Treyarch evaluating issues with the feature
One of the cooler features of Black Ops 4 on consoles is that every mode of the game features split-screen multiplayer. It may not be the best way to experience “Blackout,” Call of Duty’s take on battle royale, but it is really good for introducing your friends to the concept of the massively popular mode. Sadly, it seems that shared screen shenanigans are no longer possible as the feature has been temporarily disabled by Treyarch.
In a Reddit thread asking what happened to the game mode, a Treyarch representative chimed in to provide an answer. “I’ve reached out to the team and was informed that we have temporarily disabled split-screen,” the post reads, “as we evaluate some known issues. We’ll share updates in the future after investigating further.” While it stinks that no prior notice was given, at least the mode isn’t permanently disappearing.
To be honest, split-screen never operated that well. It was cool and I’m happy Treyarch still provided the option, but framerates would fluctuate wildly as the game was attempting to render two separate viewpoints at once. It was less of an issue in standard multiplayer, where graphical effects weren’t nearly as intensive, and zombies runs fine enough with its 30 FPS cap. Blackout, though, requires precise controls to win and split-screen did not allow that. You could overcome the disadvantage, but it was still out of the player’s control when the game would start slowing down.
If this temporary removal ensures the feature ends up coming back better than ever, then so be it. I’d rather Blackout split-screen function similarly to the standard mode instead of existing to fulfill a back of the box checklist.
