Treyarch and a Call of Duty fansite confirmed this week that Black Ops will be the first game in the franchise to feature simultaneous split screen online multiplayer. This comes however with the loss of co-op through the main campaign.
The executive producer of Black Ops confirmed this Monday when fansite Call of Duty FAQ asked them about the game’s co-op functionality on suspicions from screenshots and videos. The images showed local multiplayer options in the online multiplayer menus.
One image in particular revealed an “Add Controller For Splitscreen†option in the online player match menu. This means that for the first time in Call of Duty, two people will be able to play the game together on one console while playing with others online.
On top of this, Daniel Suarez confirmed that two-player local co-op will be available for the new combat training mode – essentially multiplayer but offline with bots. There will probably still be a four-player split screen multiplayer with only four combatants, just like every console Call of Duty game since 2.
At the same time however, Suarez also said that Black Ops won’t have co-op through the campaign like World At War did. That was all he said though, which still leaves the possibility open for a mode similar to Modern Warfare 2’s Spec Ops which included co-op both split screen and online.
This is yet another advancement for one of the last multiplayer franchises on consoles today to still include split screen multiplayer. Call of Duty on Xbox 360 stands among other popular franchises like Gears of War and Halo that make sure to include split screen, but on PS3 it’s almost the only shooter with split screen. Splint screen in conjunction with online is even rarer.
