Surprise Resident Evil 5 Steam update adds local co-op after six years

pcgamesn.com:

Well this is a nice surprise. Resident Evil 5 couch co-op is once again available, as the PC horror game receives its first major update from developer Capcom in six years. Previously, issues relating to the Games for Windows Live service and how it interacted with Steam meant that split-screen co-operative play had to be disabled in RE5, but now that feature has been removed, meaning you no longer have to go online to play the shooter with a friend. So, as we look ahead to the Resident Evil 4 release date, perhaps RE5 is worth another go.

The original Games for Windows Live release of Resident Evil 5 supported couch co-op, but when the survival game was ported over to Steam, owing to complications with importing previous player save and achievement data, the feature was removed.

Online co-op was still available, but an update from Capcom dated February 18, 2017 explained that while much of the Games for Windows Live functionality had been removed, various features would remain in RE5 on Steam. This meant that split-screen co-op would still be unavailable.

But now, out of the blue, Capcom has updated Resident Evil 5 again, with a simple set of patch notes explaining that Games for Windows Live has been removed entirely, and that from now on, the game “will support local split-screen co-op.” Some other, minor bug fixes have also apparently been made, though the developer does not specify what these are.

If you haven’t played Resident Evil 5 yet, or you’ve only ever finished it solo, it’s certainly worth experiencing in co-op. Personally, I feel like RE5 tips the series’ balance. It’s not that Resident Evil was once horror, and RE5 has too much action – in many ways, Resident Evil has always been an action game.

But