Available on: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
Played on: PlayStation 5
Few game developers have carved out a niche and successfully stayed there as much as Hazelight Studios. Their latest two player co-op-only action-adventure game, Split Fiction, has a lot to live up to after It Takes Two won Game of the Year in 2021. Split Fiction is more of a gamer’s game, bursting with a welcoming montage of genres, controls, and camera styles within a fun array of level designs, creating a brilliant and memorable cooperative experience.
Read on for our review of Split Fiction!
Genre Mash-up
Zoe and Mio are unpublished genre writers who are invited to Big Tech company Rader Publishing. Things quickly go wrong — Rader is only interested in draining the invited writers’ ideas to supersede the need for writers. But when the women catch wind of this, they’re trapped within their own creative worlds during the draining process.
The setup is a thinly-veiled excuse to create fantastical worlds and levels that exist within our characters’ minds — and to set a refreshing, almost exhausting, change of pace between each level.
Split Fiction’s biggest strength lies in its diversity of content.
One early level pits our heroines as cyberpunk ninjas, battling through flying cars, and driving motorcycles through explosions and neon-soaked streets. Another bestows cute dragons in a fantasy world as we use their flying and climbing abilities to overcome obstacles and puzzles.
As with Hazelight’s previous games, the characters are always given asymmetrical powers, and must rely on combining them to succeed. In one memorable sequence, Mio operates a railgun (on a literal rail), to help cover Zoe while she sneaks past security droids and cameras.
But most impressively, the levels and gameplay borrow from just about every real-time genre style imaginable. Third-person platforming is the most common, but at times the perspective switches to top-down or side-scrolling shooter, or a action-packed racing. For one sci-fi chapter the women are equipped with guns like a third-person shooter, while still expertly weaving between intuitive puzzles and fast-paced combat.
Veteran gamers can easily slide into these rapid gameplay shifts, but neophytes could struggle far more than previous co-op outings, whether it’s adjusting to 2D shooting, 3D platforming, or quickly coordinating together during a rapid sequence that leaves little room for error.
Thankfully, checkpoints are frequent, and an option exists in the menu that allows players to skip to the next checkpoint. But make no mistake — Split Fiction is a more challening game than its predecessor.
Breaking up the pacing even further are frequent Side Stories. These mini-levels are sprinkled throughout the larger chapters, giving the players a reprieve on their current surroundings and gameplay. A fantasy chapter could be broken up by a fast-paced snowboarding run in a warzone, or a goofy children-themed candy-land with a hilariously horrifying twist at the end.
Split Fiction also knows when to take a step back and simply let the players goof around, such as dropping into a mini-water park after an intense sequence. My favorite Side Story plopped us into a fantasy market, where we spent way too long goofing off with polymorphing wands and bouncing potions before actually tackling the quest.
It Takes Two
In a first for a Hazelight game, our co-op protagonists are complete strangers when the story begins, tethered only by their love of writing and creating stories. Naturally, both characters are opposite personality types; Mio is pragmatic, defensive, and serious, while Zoe is emotional, thoughtful, and a bit sillier.
Mio’s sci-fi chapters lean toward explosive, fast-paced action, including racing and shooting. Zoe’s fantasy worlds are more about solving environmental puzzles — with the occasional dance battle thrown in.
Their opposing styles and genre preferences puts an immediate damper on their relationship. But, as you no doubt can already guess, through working together they learn to respect one another.
As players, we learn about our characters and our partners alongside them: their traumas, their hangups, and their dreams. Zoe and Mio are fully realized characters, with fantastic voice acting, dialogue, and motion capture that sells the big dramatic moments, and the quieter emotional reveals.
This is easily Hazelight’s best story yet.
The Rating
Split Fiction is rated T for Teen, with Blood and Gore, Crude Humor, Language, and Violence. It’s a far more intense game than It Takes Two, and death is pretty common (though characters simply evaporate into particles before respawning). The story and themes are comparable to a YA adventure.
The Takeaway
Hazelight Studios have long since confirmed their mastery over the cooperative genre (and specifically couch co-op!), yet continue to one-up themselves with each new release. Split Fiction is a masterclass in clever game design where everything serves the cooperative experience, and should not be missed by anyone with a gaming partner.
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