A couple of days ago, Turtle Rock Studios surprised everyone with the announcement of Back 4 Blood, a spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead that promises to move the co-op zombie shooter genre forward. While Back 4 Blood is clearly looking to fill the void left by the lack of Left 4 Dead 3, it remains to be seen just how similar it will be to the franchise that inspired it, and it's unclear exactly which features will carry over. One such feature that's up in the air is couch co-op, which was a staple of the Left 4 Dead games.

The Left 4 Dead games notably supported couch co-op as well as split-screen online functionality, giving gamers a wide range of options when playing with friends. We asked Turtle Rock Studios community manager Miss Murder if Back 4 Blood would have similar couch co-op features. "No word on that yet," she said on Twitter, "but happy to hear the suggestion!"

It seems as though Turtle Rock Studios hasn't made a determination one way or another about whether or not Back 4 Blood will have couch co-op. That's understandable, especially since the game is so early in development that it doesn't even have its own logo. However, a quick glance at the Turtle Rock Studios forums show that there is an appetite for split-screen and couch co-op in Back 4 Blood, and so it would be nice to see the feature in the game.

While many games appear to have abandoned couch co-op and split-screen, others have continued to support the features. Notably, the Call of Duty games have long championed split-screen multiplayer and co-op, and perhaps that's part of the reason why those games are almost always the best-selling games of the year. Meanwhile, Halo's decision to ditch split-screen in Halo 5 was met with widespread community backlash, and led to 343 promising that split-screen would return in the upcoming Halo Infinite.

Before Back 4 Blood fans get too worried about whether or not the co-op zombie shooter will have split-screen and couch co-op support, they should wait for more official information on what the game will have in store. At the time of this writing, we know next to nothing about Back 4 Blood, except that it will be a co-op shooter with zombies, a campaign, and PvP elements, but no battle royale mode of any kind.

Depending on how far along Back 4 Blood is in-development, we may learn more about the game later this year. Otherwise, fans should expect a long wait to see what else Back 4 Blood is bringing to the table.

Back 4 Blood is in development for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and next-generation consoles.