Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Larian answer us. Will there be local coop for PC?

Well aware this question has been asked many times, but all of those who bought this game on PC expecting split-screen deserves an answer.

Sadly the answer is no.
Link to the Twitter post

That is disappointing. Last I had heard it was waiting for them to finish redesigning the controller GUI, but local co-op was not specifically mentioned.

I can understand the two main limitations, namely screen realistate for 4 people and competitive questing.

When all 4 players remain in the same area it is easy to display them all, but as soon as you split off for whatever reason the screen must be quite large to accommodate that.

As for competitive questing, it becomes quite difficult when the other player can literally see everything you see.

These are quite significant problems to overcome if they want to do a console release.

All that being said I would still love a solution to these problems as playing co-op with my girlfriend on the couch together was a great experience.

WHAAAT??

I kickstarted the game only for that!
Why would there be a rollback on a feature that is in the first opus??

Wow, that is a total letdown.

That's really disappointing.

I only kickstarted the sequel because of how much I loved that I could play splitscreen with my other half.

During the kickstarter Larian had said:
"Two very different user interfaces will be supported - one for mouse & keyboard and another for controllers. If you play with controllers, you'll be able to use the same split-screen feature introduced in Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Edition."

I hope I've misunderstood something, because this feels like a big step backwards.

I think splitscreen isnt really possible anymore. The engine could do it (there was gameplay showing splitscreen), but the competitive questing wouldn't work anymore.

Competitive questing isn't the only way to play co-op though. Some people, you know, still enjoy working together. I'm not sure why this isn't an option when the engine supports it. I suspect they will patch it in at some point.

Yeah, honestly this is a letdown, I kickstarted the game for this reason only. I don't care much for the competitive questing, and, let's face it, I'm pretty sure people don't play coop game to kill themselves at some point. I mean it's fun and all, but there's no way I could play like that with my friend(s), it would lead to disaster.

D:OS is supposed to be a cooperative game.
So yeah, I'd like a definitive answer on that.
And not to try and troll there, but we should even talk about refund at some point.

Especially considering this :

Larian, please include local split screen for PC in later stages of game development - just like you did in D:OS EE.
I'm loving Early Access so far and wolud love to see this feature at best year or so after launch.

I took a bit of a hiatus from the forums and just came back to read this thread.

I completely agree. I will be asking for a refund if split screen isn't given as promised. I've bought multiple copies for the co-op for friends and split screen was a HUGE draw for myself and my partner.

Even the steam page currently promises local co-op.

For the Steam labels, 'local multi-player' means LAN; there is a separate label for 'shared/split screen'.

Zachary Swanson I bought the game to play local coop with my buddy... buuuuut it appears local coop isn't possible with steam link + controllers. That's the only way I played the first one.
Like · Reply · September 15 at 8:11pm
Larian Studios
Larian Studios We will add controller support later - Sabine

From the facebook page...

Then again what's "later"?
For all we know this could be an EE one year from the release...

I am shocked that there is no plan for split screen, especially since it seemed to be put forward as a feature in the Kickstarter as people have pointed out. Who cares if it breaks competitive questing; just assume people playing split screen want to play co-operatively.

Playing through D:OS split screen was an awesome experience and it's a massive let down to not see it planned here. Baffling.

Wow, this is terrible news. I was also waiting to play the game with my other half. And of course we were not going to play competitively but co-operatively!!

Damn, I knew from the start that this multiplayer/versus' focus would have ruined the game for me.

"Later" eh? See you with EE, I guess.

Yeah, a lot of things have changed, and maybe not everything for the better...
I'm a little sad that soo much energy is spent on remaking what was an actual good game...
It feels like it's back to square one, every system is being changed and for what purpose?

I've bought this game in EA just to play local coop, like in D:OS EE, to play it with my girlfriend. Wasn't paying attention, that it wasn't planned in EA, but then realised it was planned for the full release, so had a relief and waiting.
Now I guess I can't ask for a refund anyway, but I don't think I'll play D:OS2 at all and will recommend not to buy it to any of my friends, if the situation stays this way. Sorry Larian.
I know Divinity will have a fun and entertaining storyline to even solo through it, but it's just a principle because of this huge letdown. Demolished expectations at the least.

If you are so disturbed about couch coop and competitive questing not tying in quite well, make couch 2-player max, with the option to join an online game with some other 2 players, and just play competetively as team1 and team2. Or just to just stay offline and play coop good ol' fashioned way. I've played over 200+ hours D:OS EE this way, and had tons of fun. Don't cancel your marvel of an idea yourself, FFS.

Otherwise, this game is definetely a NO-NO for me.

Split screen currently not being planned doesn't have anything to do with competitive questing. Most people would play cooperatively, and just because the other person can see your side of the screen, doesn't mean they will be following it closely enough to catch any sabotage attempts before they happen (in some cases you can literally just choose the dialogue for your quest, or attack an NPC, etc).
Competitive questing was a main new feature during the Kickstarter, and split screen was still mentioned then, conceived of as 2 players in split screen being able to play online with 2 others in split screen, or 1 or 2 others playing separately.

Check back when controller support is implemented, and see if there is any change/news on split screen feasibility.

@Raze
Can you tell us why the splitscreen was removed?

I obviusly dont know the answer, but i would guess it is because split screen is not really needed for PC but essential for Console, and as the Console version is not in development (altough may very well come later) so would it be extra work to put in split screen just for pc, developing games is very time consuming so you want to shave off what you can.

One could ask if they are using the same system as the first Original Sin as they claim but just improving it, then should it not been easy to transfer the split screen as well? For that i dont know enough about programming to answer but it would seem that is not the case.