In a recent video promotion for the new all-digital Xbox One S, Microsoft showed off a sliver of split-screen gameplay for Halo 5, as the video’s audio states “They were playing Halo in conference room 4-B,” despite the title not supporting that particular feature. After this story broke, Community Manager Brian Jarrard of 343 Studios took to Twitter and wiped up the speculation in a tweet saying; “Sorry to disappoint but no, splitscreen isn’t being added to Halo 5. The footage in question looks to be a little bit of good old fashioned creative liberty in the editing bay.”

Last week Microsoft was running a "Backwards Compatibility" sale for their weekly "Deals with Gold," meaning you could pick up a bunch of older Xbox 360 titles for cheap. This week, they're offering discounts on some of their first-party title, including Halo 5, Gears of War 4, and Halo Wars 2.

Halo 5: Guardians launched as what was arguably the weakest co-op experience for the series. Despite supporting four player co-op in the campaign, the game lacked local couch co-op for the very first time in any Halo game on Microsoft's console. Combined with the missing Firefight or Spartan Ops co-op mode, players were very limited in the time they could spend with their friends in a non-competitive setting.

The fans asked for it, and it's nearly here. The co-op friendly Warzone Firefight will be added to Halo 5: Guardians and available for all to play very soon.

Late May is chalked full of upcoming co-op releases, and we've found the deals to go with them. If you're either a Warhammer or a Total War fan, you have to be looking forward to next week Tuesday's Total War: Warhammer. There are a variety of TW: Warhammer deals this week ranging from 20% off to 25% off. All of them will include the pre-order bonus of the Chaos Warrior Race Pack.

Microsoft is offering up some big discounts on a slew of co-op titles for the Xbox One and the Xbox 360. From now until May 9, you can snag Halo 5: Guardians for just $44.99, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition for $27.99, and Ryse: Son of Rome for $17.99. If you're an Xbox Gold Member, you'll get an additional 10% off that price.

The new Warzone Firefight mode for Halo 5: Guardians, which was rumored earlier this year and formally announced last month, is available to play for a limited time. No need to sign up anywhere or download something, just go fire up the game on your Xbox One, head over to the multiplayer section, and you should see the option to play in the Warzone menu.

Fans of the Halo series may recall a particularly fun horde mode in Halo 3: ODST called "Firefight." Unlike many other games with similar features out there at the time, what made this one so special was the inclusion of the Halo Skull modifiers, which would change things up a bit every five rounds. Folks (ourselves included) have been clamoring for this beloved mode to return, and it looks like we'll finally get our wish soon.

One of the biggest features of the latest Halo title, Halo 5: Guardians, is the team vs team Warzone. This new multiplayer mode pits two teams of 12 against one another to capture strategic points and score points in a very "DOTA-esque" fashion. Currently, this is a strictly PvP affair, but some of our readers have alerted us to 343 potentially being interested in opening it up to PvE.

 With 2015 in the books we thought we'd look back at the year and see what the most popular highlights were for our readers. Looking over the top stories it's surprising to see some things in the list, namely Rock Band 4, Warhammer: End of Times Vermintide. We all but thought that the music genre was dead but Rock Band 4 proved to us otherwise, folks still enjoy their fake plastic instruments with friends. And Warhammer: EoTV came out of nowhere to be one of the best co-op games we played this year.

We've got a special giveaway courtesy of Disney, Marvel and Click Communications. We are giving away a limited edition "Ant-Sized Xbox One." In addition each winner will also receive digital downloads of Marvel’s ANT-MAN and Halo 5: Guardians for Xbox One, plus a 12-month subscription to Xbox Live!

On Monday night I was invited to be a guest on the Gamertag Radio podcast, a truly excellent podcast that has over 500 episodes and 10 years of experience covering gaming culture. Both GTR and Co-Optimus are part of a special group of sites picked to look at Alienware's upcoming Steam Machine which launches on November 10th.