Cortana between a rock and a hard place.

Image credit: Halo Studios, Xbox.

Halo: Campaign Evolved is officially available now across PC and consoles. All versions are nearly identical in their feature sets. Nearly. That's because the PC version does not support split-screen co-op, leaving traditional online co-op as the only way to play with a buddy.

Split-screen works on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, which is what makes the lack of support on PC strange. Thanks to a new mod, however, PC players can now join in on the fun.

The mod, available on Nexus Mods (via PC Gamer), lets you play local split-screen co-op on your PC, just like on consoles. The mod's description revealed the feature actually exists in the PC build; Halo Studios simply disabled it.

Image credit: Halo Studios, Xbox, JPurd123.

In fact, the PC version has all the necessary UI elements that make split-screen work on consoles. "This mod calls the code that is already sitting there," the description reads.

According to its creator, the mod does not patch the game's .exe file. What it does is "add a second local player at runtime through UE4SS and clears the two things that stop that player from working."

While the mod does make it possible to play local split-screen on PC, you still need to enter a hotkey to activate it, which isn't ideal if you're playing on, say, a Steam Machine. Support is also limited to two players, which is a downgrade from the four-player split-screen possible on consoles.

Image credit: Halo Studios, Xbox, JPurd123.

The mod was only created for and tested with Campaign Evolved's Steam version, not the Microsoft Store (Game Pass) version, which is another knock against it. Interestingly, some of the comments indicate the mod only works if both players use controllers, too. There's also a weird quirk with subtitles drawing across the two screens, rather than showing up per-player.

While issues like that are common with mods, it's a little more unfortunate here as the creator used Anthropic's Claude Code AI to do some of the work. Depending on how familiar they may be with coding, some of the features may not change or improve over time, so keep that in mind if you're keen to engage with their work.

Technical analysis recently revealed that Campaign Evolved actually runs better on PS5 compared to Xbox Series X, and that's before you consider the PS5 Pro element.

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