Advanced Campaign May Need Two PS Plus Subscriptions For PS5 Split-Screen – WGB
Halo: The Pop-Up Campaign might be a crazy name, but it doesn’t do stupid numbers. The remake will launch on July 28, and ahead of the release it’s already climbing the PS5 pre-order charts, even topping the charts in several regions. Somehow, however, what should have been an easy win has turned into an unnecessary debacle. Because the gaming industry can’t help itself.
The problem is how Campaign Evolved handles co-op, especially on PS5. Before you go any further, I want to say that there is a very good chance that this whole thing is a misunderstanding. But let’s talk about it, just in case.
According to Halo Studios, Halo: Campaign Evolved requires a Microsoft account and an Xbox Gamertag on all platforms. That part is not particularly unusual. Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Halo Infinite have already done this to go forward, and Sony has also pushed a PSN account linking to some of its PC releases. The Helldivers 2 debacle is a good example.
The unknown part is the platform-by-platform requirements.
| The platform | Local partition screen | Online collaboration | Something unusual |
|---|---|---|---|
| Xbox Series X|S | The second player needs a “separate” Microsoft account. | Requires an active Xbox Game Pass subscription. | It’s not clear whether a standard guest Xbox account will work, as Halo Studios specifically says the second player needs a “unique” Microsoft account. |
| PlayStation 5 | Both accounts require PlayStation Plus and both must be linked to Microsoft accounts. | That PS Plus subscription also provides shared access to the Internet. | The terms seem to apply even to local co-op, unless Halo Studios specifies otherwise. |
| Steam | There is no split screen listed. The split screen is a console only thing. | It requires linking a Microsoft account. | No paid online registration is mentioned on PC. |
On the Xbox Series X|S, the local split screen appears to require the second player to use a separate Microsoft account rather than simply jumping in as a guest. Personally, I think this will be clarified in the future so that guest accounts can be used as normal to play local-co-op. If that ends up not being the case, however, people will be very upset.
For online cooperation, players will need an active subscription to Xbox Game Pass, which is the right amount of online play on Xbox.
For the PS5, however, the requirements are unusual. Halo Studios says that if you play split screen on PlayStation 5, both accounts require PlayStation Plus and both must be linked to Microsoft accounts. The post then adds that active PlayStation Plus subscriptions will provide access to online co-op, making it sound like PS Plus is required even for local co-op.
If that’s really the case, two people sitting on the same couch would need two PSN accounts, two Microsoft accounts, and two PlayStation Plus subscriptions just to play split-screen Halo together on PS5. At current UK prices, that would mean around £16 a month in the combined cost of PS Plus Essential.
Steam players, by comparison, seem to have a clean setup: connect a Microsoft account and get on with it.
The whole thing may have some obscure terminology, and hopefully Halo Studios will clear it up before launch. But as of this writing, Campaign Evolved’s PS5 split-screen requirements are unbelievably tight for a game whose coveted couch co-op should be one of its selling points.
The most reasonable take here is that Halo Studios wrote and wrote the post badly. It is very possible that a second player on the PlayStation will be able to use a guest account to play co-op without a problem.
