Split Fiction review – the best co-op game of the generation
The makers of It Takes Two return, with an enormously entertaining follow-up that cements their position as the masters of two-player co-op.
The makers of It Takes Two return, with an enormously entertaining follow-up that cements their position as the masters of two-player co-op.
Sweden’s Hazelight Studios has built its entire reputation on the increasingly rare concept of two-player co-op-only video games. Whilst that went okay in their first game, A Way Out (and retroactively in director Josef Fares’ previous title Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons), the formula worked considerably more smoothly in It Takes Two, which learnt from both the successes and failures of the earlier titles. Its humour, kinetic action, and well-designed, collaborative puzzles made it both a major commercial and critical success.
Hazelight’s third game is Split Fiction, which to the surprise of nobody retains the two-player structure of its forebears. It also sees the return of the Friend Pass system, which allows a second player to join in online without having to own their own copy of the game – it even works cross-platform now. That generosity immediately bypasses most co-op games’ biggest problem, which is finding a friend who’s bought the same game at the same time as you.
The other winning feature that Split Fiction keeps is the ability to play not only online but in couch co-op mode. While online gaming is great in its ability to bring large groups of players together at all hours of the day and night, playing a game with the person you’re sitting next to remains one of the best – and funniest – ways to enjoy interactive entertainment.
Despite the somewhat unforgiving stipulation that you simply can’t play Split Fiction without a co-op partner, it’s a game that brings together all of Hazelight’s experience in new and exciting ways, from the variety and intensity of its action sequences to the way the screen splits and re-merges so cinematically, whilst always keeping both players in view.
The game’s plot and general set-up is very contrived, but it gets the job done. Taking place in the offices of Rader Publishing, its ebullient tech bro CEO has invented a device that lets readers experience books though VR. To rip stories into his new format, authors have to don a body suit and get suspended in a glowing pod, which then captures their ideas.
Split Fiction’s protagonists are Mio and Zoe, two aspiring, un-published authors desperate to get their big breaks. They’re the epitome of opposites. One’s chatty and outgoing, the other introverted; one’s a city girl, while the other grew up in the country; one writes sci-fi, the other fantasy; and one’s American, the other English.
The action starts when Mio gets cold feet about the whole procedure and decides to back out. After a physical tussle with the increasingly aggressive CEO, she stumbles into Zoe’s pod, where both of them enter the same fictional world. Except now with two of them in there it starts to glitch and split, catapulting them between the competing cyberpunk and fantasy settings as their diametrically different sets of ideas compete for attention.
What ensues is a helter-skelter of palm sweating action sequences bouncing between the two budding authors’ conflicting styles and settings. Flying car chases and aerial motorcycle pursuits give way to being hunted through a castle full of fast-moving trolls bent on your consumption. There’s also an entire, dizzying section where both characters are under the influence of different sources of gravity, simultaneously occupying walls, floors and ceilings as they move through the same space.
Boss fights are equally inventive, although after your first few it’s no longer much of a shock when the giant robot you thought you’d just defeated turns out to have a few more nasty tricks up its sleeve. All of them require you to work with your partner, collaborating on escaping from and eventually taking down the giant bad guy.
Once again that process is wonderfully asymmetric, so on one level Zoe will be driving while Mio takes the laser turret, while in another each has a baby dragon. Starting off as eggs, they grow over the course of the level, one able to roll and smash things, the other capable of gliding and using its acid breath to melt armour and chains, combining their skills to solve massive traversal puzzles and finish off the level’s final boss.
Each player can often be doing very different things (EA)Hectic pursuits through glowing cityscapes give way to 2.5D side-scrolling platforming levels; as well as sequences with a puzzle focus, getting you to work together to make your way through strange poisonous plants, across deadly acid baths, or through massive automated factories whose robotic appendages you’ll need to jump between to escape.
Generous checkpoints mean even the trickiest sections don’t get in the way for too long, a few retries always getting you past the problem area and on to the next idea. That’s particularly true of the game’s optional side stories, which offer their own encapsulated concept or puzzle, some of which can be quite a bit more challenging than the main campaign.
The ingenuity and wild invention are omnipresent though, so if you happen not to be enjoying a particular section (we really didn’t get on with the Monkey King and his confusing rhythm action boss encounter) you know it’ll be finished within minutes and that you’ll be on to the next white knuckle flight of fancy soon after. It turns the game into a fast-moving tasting menu of perfectly realised little delights.
The need to co-operate means you’re constantly communicating, and the fact that you’re regularly armed with guns, gravity whips, magic fireworks, or cyber-ninja katanas, means you can turn them on your partner at any time, the threat of friendly fire a frequent creator of mirth and silliness. There are times when you need to work together to succeed, but also plenty where you’re just messing about.
Brilliantly conceived, and highly polished from start to finish, Split Fiction is a further escalation of Hazelight’s growing expertise in co-op gaming, and as a piece of pure entertainment it takes a lot of beating. The laughter, jeering, and overriding sense of hyped-up hijinks is something special to video games, which can’t be emulated by films, music or literature. And despite a couple of sections that fall a little flat, this is a dozen hours of the best fun you’re likely to ever have with two controllers.
Split Fiction review summaryIn Short: Another cracking co-op extravaganza that successfully blends collaborative puzzling and spectacular action sequences into a breathless, occasionally moving and often hilarious, two-player-only experience.
Pros: Massively inventive gameplay ideas that are rarely repeated. Highly polished throughout, unique bosses, and you can play co-op with anyone on any platform even if they don’t own the game.
Cons: Some sections are inevitably not quite as engaging as others. Your co-op partner needs to be at least roughly the same level of skill as you.
Score: 9/10
Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Price: £44.99
Publisher: EA Originals
Developer: Hazelight Studios
Release Date: 6th March 2025
Age Rating: 16
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