There are not a lot of game developers out there that can boast the streak that Hazelight’s Josef Fares can; from the heartbreaking Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons to the thrilling A Way Out to Game of the Year It Takes Two, Fares seems to have unlocked an understanding of game design that AAA studios would literally kill for. It Takes Two was a masterwork in cooperative gameplay, but frankly it is superseded at every level by Split Fiction, the studio’s latest and greatest.
Anyone who has played one of Hazelight’s previous games knows the drill. Choose a friend. Buy one copy of the game for yourself. Your friend gets the friend’s pass for free. With full crossplay, you and your friend can dive in with, as Fares says, “no loot boxes, no microtransactions, no bullsh*t. You just get the game.” Especially with EA as a publisher, it’s a miracle that the indie studio has been able to produce the most consumer-friendly game of the last few years. But the good folks at the Swedish studio are committed to just making amazing games and getting them to the player, and that has proven to be more than enough for financial success.
You and your partner will take control of Mio and Zoe, two aspiring writers who have been called to a massive publishing company for their very first book deals. Mio only writes sci-fi and Zoe only writes fantasy, which puts the two of them at immediately comical odds when they meet as though sci-fi and fantasy aren’t extraordinarily similar genres. I played as Zoe, the bubbly fantasy girlie, while my partner played as Mio, the grumpy sci-fi nerd.
The CEO of the publishing company, an immediately suspicious man named Raider, guides Mio, Zoe, and four other debut writers to a strange chamber. He introduces his new technology, which will make it possible to live inside the stories you write. Mio panics, making it clear this was not part of the deal any of them signed, and tries to back out. Through an accident, Zoe and Mio end up stuffed into the same mind-bubble, which the machine was never intended to do. Cue shenanigans.
In order to escape the simulation and stop the evil CEO Raider, Zoe and Mio will need to use glitches in the machine to jump between worlds based on their unfinished novels. There are eight main worlds in Split Fiction and you’ll alternate between each one being a sci-fi or fantasy world. While this would be jarring in any other game, Zoe and Mio keep the game cohesive by discussing, criticizing, and rolling their eyes at each others worlds as you explore. Eventually, Raider reveals he has nefarious plans to use this machine to harvest ideas from human writers, feed them to AI, and have it generate infinite worlds to sell to consumers.
Split Fiction is a nonstop roller coaster that never, ever lets its mechanics get tired. Just when you think “OK, I’m over the excitement of being a magnetic ball that can ride on walls,” suddenly you’re introduced to using your magnetism to slam into and manipulate objects for your partner. “I wish these dragons could do more than just hook onto walls and glide,” next scene your dragons evolve into bigger forms and get new acid breath and charging powers to knock around huge objects.
You and your partner will progress through each level by working in collaboration, constantly communicating, and feeling the rush of true synergy as you pull off a difficult maneuver. Hazelight has mastered the cooperative aspect of their games, and I think it’s fair to say Fares is one of the most talented level designers alive. Every moment is perfect – if you learn to collaborate, you succeed. If you do not, you fail. It’s really that simple.
Even if I wanted to, I would not be able to get into the thousands of puzzles that Split Fiction presents and how good most of them feel to solve. Regardless, the best ones require trying, trying, and trying again, evoking genuine elation when you and your partner crack them. Unless you’re in a boss battle, dying simply means appearing back on the last platform you were standing on, so there’s no real penalty for trying a bunch of things and getting them wrong. And with the split screen, you’ll be able to collaborate online with your friend as easily as if you were on the couch together!
Each world is littered with side stories, small portals to short worlds that are about 15-20 minutes long. These are built off of small ideas that Zoe and Mio had that never really developed into a full story idea, and they are probably the best part of the game. Even years from now, I know I will never forget Mio’s world of the sun that is constantly exploding, or Zoe’s adorable Halloween Town, or the awe-inspiring Valley of the Giants.
Just for an example, in Halloween Town, you take the form of two witches and are released into a playground of fun things to do. Grab a wand and wack a villager, or maybe turn your partner into a slug. Pop a balloon and make a child cry. Have a low speed snail race through the center of town. Brew up a slew of potions and transform into different things, whacking each other around. Grab a colorful flower and draw pretty pictures in the grass to open gates, or dance with the grumpy mushroom grandpa. It was so much fun that we spent over half an hour just goofing around in this single side story, and I don’t regret a second of it.
While the writing in Split Fiction hasn’t really improved from It Takes Two, I do love Mio and Zoe a lot more than I ever cared about May and Cody as characters. Even if the dialogue sometimes sounds like it’s from a Family Guy cutaway making fun of 80s sitcoms, the characters shine through and keep you invested. I really loved the story stuff concerning Zoe’s sister and Mio’s dad, but I feel like it could have been better delivered.
That said, Raider is about as unexciting of a villain as I’ve ever seen, which isn’t helped by the fact that he just sounds like every real tech bro who thinks that creative people exist just to feed his plagiarism machine. The thing is that he plays more like a Saturday morning cartoon villain, and is immediately forgettable. Overall, the narrative isn’t amazing, but it does service the gameplay very well, which is all it needs to do.
Split Fiction ran beautifully on my PC, while my partner played on her Steam Deck. I ran the game at ultra settings, 144 FPS at 1440p without a single frame drop on my rig (an RTX 3080 and Ryzen 7 3800x). Over the course of 16 hours we experienced exactly one disconnect, which didn’t matter as it started us back exactly where we were standing. I would be remiss not to mention again how gorgeous the artwork and landscapes are, and how beautifully the art direction and graphics meet to form some of the best visuals I’ve seen in a while.
I had astronomical expectations for Split Fiction and they were exceeded right from the first level. Everything, from the main levels to the boss fights to the side stories is an improvement over the phenomenal It Takes Two, and I’m going to keep talking about it in Game of the Year discussions until someone physically stops me. Fares has once again proved that he is talented enough to back up his extraordinary cockiness, and I am once again delighted to share an unforgettable experience like this one with a close friend. I recommend Split Fiction to all humans out there right this very second.
Nirav played Split Fiction on PC with his own bought copy.
