New Split-Screen Games

Everything on this page came out in the last two years

Almost every "best split-screen games" list is the same eight titles from 2011 to 2021, which is useless if you have already played them. This page answers a narrower question: what has actually come out recently that two or more people can play on one screen? The answer in 2026 is more than most people expect, including the biggest local co-op release the format has had in a decade.

The short version: Halo: Campaign Evolved is the headline, because a full Halo campaign in two-player split-screen has not been on shelves in years and it is on PlayStation for the first time. Split Fiction remains the best two-player story of the bunch. If you need four people on one screen rather than two, the list narrows sharply, and the honest answer is a racer.

What "new" means on this page, and how we picked

Four rules, applied to every candidate before it made the table.

1. Released in 2025 or 2026. Nothing older, no matter how good. If you want the all-time list instead, that is our main split-screen page, which ranks It Takes Two, A Way Out, Portal 2 and the rest.

2. Buyable today, not announced. Preorder pages are not picks. Two large split-screen games are due within weeks of this update and they are described at the end of the page, clearly marked as not out yet, with no buy links attached.

3. A local player count stated by the publisher.Every number in the table comes from an official store page, FAQ or support article, and each write-up links the one it came from. "Local multiplayer" in a press release is not the same claim as split-screen, and we have kept the two apart.

4. At least one real reason not to buy it. Every pick carries a con, because half of these games have a platform restriction, an account requirement or a missing online mode that will decide the purchase for you.

The three questions that decide which of these you want

How many people are on the couch - two, or four?This is the split that matters most, and the modern answer is lopsided. Six of the nine picks below are strictly two-player; the four-player ones are Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, Mario Kart World and Kirby Air Riders, and two of those three need a Switch 2. If four of you want one screen and nobody owns Nintendo's new console, CrossWorlds is close to the only recent option, which is worth knowing before you shop.

Which machine is it going on? Split-screen has quietly become a console-only feature on big releases. Halo: Campaign Evolved, Borderlands 4 and the upcoming Gears of War: E-Day all support two-player split-screen on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S and all three skip it entirely on PC. If you are on a PC, your realistic new picks are PowerWash Simulator 2, LEGO Batman and Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds - and our split-screen on PC page explains the controller setup that makes any of them work.

What does the second player need to own?This is where the money actually goes. Split-screen never needs a second copy of the game, but the surrounding requirements have crept in: Halo's split-screen on PS5 needs a separate PlayStation account for each player, Borderlands 4 wants a linked SHiFT account for its crossplay, and Hyrule Warriors goes the other way with GameShare, which lets a second Switch 2 play from one copy. Nobody needs an online subscription for two people on one couch.

Split-screen, shared screen and "local co-op" are three different things

Store pages blur these constantly and it is the single biggest cause of a refund request. True split-screen divides the display so each player gets their own camera - that is Halo, Borderlands 4, Split Fiction, PowerWash Simulator 2 and the racers. Shared screen keeps one camera and forces everyone to stay in frame; the LEGO games sit in the middle, splitting dynamically only when players separate. Local co-op is the vaguest label of the three and can mean either, or can mean a second player on a second console over local wireless.

The distinction matters more than it sounds. A shared camera means one player can drag the other around and neither can explore alone. If that is a dealbreaker for your group, read the store page for the words "split screen" specifically, and treat anything vaguer as shared. The game in the box below is the current cautionary example.

Why split-screen suddenly came back

The format was written off twice - once when online multiplayer took over, and again when 4K rendering made drawing two views expensive. What changed is that the current consoles finally have the headroom, and that a run of two-player story games proved there is money in it. The Coalition has said publicly that getting split-screen working again in Gears of War: E-Day was a significant engineering investment, which is a fair summary of why it disappeared: it is not that studios forgot people liked it.

The result is a strange, uneven catalog. Some of the biggest releases of the last year have it, several mid-size ones do not, and the feature is now a genuine differentiator worth checking before you buy rather than something you can assume. That is what this page is for.

If there are two of you

You have the best selection you have had in years, and the choice is mostly about tone. Halo: Campaign Evolved is the pick if you want a proper shooter campaign and one of you owns a console; it is the newest thing here and the only one that also lets the two of you drop into a four-player online session with crossplay. Our Halo: Campaign Evolved review covers what the remake adds, the account requirement on PS5, and why Game Pass subscribers should not buy it. Split Fictionis the pick if you want the two-player story that is designed around two people the whole way through, and it has the friendliest deal on the page - the Friend's Pass means one purchase covers both of you, across platforms. Our Split Fiction review goes deeper, and It Takes Two vs Split Fiction settles which of the two Hazelight games to start with.

Borderlands 4 is the pick if you want dozens of hours rather than one weekend, and it does the thing nothing else here does: two people on one couch can join two more online, so a split-screen pair is not cut off from the rest of your group. LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is the family pick and the one with the biggest asterisk - local co-op only, no online at all. PowerWash Simulator 2 is the pick when you want to talk more than you play, and it is by far the cheapest way onto this list.

If there are four of you

Be realistic: four-player split-screen is now almost entirely a racing and party feature. Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is the one to buy if your group is on PS5, Xbox or PC, because it is the only recent four-player split-screen game on those machines that is not a Nintendo exclusive. On a Switch 2 you have two better options in Mario Kart World and Kirby Air Riders, and the pick between them is skill level: Mario Kart rewards a group that will keep playing it, Kirby is the one nobody bounces off in the first ten minutes.

If four-player split-screen on one screen is not achievable for you, the honest alternative is a four-player game that shares a single view instead - which is a different and much longer list. Our couch co-op page covers those, and games for four players handles the party end of it.

The Switch 2 problem, stated plainly

Three of the nine picks here - Mario Kart World, Kirby Air Riders and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment - run only on Nintendo's Switch 2, not on the original Switch. That is the single biggest cost on this page, and no amount of enthusiasm about local multiplayer changes the fact that buying a console to get four-player split-screen is a large purchase to solve a small problem.

The counterweight is GameShare. Nintendo's page for Hyrule Warriors says that "only one person needs the game for two to play", either in split-screen on one console or shared to a second system over local wireless - which quietly makes it the cheapest two-player option of the three if a friend already owns the console. If you are weighing the platform generally, the Switch page covers what the family does best.

Coming next, and not buyable yet

Two large split-screen games are due within weeks of this update, and neither is a pick above because neither has shipped. Rayman Legends Retold arrives October 1, 2026 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2 and PC, with up to four players in couch co-op - which would make it the first non-racing four-player local game on this list in a long time. Gears of War: E-Day follows on October 6, 2026 on Xbox Series X|S and PC, with a campaign playable in two-player split-screen on console or four-player online, and no local co-op on PC.

We will add both to the table once they are out and we can verify the local player counts against a live store page rather than a marketing beat. Until then, treat the dates as announcements, not promises, and do not preorder on the strength of a split-screen bullet point.

Where this fits with the rest of the site

This page is the recency slice of a bigger cluster. For the all-time ranking start at split-screen games; for machine-specific shortlists there is split-screen on PS5, split-screen on Xbox and split-screen on PC. If half your group is elsewhere, split-screen games you can also play online is the page you want, and if you have one controller rather than two, read pass and play PS5 games instead - none of the picks above will work for you.