Remember when you crouched on my head and I boost-jumped you over to the other side of the bridge? Or that time you were riding shotgun on a mongoose and wondered what would happen if you swung a gravity hammer? Oh damn, remember taking the bridge of the flag carrier on Legendary? Split-screen Halo has consumed most of my gaming childhood, and now 383 are killing it.

As the word goes (so far), split-screen is out for Halo 5. Every new Halo game, I’ve completed it on Legendary with a friend. It’s one of the few games I’ve spent more time playing with someone than against someone (or even by myself).

The levels and the balance have always felt perfect. I can still remember playing The Library with my sister mopping up the spores with an AR while I hefted the big guns (equivalent to player two controlling the duck). Or finally pushing through Keyes by taking turns holding back and spawn-saving.

It’s easy to see why Microsoft are doing it. Cite performance reasons or whatever, ultimately they expect everyone to have their own console, their own game and their own £40 to go out and buy it. But in the same way Live just isn’t LAN, speaking to someone on a headset can’t compete with watching their desperate twitches as they try and reach the next spawn point.

I want my Halo, and my Halo is co-op.