Split Fiction hands-on preview – the must play co-op game of the year
Split Fiction is unlikely to split opinion (EA) GameCentral gets to play over three hours of the follow-up to It Takes Two, in what is some of the most enjoyable co-op action ever seen. When we interviewed Split Fiction director Josef Fares recently, the one question he had no answer for is why other companies haven’t tried to copy him. His previous title, The Game Awards 2021 Game of the Year winner It Takes Two has sold over 23 million copies, and yet it has had no discernible effect on the overall number of co-op games being made and there have been no direct clones. Instead, Swedish developer Hazelight Studios has been left to do everything itself. It Takes Two was preceded by the more grounded A Way Out and is now going to be succeeded by Split Fiction, which has a similar approach – in terms of only being playable with a second player – but is in all other ways a completely different game, with new characters and story. The game got a new trailer during the State of Play on Wednesday but a few days earlier we had the chance to play three hours of gameplay and speak to Fares about it and the industry in general. We enjoyed both experiences a great deal and the good news is that Split Fiction is out in just a few weeks’ time, at which point we expect it’ll be just as successful as its predecessor. The plot for Split Fiction is a peculiar one and revolves around two young novelists, named Zoe and Mio, who are invited by a very obviously evil techbro to test out his new virtual reality machine. The idea is that it allows you to visualise and explore your own stories and imagination, which immediately goes wrong when Mio and Zoe’s worlds become conjoined. We’re not sure where the story is going with all this, as while there are allusions to corporations taking advantage of creatives it’s all very on the nose and seems to lack subtlety. According to Fares, the main theme of the game is friendship, and you can definitely see that in the burgeoning relationship between Zoe and Mio, although it’s still fairly by-the-numbers from a narrative perspective. The gameplay conceit though is that, because Mio writes sci-fi and Zoe fantasy, the pair keep ping-ponging between different imagined worlds and that works great. Even if you have to question just how good the pair are as writers, given Zoe’s worlds are ultra generic Tolkien-esque fantasies and Mio’s are a fairly straight cross between Blade Runner and Tron. As a game though it works great, in terms of offering up an experience that is both hugely varied and, despite the constant changes in setting and gameplay style, impressively consistent in terms of quality. Although you can play online (like It Takes Two, only one person has to own the game) we were playing split screen with Victoria Kennedy from Eurogamer. Hearing that Hazelight games feature multiple different game styles, that are constantly switching around, might lead you to assume that they’re necessarily shallow, but that’s not the case at all. Although there are exceptions, the default gameplay is that of a third person action platformer, complete with double jumps, dashes, and 3D movement while swimming and flying. Right from the start, the game’s difficulty is not trivial, with some difficult jumps and proper puzzles – many of which involve one character doing something to help the other progress, from simply pressing a switch to jumping on a seesaw. This is absolutely not Mario Party with a story and our only concern is what happens when you try to play along with someone else of a very different skill level. That wasn’t the case in our preview but if we’d had to sit there trying to explain you have to move the camera with the right stick, because we were playing with a casual gamer friend, it would have been a very different experience. There’s also a lot of wall running in a lot of the levels (EA) As it was though, everything was extremely entertaining, with little punishment for failure. The controls were also very intuitive, which is welcome considering what the various buttons do is constantly changing, depending on the level. After a couple of tutorial-ish stages, one in each world, things were immediately taken up a notch as the game started playing around with gravity in new sci-fi levels, allowing you to stick to walls and ceilings and run along them. Mio (who we were playing as) gets a katana and Zoe a whip thing that allows her to grab objects and throw them, although both have grappling hooks that enable them to swing through a Fifth Element style traffic jam of flying cars. A boss battle then involved Mio releasing explosive barrels that Zoe could whip into the air and throw at the bad guy. As we understand, the game doesn’t have any It Takes Two style mini-games but instead there are a number of side stories, which are full length levels but with a twist. The first one we played transformed us both into pigs, with Zoe having the ability to l
GameCentral gets to play over three hours of the follow-up to It Takes Two, in what is some of the most enjoyable co-op action ever seen.
When we interviewed Split Fiction director Josef Fares recently, the one question he had no answer for is why other companies haven’t tried to copy him. His previous title, The Game Awards 2021 Game of the Year winner It Takes Two has sold over 23 million copies, and yet it has had no discernible effect on the overall number of co-op games being made and there have been no direct clones.
Instead, Swedish developer Hazelight Studios has been left to do everything itself. It Takes Two was preceded by the more grounded A Way Out and is now going to be succeeded by Split Fiction, which has a similar approach – in terms of only being playable with a second player – but is in all other ways a completely different game, with new characters and story.
The game got a new trailer during the State of Play on Wednesday but a few days earlier we had the chance to play three hours of gameplay and speak to Fares about it and the industry in general. We enjoyed both experiences a great deal and the good news is that Split Fiction is out in just a few weeks’ time, at which point we expect it’ll be just as successful as its predecessor.
The plot for Split Fiction is a peculiar one and revolves around two young novelists, named Zoe and Mio, who are invited by a very obviously evil techbro to test out his new virtual reality machine. The idea is that it allows you to visualise and explore your own stories and imagination, which immediately goes wrong when Mio and Zoe’s worlds become conjoined.
We’re not sure where the story is going with all this, as while there are allusions to corporations taking advantage of creatives it’s all very on the nose and seems to lack subtlety. According to Fares, the main theme of the game is friendship, and you can definitely see that in the burgeoning relationship between Zoe and Mio, although it’s still fairly by-the-numbers from a narrative perspective.
