Gears of War 4 to have split-screen in all modes, upcoming beta "not a fake demo"

Gears of War 4 will not abandon one of the series' most celebrated features.

Rod Fergusson, studio head at Gears of War 4 developer The Coalition, has confirmed that the game will support split-screen in all modes.

Fergusson said during The Game Informer show, as reported by Gamespot, that the studio "can never get rid of" split-screen.

"Any way you can play Gears of War you can play split-screen," said Fergusson. In multiplayer, this means frame-rate will drop down to 30fps, instead of 60fps for the full-screen experience.

Fergusson also talked about the upcoming beta, calling it a "technical beta" and not a marketing demo. "Honest to god, it's a technical beta," he said.

"What you're going to play is basically an alpha build of our multiplayer. It's actually, 'Hey, we have brand new technology on our servers and we have brand new features on our client and we want that to be tested at scale and we want your help.'"

The Gears of War 4 multiplayer beta starts April 18 for some players, and goes open April 24.