Our Verdict
Hazelight Studios has outdone itself with Split Fiction by innovating and expanding upon its earlier work. Mio and Zoe’s worlds are fully realized locales that pay loving homage to their real-life inspirations, and the optional Side Stories prompt many a smile. It’s an impactful look at the creative writing process and an essential co-op adventure.
“Rainbow farts are the best!” Zoe informs us. Our dual protagonists have been transformed into adorable little pigs, one with the ability to turn into a slinky, while the other, well, rainbow farts for speed boosts. We begin feeding apples to ravenous door locks and rolling around in the mud, then slowly but surely make our way toward the end of this wild and wonderful adventure. We dive into the darkness, expecting to reappear in Mio’s cyberpunk-inspired dystopia. Instead, blood covers the screen and the adorable little piggies are turned into a pair of sausages and tasked with cooking themselves. I’d say this alone sums up the chaos that is Split Fiction, but it’s only really scratching the surface.
Hazelight’s latest co-op game revolves around imagination; creating worlds where anything is possible. You’re cast as Zoe and Mio, two unpublished authors selected for a new project at the Rader Corporation. It quickly becomes clear that something sinister is afoot, prompting Mio to try to flee the building. Unfortunately, she falls into Zoe’s ‘bubble,’ a unique, isolated dreamscape where Zoe’s fantasies run wild. It becomes clear that Rader is planning to siphon these ideas for profit and that you’ll have to stop him.
But where Zoe prefers the drama of high fantasy, Mio writes about gritty cyberpunk worlds and interstellar struggles between robots and humanity. This creates a ‘glitch’ that provides access to both Zoe and Mio’s fictional worlds – hence Split Fiction. My Warhammer 40k and Dune-obsessed partner, Ross, chooses to play as Mio, and I, someone who’s very much in her Dungeons and Dragons era, go with Zoe. The stages are set, and all that’s left is to lock in.
Split Fiction is immediately Hazelight’s fastest-paced game. We appear on an alien planet embroiled in a particularly nasty war, then are whisked away to a whimsical fantasy village overrun by orcs. We’re introduced to some slick platform game parkour, which flows as nicely as It Takes Two’s.
Our first main level, however, is Neon Revenge. Tasked with taking on a tyrannical, Arasaka-esque megacorp, Zoe and Mio transform into ‘cyber ninjas’ equipped with a sword, anti-gravity boots, and a powerful whip. Ross’ immediate urge is to hack me to death with the katana, prompting a disgruntled response from Zoe. Don’t worry, I quickly Indiana Jonesed his ass, and it turns out I’m perhaps a little bit quicker than he expected.
Generally, Mio is equipped with more aggressive tools, while Zoe’s playstyle skews more toward puzzles (at one point I transform into a Groot-like tree that can reshape the environment), meaning there’s some variety between their playstyles. You can switch characters at any time in the main menu, letting you try out everything on offer.
As we emerge out onto the rooftops, I can feel my breath hitch. Mio’s cyberpunk dream is immediately reminiscent of The Grid from Tron. It’s suitably bathed in neon, billboards flicker in the background, and futuristic cars zip through the skies on anti-gravity highways. As someone who grew up watching Tron, it’s a fairytale dream come true – where Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City feels hostile, there’s an odd coziness to Neon Revenge, almost as if it’s supposed to be a home away from home.
But then the action starts. There are high-speed motorcycle chases, a fight against an angry parking robot that shifts you to a side-scrolling perspective, and enemies that require dispatching with your new weapons. The final battle sees you take on a tank while riding your (definitely not stolen) bikes, and as the corpo collapses, its leader battered and defeated, I wonder if Split Fiction can get any better than this. Its relentless pace and high-octane combat set such a high bar that the proceeding levels can’t quite match, but that’s not to say the rest of the game is a disappointment.