The gameplay conceit though is that, because Mio writes sci-fi and Zoe fantasy, the pair keep ping-ponging between different imagined worlds and that works great. Even if you have to question just how good the pair are as writers, given Zoe’s worlds are ultra generic Tolkien-esque fantasies and Mio’s are a fairly straight cross between Blade Runner and Tron.
As a game though it works great, in terms of offering up an experience that is both hugely varied and, despite the constant changes in setting and gameplay style, impressively consistent in terms of quality. Although you can play online (like It Takes Two, only one person has to own the game) we were playing split screen with Victoria Kennedy from Eurogamer.
Hearing that Hazelight games feature multiple different game styles, that are constantly switching around, might lead you to assume that they’re necessarily shallow, but that’s not the case at all. Although there are exceptions, the default gameplay is that of a third person action platformer, complete with double jumps, dashes, and 3D movement while swimming and flying.
Right from the start, the game’s difficulty is not trivial, with some difficult jumps and proper puzzles – many of which involve one character doing something to help the other progress, from simply pressing a switch to jumping on a seesaw.
This is absolutely not Mario Party with a story and our only concern is what happens when you try to play along with someone else of a very different skill level. That wasn’t the case in our preview but if we’d had to sit there trying to explain you have to move the camera with the right stick, because we were playing with a casual gamer friend, it would have been a very different experience.
There’s also a lot of wall running in a lot of the levels (EA)As it was though, everything was extremely entertaining, with little punishment for failure. The controls were also very intuitive, which is welcome considering what the various buttons do is constantly changing, depending on the level. After a couple of tutorial-ish stages, one in each world, things were immediately taken up a notch as the game started playing around with gravity in new sci-fi levels, allowing you to stick to walls and ceilings and run along them.
Mio (who we were playing as) gets a katana and Zoe a whip thing that allows her to grab objects and throw them, although both have grappling hooks that enable them to swing through a Fifth Element style traffic jam of flying cars. A boss battle then involved Mio releasing explosive barrels that Zoe could whip into the air and throw at the bad guy.
As we understand, the game doesn’t have any It Takes Two style mini-games but instead there are a number of side stories, which are full length levels but with a twist. The first one we played transformed us both into pigs, with Zoe having the ability to leap vertically in the air (because the pig was actually one of those toys with a springy head) and Mio can fly horizontally via a rainbow-hued fart.
The change in setting and style works great, with more abstract 3D platforming than the rest of the game – ending in you being transformed into sausages, that you have to lather with condiments before jumping into a hot dog bun and being eaten.
That’s not a spoiler, as it was in the first trailer, but the other side story we played was very obviously based on arcade snowboarding game SSX (for which EA is also the publisher).’ It had a little more of a sci-fi vibe, because it was one of Mio’s stories, but it played just like the old games and is hopefully something you can easily access at any time, as we’d gladly go back to it.
Returning to the standard levels, some of them are feature-length boss battles, such as an entertaining one against a giant robot ball that keeps throwing cars at you and has all sorts of laser beam and rocket attacks. This culminates with Mio having to jump onto it and running around the outside, like a planetoid in Super Mario Galaxy, as Zoe flings explosives at its one vulnerable spot.
There are quite a few overt references to other games throughout Split Fiction, with Metroid clearly being a Fares favourite. A lot of the bug-like enemies are straight out of the game, but one whole level has you playing as a morph ball, where Zoe is magnetic and Mio can transform into a swarm of insect-like robots that can form their own parachute.
The inspiration might be obvious, but the level and puzzles are very well designed, including when it segues into a pinball section where Zoe is still a morph ball but Mio has to activate the flippers and plungers as she moves through the stage.
I am legally distinct Groot (EA)Despite the nods to various games and movies the game never feels derivative, simply because co-op gaming of this complexity is so rare. For example, another fun stage is a sci-fi one where you’re racing along on motorbikes, which can also attach to walls and ceilings at certain points and eventually get machineguns to use against enemies.
A subsequent fantasy level then has you transforming into different creatures (a fairy and what is basically Groot for Zoe and an ape and some kind of dragon/otter/thing for Mio) in one of the more puzzle-orientated sections.
It wasn’t entirely clear where these levels came in terms of the overall progress of the game (they were just served up to us automatically, rather than us accessing them organically) but the transforming fantasy level was definitely starting to get tricky, in terms of the level of co-operation needed and the obscurity of the puzzles.
A subsequent one, where you both get pet dragons, was even more so, with Zoe’s being able to roll like a ball and Mio’s being able to fly and spit acid. This was used in a variety of imaginative ways, in terms of puzzle solving, often also requiring quick reflexes to complete.
Somehow, the game’s difficulty always seemed to be pitched just right and we were never stuck long enough to get frustrated, with the solution always being satisfyingly logical.
The final level was also hard and basically a more-puzzle orientated version of Contra, with a soupçon of Portal. Not only could you run and jump but you could also aim in all directions with the right stick, like a dual-stick shooter. This led to some tricky colour-coded puzzles, requiring a lot of teamwork, and then a final boss battle which was enjoyably taxing, with constant changes in perspective and tactics.
It was certainly more entertaining than the last few official Contra games and underlined that while Split Fiction may sound gimmicky and unfocused in theory it doesn’t feel like that at all when you’re playing. Especially with someone sat next to you on the same couch, the game is enormously entertaining and it’s extremely impressive how finally balanced it is.
The whole thing should be a confusing mess of random mechanics and unpredictable controls but it’s not that at all. The visuals, particularly for the sci-fi levels, are a touch bland at times, and we’re not entirely convinced by the story and characters, but in terms of co-op action this seems a considerable step beyond the already excellent It Takes Two.
Formats: PC (previewed), Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5
Price: £44.99
Publisher: EA
Developer: Hazelight Studios
Release Date: 6th March 2025
Age Rating: 16
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