Gears of War 4 will feature split screen

Split screen co-op has been one of the hallmarks of the Gears of War series, and it'll be making a triumphant return in the upcoming Gears of War 4.

Studio head Rod Fergusson confirmed as much in a recent appearance on the Game Informer Show, answering questions from fans. "Any way you can play Gears of War you can play split-screen," he says. Many other games have been dropping split screen lately, but it's an integral part of the Gears series to him. "We can never get rid of that."

Fergusson also touches upon the upcoming multiplayer beta for the game, which he likens to the beta of Halo 5 that ran last year.

"What you're going to play is basically an alpha build of our multiplayer," he said. "That means there's going to be issues, but it's an actual beta. It's not a fake demo; it's not a highly polished thing in the sense that it's set up as a marketing demo. 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 beta begins April 18 on Xbox One. You'll need to have played Gears of War: Ultimate Edition on either Xbox One or PC by April 11 to get access to the beta.