Other highlights include a zone – which Ross informs me is inspired by Alita Battle Angel – where you’re equipped with blue and red Portal-style weapons that blow holes in forcefields of the corresponding color. While that in itself is fun, you then take on robots whose color-changing shields also need bursting. It’s reminiscent of It Takes Two’s sap gun and matches, but it’s slicker and a little more challenging.
Then, in one of the final zones, you befriend spectral creatures whose abilities chain together to help you seamlessly traverse an eerie, ruined city swarming with ghosts. Mio’s owl illuminates golden objects, while Zoe’s fish-like familiar magnetizes gold. The shimmering, almost angelic light cuts through the darkness so spectacularly that I once again feel my jaw drop. As the galaxy sparkles beneath me, pulled every which way by my particularly greedy companion, I can’t help but stare. I’d also be remiss not to mention Split Fiction’s final mission, which I can only say is one of the most innovative and impressive sections of any game in recent memory.
As you progress, the initially restrictive split-screen perspective opens up to give you a more complete view of the levels and their complexity. I grew to appreciate that Zoe and Mio’s worlds aren’t simple reskins of one another but complete reimaginings in two wildly different styles.
As the split-screen boundary begins to shift, mirroring the collapsing veil between both writers, you can eventually jump back and forth. The action is seamless, and there’s not a stutter in sight, despite my PC being a little rusty. I experienced one progress-halting bug in my entire playthrough, which was easily fixed by a restart. Other than that, it was all smooth sailing.
While the core missions certainly shine, the Side Stories are easily one of the game’s best additions. Unlike It Takes Two, where side content largely focused on mini-games, Side Stories are portals that lead to Zoe and Mio’s long-forgotten ideas. These take five to ten minutes to complete but all play out in unique worlds. The aforementioned pig incident (I don’t want to talk about it) occurs in one, while another sees you riding gigantic skeletal shark creatures through the desert.
My personal favorite is a hand-drawn fantasy narrative narrated by Zoe. You run through the pages of her journal as she changes your weapons, rewrites major story beats, and pits you against a ‘Giant Enemy Crab’ (I see what you did there). It’s fun, it’s cute, and most of all, it sells Zoe as a believable writer.
As you’ve likely noticed, several Side Stories are fun nods to prominent videogame and pop culture franchises. I also spotted references to Dark Souls, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Assassin’s Creed scattered throughout the main game.
Split Fiction proudly wears its inspirations on its sleeve and lovingly honors its cultural touchpoints. An early It Takes Two reference has me reminiscing about that one time I may or may not have ripped the legs off of a stuffed elephant (not guilty, your honor), while Ross consistently caught more obscure sci-fi callbacks I’d have missed. As two people who grew up immersed in slightly different pop culture, I feel our bond grew even stronger as we excitedly educated one another on Split Fiction’s many references.
It is, after all, a game about friendship. While A Way Out’s central focus was brotherhood and It Takes Two’s was relationships, Mio and Zoe start their adventure as two seemingly disparate parts. Mio’s the disillusioned city girl, while Zoe’s the excitable country bumpkin; what could they possibly have in common? As the story unfolds and the pair draw closer together, we begin to learn what plagues them. I won’t spoil the details here, but as a writer who’s experienced similar situations, I can say their stories certainly tug at my heartstrings and mirror my own urges to translate internalized trauma into fantastical tales of victory and glory.
Hazelight has outdone itself with Split Fiction by simultaneously innovating and expanding upon its earlier work. Its worlds are convincing and a joy to explore in co-op, whether you’re feeding a dragon or playing hopscotch down a back alley in a cyberpunk city. They’re universes that are so far from our own yet feel so intrinsically linked, much like Zoe and Mio’s traumas are to their writing.
Split Fiction is easily the best iteration of Hazelight’s split-screen formula to date, and while I’m intrigued to see what comes next, it prompts questions about how it can raise the bar any higher. In the meantime, however, you’ll find me riding dragons and tearing down the establishment while simultaneously curling up into a hot dog bun and wondering where my life went very, very wrong – or right; I’m not sure.
