to Battlefield ad the frostbite engine used to code the game. Dice is the sub branch that actually develops the series. Wile Dice ultimately answers to EA in the end, this was an internal decision on Dices part. They claim that it was not possible, and to some extent, they are correct. But who is really going to complain about a few less shaders, and a bit less smooth polishing on graphics in exchange for a simple split screen? I am coding up a tedious 3d game right now and yet I am able to run it at full 60 fps, with more detail than these games. Basically the devs either are lazy, greedy, or don’t know how to program code in a very optimal way. It could even be the game engine its self that is to blame for the stress that is put on the system. the COD engine is horrible in resources for example. Very unoptimized and buggy.