Edit: Getting a lot of "no" votes, but nobody has given me any real reason why. [i]Interesting.[/i] Okay, so here we go. Should Destiny have splitscreen? I was going to write a big rant about how important splitscreen is, but I'll keep it brief. I have two main reasons: I made most of my current friends playing splitscreen Halo, meeting new people daily and hanging out while binging on chips and Dr. Pepper. It would be nice to at least try to do something similar to that in Destiny. I have a wife now. We play everything together. I have been hyping this game up for her to play with me since the day pre-orders opened. Recently, I found out they have actively chosen not to include the feature. There's a real possibility that I won't be getting Destiny at all because of this. Now for the juicy part. Please, [i]please[/i] post if you vote in the poll and tell us why you think Destiny should (or shouldn't) have splitscreen. I would like to address a few of the concerns some naysayers have been throwing around, so I will know you're not paying any attention if you mention these things without rebutting my points (at that point, I'll simply quote myself.) [b]But Destiny is an MMO, you don't get splitscreen in an MMO.[/b] [spoiler] You're absolutely right. MMO's don't typically have splitscreen. It's a very good thing that Destiny isn't an MMO then, right? Long wordy stuff, summary at bottom of this spoiler. In an MMO, you have a server that is chosen upon joining the game for the first time. On this server, [i]every single player is visible[/i], and you can interact with them... given that you're in the same area and within eyesight (varies from game to game.) Destiny does not work like that. There are areas, and there are other players in those areas, but they represent a fraction of a fraction of a percent of people who are actually playing that level. If you have been playing the Beta at all, you should have noticed that there are usually only around 3-5 [i]other players[/i] in the same open area as you at the most. Obviously, there are not only 3-5 players playing this game. You are in an instance of that area with a player cap. Destiny is [i]similar[/i] to an MMO in that anybody can meet you at any time, randomly. The instance you are in is like it's own little server, set up specifically to house you and a handful of other people. They designed the game like this so that it [i]feels[/i] like you're in a massive world. Now, when you go to a new area, let's say area 2, the people in area 1 disconnect from you entirely. Then you enter a completely separate instance of that new area, either alone because you're the first person there, or with a handful of people already there because a slot was open for you. But if you immediately turn back around and go back to area 1, the people you just disconnected from will most likely no longer be there, because you've entered a different instance of that area. Sounds complicated, right? Well actually it's pretty simple, and [i]very[/i] different from an MMO. The reason I'm writing this is to point out that Destiny is not an MMO. It operates more like Borderlands, but instead of the same 3 teammates with you, random people can pop in and out of your game at any time. [/spoiler] [b]The fidelity of the game would take a hit, I want my game to be flawless.[/b] [spoiler] First, none of us know how Destiny's engine runs. We don't know how the architecture is set up, and the only way to know is to work there. I include myself in this statement. But let me apply my own logic here. As I explain in the MMO breakdown, Destiny is like a series of instanced servers that hold a small number of players at any given time. From what I can tell, those servers (or areas) are pre-rendered. I'll give the example of Oblivion/Skyrim. Those are massively open world games, and instead of trying to render the entire game world all at once, they render a limited radius of objects around the player. That is why splitscreen/multiplayer in general don't work on that game, because the world would have to render two completely different radii and would probably fry any console. In Destiny, everything is already loaded up when you drop in, so there is no need for rendering multiple times for a single console, it's all rendered in the loading screen (the part where you're flying around in the clouds.) You know those long, isolated corridor-like areas in between the large open spaces? Those are hidden loading screens too. In fact, when traveling through those areas, you disconnect from any players not in your fireteam from the previous area in order to connect with the players in the next area. There's no reason why all of this can't be done with two cameras in the same stream. Speaking of streams, the individualized loot streams could be simply combined, and anything Player 1 picks up, Player 2 picks up too (I would go into why picking up a weapon [i]would not[/i] give you both the same weapon, but I don't want to write a novel here). The way Destiny is designed, there is no way for players to cheat this system and twink their friend's character. In fact, I don't see any reason why whatever their coding does to individualize the experience can't simply be applied to both profiles on a single console. Keep in mind, I don't know what I'm talking about, as I am not a Bungie employee, but I don't see any indication as to why this would be technically impossible. [/spoiler] Neither of those counter arguments even address the main issue I have with no splitscreen. Bungie did not give us a [i]technical roadblock[/i] as their reason for not including the feature. [quote]Split-screen co-op was a hallmark of Bungie's Halo series, but the same can't be said for the developer's next game, the multiplayer-focused shooter Destiny. The game won't have split-screen support, not because the studio doesn't like the feature, but because it doesn't fit with the developer's ambitions for the project. "We're actually not supporting split-screen in Destiny," Bungie community manager Eric Osborne told GameSpot during E3 this week. "We love split-screen. Obviously we have a legacy of supporting it. We know a lot of players love it. We love it. But we really wanted to untether guardians. Even if you're in a fireteam, you can go wherever you want. That level of freedom was really important for us. We know some players really like split-screen. Ultimately, you can't build a game to suit every single player out there."[/quote] I don't understand their reasoning [i]in the slightest.[/i] It appears as though Activision has gotten their claws into Bungie's minds and is telling them that they should be more like CoD, not Halo. Think about it, without splitscreen, two people who want to play together are [i]required[/i] to have two consoles and two copies of Destiny. Not including splitscreen just theoretically doubled their sales. I just simply don't buy their excuse, because I know the hundreds and thousands of us that made competitive Halo what it is today feel that split screen multiplayer is incredibly awesome. I am going to be actively looking at this poll, and I will happily address any counter arguments you have, so feel free to post them. I will edit this main post and include your argument, and my explanation so that future people who have the same question show up with the question already answered! Also, if you talk about anything I've already talked about in this main post, expect a quote.