Halo: Campaign Evolved Requires PS Plus for Split-Screen

You are getting close to the end of July, and Halo: Campaign Evolved is finally within reach. Right before the excitement could fully take over, Halo Studios dropped a community Q&A that has set the internet on fire, with fans arguing over who is actually responsible for what is happening here. The center of the storm is something that has always been close to the heart of Halo: local split-screen play.

You probably remember split-screen going all the way back to the original game on the original XBOX. It has always been one of the series' calling cards. But now that Halo: Campaign Evolved is heading to PS5 for the first time, you are looking at a situation where playing with someone else on the same screen suddenly involves jumping through a surprising number of hoops.

It feels strange, given how long ago multiplayer like this was already figured out, but live-service structures, account tracking, and subscription tiers have made things far messier than they used to be. The Q&A that triggered all of this was published on Halo Waypoint, and it covers a wide range of topics about the game. One section in particular is dominating headlines.

It lays out exactly what you need to play Halo: Campaign Evolved split-screen, depending on which platform you are using.

According to the post, you will need a Microsoft account and an XBOX Gamertag no matter which platform you play on, whether that is solo or in co-op. This mirrors what you already do for The Master Chief Collection and Halo Infinite, since the goal is smooth cross-platform progression. If you have spent any time with The Master Chief Collection, you already know you need an XBOX Live account to play online.

Since it is a premium game rather than a free-to-play title, and you typically pay a monthly or yearly fee on console to access online multiplayer. On PC, things work a little differently. You need a Microsoft account, but you do not need an XBOX Live or Game Pass subscription to play.

That Microsoft account is free to create, and it tracks things like your win-loss record, your KD, and anything you unlock in The Master Chief Collection, following you across PC and XBOX. When you break it down by platform for Halo: Campaign Evolved, the XBOX Series requirements are pretty simple. If you are playing split-screen on an XBOX console, your second player needs their own unique Microsoft account.

If you want to take that split-screen session online, you will need an active XBOX Game Pass subscription. That tracks with how things normally work on consoles when premium products require paid online access. The PlayStation 5 requirements are where things get confusing, and it is the wording here that made people stop and reread it twice.

The post states that if you are playing split-screen on PS5, both accounts need to have PlayStation Plus and be linked to a Microsoft account.

Those active PlayStation Plus subscriptions also unlock access to online co-op. In plain terms, if you want to play Halo: Campaign Evolved locally on one PS5 with someone sitting right next to you, you apparently need two separate PlayStation Plus subscriptions, which is a strange requirement for local play. Compare that to something like Gears of War Reloaded, where playing split-screen offline for the campaign does not require two PlayStation Plus accounts.

Once you go online, sure, you would need it, but offline campaign co-op has typically stayed free of those barriers. Halo: Campaign Evolved, on the other hand, appears to be an always-online title, which changes the equation entirely. For Steam, the requirement is much simpler. You just need to link a Microsoft account, which lines up with how The Master Chief Collection already handles things on that platform.

That single sentence in the Q&A stands out because it is the only platform requirement that does not raise any eyebrows. What makes the online requirement odd is that Halo: Campaign Evolved does not include competitive multiplayer. This release is purely a campaign experience, so needing online access at all feels unnecessary on the surface.

The likely explanation is telemetry tracking, unlock syncing, and cross-progression between platforms. There is also a broader business angle here, since Microsoft has reportedly wanted players signing in with a Microsoft account on PlayStation so it can count them as monthly active users, whether they are playing Forza, Minecraft, or Halo. That monthly active user push has been a major focus.

And even with some recent shifts in strategy under leadership like Asha Sharma, Halo: Campaign Evolved is still set to lean into that approach when it launches.

With online play required, and Sony's own policy requiring PlayStation Plus to access online servers for cross-progression with Microsoft, the requirements end up stacking on top of each other. That is part of why people online are arguing about who deserves the blame. If Microsoft had not made the game always-online, none of this PlayStation Plus requirement would matter.

But Sony's policy is also part of the equation, since even with cross-progression in place, PlayStation Plus access is still required. Bottom line: if you want to sit down with a friend and play through Halo: Campaign Evolved split-screen on a single PS5, you would both need active PlayStation Plus subscriptions, which run around eighty dollars a year each, just to play locally. That is a tough pill to swallow for a feature that has historically been free and frictionless.

Halo has always had a reputation for accessible local multiplayer. Even with The Master Chief Collection, one person with an online account could bring along multiple guest accounts and jump into social games, co-op campaigns, or Firefight without much trouble. Go back further, and you will remember the legendary LAN party setups from the original trilogy, where four XBOXes and sixteen players turned into an all-day event with cables running through entire houses.

That zero-friction approach to local play was part of what made the series so beloved in the first place. Now, with Halo: Campaign Evolved, there are more steps, more accounts, and more money involved just to recreate that same experience. For anyone hoping to introduce a younger player to the franchise by setting up a PS5 split-screen session, this requirement throws a wrench into those plans, especially if that second player has no real reason to maintain a PlayStation Plus subscription otherwise.

The Q&A covered other topics too.  When asked about photo mode or theater mode, Halo Studios pointed to the Blind Skull, which removes your HUD, UI, weapons, and hands from view, and the Acrophobia Skull, which lets you fly around. Combined, these let you set up screenshot opportunities manually, since there are no current plans for an actual photo mode or theater mode.

That stings a bit for longtime fans, since Halo 3 had a beloved theater mode that let you rewind entire matches and capture screenshots.

Fans also asked about the Stanchion gun, which appeared in the Campaign Evolved trailer alongside Sergeant Johnson. According to the Q&A, it will not be usable outside of cutscenes, continuing its limited history in the series outside of titles like Halo Wars 2. It is a small disappointment, especially since the game already allows unusual modifications like third-person mode.

Spartan customization is another point of contention, since any armor changes will not carry over into cutscenes. While that is a smaller complaint compared to the split-screen situation, it adds to a growing list of grievances from the community. Halo fans are known for voicing frustration, mostly because they genuinely want the franchise to succeed, but there is also some truth to the idea that no one critiques Halo more harshly than its own fanbase.

After all, it is normally the minor things like the armor in the scenes which become topics for discussion, but here the need for splitting the screens has prevailed over everything else. In the future, it will be good for the team developing Halo: Campaign Evolved to reflect on how much the earlier editions relied on community access, low friction, and social gameplay. This is still a live service era full of data collection, account linking, and subscription gating, and this situation shows just how complicated things can get.

Some players may decide the hassle is not worth it and stick with something like Fortnite or Roblox instead. Even so, plenty of people are still excited about the novelty of Halo finally landing on PlayStation 5, and there is a good chance curiosity alone will draw in new players despite the confusion. For now, you know what to expect if you are planning split-screen sessions: extra PlayStation Plus subscriptions, extra Microsoft accounts, and a lot more setup than the series has ever required before.