Halo Infinite may have nixed splitscreen campaign co-op, but you can glitch into it anyway

What you need to know

• Halo Infinite fans have discovered a glitch that makes it possible to play splitscreen campaign co-op following 343 Industries’ recent announcement that its planned official implementation of the feature was cancelled.
• The glitch involves joining a friend as a campaign save is loading, then leaving the fireteam, starting a local offline Custom Games lobby, connecting additional controllers as if you were going to play splitscreen PvP multiplayer, and starting the match.
• Extensive testing of this unofficial splitscreen co-op hasn’t been done yet, but so far, all signs point to it being surprisingly stable and playable.

The recent announcement from 343 Industries that the studio has chosen to axe its plans to bring local splitscreen campaign co-op to Halo Infinite has upset many fans. However, there’s good news for folks hoping to explore Zeta Halo with their friends and family in person: a glitch has been discovered that allows you to play splitscreen, and all you need for it to work is at least one extra controller and an online friend in the game’s menus that you can join.

The glitch, which was discovered by user @Zeny_IC on Twitter, essentially allows you to trick Halo Infinite into loading you into a campaign save by seemingly using the game’s splitscreen PvP multiplayer functionality. The tutorial video by @HaloCreation below goes over how to perform the exploit in plenty of detail, but the gist is that while you’re loading into a campaign save and see the “Loading Map” indicator, you have to quickly join a friend that’s playing Halo Infinite and is in the menus. Then, you leave the fireteam, open a Custom Games lobby, and select the Local Offline setting in the Server tab. From here, you can connect your extra controllers (you can have four players in total) and launch the match, which will load you into your campaign save with splitscreen working.

While the glitch hasn’t been widely known about for long and extensive testing has yet to be done, this unofficial splitscreen experience appears to be very playable — even on Xbox One consoles. You might experience some framerate drops while looking at the game’s map or issues with the open world’s time of day not synchronizing properly for everyone in the session, but so far, it hasn’t proven to be significantly buggy at all.

While the ideal scenario would be one in which 343 Industries doesn’t break it’s promise to deliver Halo Infinite splitscreen, it’s awesome that fans at least have a way of enjoying some form of local campaign co-op. Hopefully this glitch remains unpatched so that friends and family can enjoy the excellent Halo Infinite campaign together without needing extra consoles or copies of the game.

Halo Infinite is available now on Xbox and PC. Despite its issues, it’s one of the best Xbox shooters on the market right now for fans of arena-style FPS combat, and since the multiplayer is free-to-play, there’s zero barrier to entry. The campaign is fantastic, too, as it features exhilarating gameplay and an excellent story.