Split Fiction
Split Fiction is an action adventure game that heavily emphasizes two-player cooperative play, much like Hazelight’s previous two games. Surprisingly, this studio essentially fills this niche by itself. Since no one else is creating games like this, you may believe the team has the luxury of slowing down, but in reality, every title surpasses the previous one, and this is the case here.
Throughout the entire 15-hour adventure, Split Fiction keeps up its unrelenting pace. To play Hazelight’s co-op adventure is to go through all of a theme park’s many attractions while riding a rollercoaster: colliding with a haunted house, causing animatronic horrors to spill everywhere; crashing through a shooting gallery, shooting down targets as you speed past; and plummeting down into the hall of mirrors, leaving nothing but a trail of glass behind.However, the distractions offered by Split Fiction are slightly more exciting than tacky mirrors and cheesy horrors.
You can transform into apes and fairies to solve puzzles in a fantasy world one moment, and then you’re a space marine in a 2.5D sidescroller, using your weapons and the strength of friendship to break into a future prison the next. However, you must move quickly because there is typically a lot of running, jumping, and flying involved in whatever you’re doing.
The back history of Split Fiction
Given its inexorable forward pace, Split Fiction is pretty frankly insane how often it switches things up—even more than Hazelight’s It Takes Two. However, the premise itself is predicated on this. A publisher named Radar, whose CEO turns out to be a huge jerk and plagiarizer, has invited two budding writers, Mio and Zoe, to a meeting.
Mio and Zoe are trapped in their own stories and must cooperate to get out of the universes they have created through some clumsy sci-fi rubbish. The reason I use the word “forced” is that they are not willing partners at all. Mio has no social skills, despises fantasy, and loves science fiction. Zoe is a grumpy extrovert who despises science fiction and adores fantasy. It’s an unusual coupling dynamic with two uninteresting, widely written characters that is quite simple and on the nose.They naturally find that they make a fantastic team and that they are more alike than they thought (I’ll let you finish your gasps now). The thing that unites them, you know? trauma. which is made clear by the stories they have written, and they allow one another to enter by acting through them together. Look, it’s trite and apparent, but sometimes all you want is for certain folks to become friends. It’s pleasant! Sometimes it’s even touching.
Dynamic Duo
Each chapter grants the characters new, unique abilities, further demonstrating Split Fiction’s commitment to diversity. While Zoe has a whip that can grasp objects, Mio runs around with swords, slicing and dicing in the first chapter, which is a corny cyber ninja story about unpaid parking tickets. Though the mechanics and rules controlling them are different, both are essential to conquering the chapter’s tasks and frequently require each other.
Split Fiction includes a Friends Pass to facilitate playing with a friend. This lets you play with a friend even if they don’t have the game, similar to It Takes Two’s pass. Between the two of you, you only require one copy. Better yet, it’s crossplay this time, so you can play with your friend as long as they have a PC, Xbox Series X/S, or PlayStation 5.
We have the opportunity to rear two baby dragons in a later chapter. The dragons acquire new, more potent skills at every stage of their lives. I’m certain that Mio got the best dragon because it can spew acid and takes off first. Nevertheless, it was difficult to ignore my friend’s whoops of joy as she rolled around the room and joyfully crashed Zoe’s dragon into everything.
Even when there is a dud—and there are a few—it never remains for very long enough to create an unpleasant odor since nothing should be allowed to outlive its welcome. Even the most basic actions are blessed with a freshness that keeps them engaging due to this efficient use of time.
Conclusion
As one of the most successful and entertaining cooperative games on the PS5 to date, Split Fiction is Hazelight Studios’ best game to date. There is never a dull moment thanks to its unparalleled variety, and each of its many mechanics is always done flawlessly. You can voice one or two small grievances about this, but they all get lost in the background when the game is continuously presenting you with fresh concepts and seldom ever stops to rest. If further evidence was required, this is it: Josef Fares and his team have discovered a truly unique formula that enables them to experiment with an amazing variety of gameplay that is only made better by its unique co-op perspective.
