REASON TO FIND A FRIEND
A lot of Split Fiction’s appeal comes from its co-op design. That’s not to downplay its other achievements—it’s a genuine delight from start to finish—but the blend of humor, simplicity, and breakneck pacing wouldn’t land the same way solo. Togetherness in gaming is something of a lost art, one Hazelight—and Josef Fares in particular—has worked hard to revive across three consecutive games. If you don’t have a friend to play with, Split Fiction is a good reason to find one.
The story is a loose excuse to throw its characters into a constant stream of new situations. I played with my younger brother, taking on the roles of two young women, Mio and Zoe, who are invited to test a new storytelling experience at a high-tech corporation. Participants enter a virtual reality bubble that reads their minds and generates a fully interactive world based on the results.
Things go wrong when both women accidentally end up in the same bubble, causing severe glitches. Forced to cooperate to escape, they’re mirrored by technicians outside the system trying to fix the mess.
Like Hazelight’s award-winning It Takes Two, this is essentially a buddy movie. Mio and Zoe are polar opposites, bickering like a married couple. Mio is an introverted sci-fi writer; Zoe is an outgoing fantasy author. They warp back and forth between their respective genres, worlds that gradually expose their deepest insecurities.
It’s both strange and understandable that the game was nominated for Best Narrative at The Game Awards. One of its great strengths is its light, whimsical tone—but that’s not typical awards fodder. The story lacks real depth, even when it turns serious toward the end. Rather than provoking thought, it serves the co-op experience. By appealing to the lowest common denominator, it never gets in the way.
The clever setup allows Hazelight to explore a dizzying range of gameplay styles and environments. One moment you’re casting spells and riding dragons above medieval castles; the next you’re scaling a futuristic skyscraper at night, dodging laser beams against a dystopian skyline. Suddenly, you’re pulled into a rhythm-based dance battle with a funky gorilla. A simple control scheme makes the constant influx of new mechanics easy to digest.
Each world has its own goofy narrative arc designed to land the players in trouble. Fully aware they’re inside a story, the characters drop corny one-liners on cue. The jokes come fast and often. One standout moment had us escaping enemies on a motorbike: my brother drove while I frantically worked through layers of user authentication—face recognition, image verification, disclaimer reading—to disarm a bomb.
The pace is exhilarating, like being trapped inside an extended Peter Jackson action sequence. You wall-run, leap across chasms, grapple, swing, and land on slides that collapse into freefall. These characters fall a lot. Then you steer mid-air, aim for a pool below, dive in, and swim through an underwater obstacle course. And on it goes.
The camera constantly shifts—between isometric, third-person, and sidescrolling views. It’s disorienting in a fun way, especially when you glance at your partner’s screen and lose your bearings. My favorite section comes near the end, where Hazelight plays creatively with the border separating the two screens. I won’t spoil it, but I’ve never seen anything quite like it.
If I had to sum the game up in one word, it would be “busy.” Busy soundtrack. Busy visuals. Busy gameplay. Despite the visual overload, it rarely feels overdesigned. A few high-speed tunnel sections were unclear and led to some cheap deaths, but frustration was rare. Thanks to forgiving checkpoints, belly laughs are far more common.
Despite the split screen, neither player can progress without the other. Doors require teamwork; one character’s abilities often enable the other to move forward. Exploration rarely yields meaningful rewards. More often, it lets you mess around—ride a water slide, grow flowers into something lewd—for the sake of a PlayStation trophy.
That said, it’s absolutely worth seeking out the optional “glitches.” These lead to full-fledged mini-adventures completely detached from the main plot. You might suddenly control pigs in a barnyard escapade (wait for the ending), or inhabit crude sketches in a half-improvised medieval tale.
Josef Fares has strongly encouraged players to find these, and he’s right—they’re fantastic. The imagination on display is remarkable. Which makes my biggest complaint all the more frustrating: they’re easy to miss. Both players must reach a glitch to activate it. If one progresses too far, they can trigger a point of no return, locking the other out. Your only option is to replay the entire level. This happened to us twice.
Replaying levels isn’t exactly painless. They’re long—astonishingly so—but that’s not a flaw. Each one constantly reinvents itself. A simple mechanic is introduced, expanded, and then transformed. Dragon companions, for example, grow stronger, become rideable, and eventually learn to fly. Hazelight excels at evolving straightforward ideas into a cascade of fresh challenges, while environments shift to keep you alert.
Split Fiction is, above all, a fantastic way to spend time together. It’s hard to imagine anyone getting bored. Its energy is infectious. I usually approach games slowly and methodically, but here I happily adapted to a more impulsive mindset. We rarely lingered, and when we did, it was playful and creative. Yes, the narrative lacks depth—but anyone expecting narrative depth from a co-op action game might want to reconsider their priorities.
Comments
Post a Comment