Game Review: Split Fiction

 What does it mean to be a writer? 

For me, there’s nothing more liberating than being able to formulate one’s thoughts and opinions into a recorded, written format.  There are so many different kinds of writing however and one such field I adore is the world of novel writing.  If you didn’t know this about me, besides playing and reviewing video games; I also read and review a lot of books too.  Like video games, books have the potential to whisk us away to worlds we never could have dreamed of and are capable of providing us experiences we are unlikely to forget.  Writing a novel isn’t easy though, you have to consider the amount of thought and preparation that goes into it. You have to plan out an entire world and inhabit it with a story which respects the foundations you built.  You need to have patience and consideration when it comes to pacing things out and building up characters and events in equal measure.  Even if you are able to do all of that, who’s to say you can even get the story to print and publish it for an audience to read? Yes sir, it’s fair to say there’s a lot of hurdles behind having writing as a career prospect. That doesn’t stop people from trying though and for those that do succeed, they have the joy is sharing their worlds and stories with other people.  A lot of this serves as the core basis behind the narrative of Josef Fares’ latest co-operative adventure game; Split Fiction. 

If you don’t know who Josef Fares is by this point where have you been? Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, A Way Out, It Takes Two; these are all really well-received games from the mind of the larger-than-life developer.  The one unifying element that ties most of these games together is their co-operative blueprint.  Each of these games focuses on two characters who inhabit and progress through a story and their respective events.  This gameplay formula is the DNA of all of Fares’ games and a large reason to why they are so well received. After winning a game of the year award for his work on It Takes Two, it only makes sense that Fares and his team at Hazelight Studios would get right back to work on refining the formula once more in their next big entry by the name of Split Fiction. Developed by Hazelight Studios and published under Electronic Arts originals program, Split Fiction serves as the next big showcase for why Fares and his team need to be left alone to cook, because when they do, they end up serving a Michelin star meal as a result. On the reception front, it’s worth recognizing that Split Fiction is one of 2025’s highest rated games on OpenCritic with a high 90% aggregate score.  Along with the critical response, the game also touts an incredible sales statistic in the fact it sold 1 million copies within 2 days of release and totaling 2 million within a week!

The narrative behind Split Fiction follows two aspiring writers by the name of Mio Hudson and Zoe Foster (Fun Fact: These characters are named after Fares’ two daughters). With Zoe hoping to finally land a publishing opportunity and Mio needing an immediate source of money, the two end up meeting when they agree to take part in an experimental simulation program ran by Rader Publishing, ran by the egomaniacal J.D Rader. While Zoe happily takes part in the simulation, Mio attempts to leave during its initial stages and inadvertently ends up stuck in the simulation pod with Zoe.  As the duo soon come to terms with their situation, the worlds of their stories take shape within the simulation.  Zoe’s stories are based around fantasy while Mio’s stories are grounded more in sci-fi.  Realizing they are stuck together; the pair must find simulation glitches throughout the worlds of their stories if they have any hopes of breaking out of the simulation.  Meanwhile in the real world, Rader soon learns the risk Zoe and Mio’s situation has at destroying his simulation machine and he puts all of his resources to work trying to stop the pair before they can do more damage. 

The narrative behind this game is brilliant on so many different levels.  I adore the concept of simulating different worlds from their story ideas as it’s a storyline I’ve not really seen done before.  As you would expect the game has a fun time utilizing as well as poking a bit of fun at a lot of common tropes and themes embedded within the sci-fi and fantasy genres out there.  While the format in which the story progresses is endearingly funny, it also knows how to layer itself with a lot of respectable weight and emotion when the time is appropriate. The way this game uses its simulation setting to further the depth of it’s two central characters is smartly done. Mio and Zoe progressively come to know each other though the showcase of their stories and they soon develop a comradery that will help them get through the simulated predicament they found themselves in.  Even Rader as the antagonist feels genuinely compelling with the way he projects a very genuine threat to creative ideas in the real world in the form of corporate greed and algorithmic thinking.  If you were to pry a gripe out of me for the narrative however then it would be the questionable dialogue laid throughout.  I think it hits more times than it misses for the most part but there was a fair few sections where the jokes didn’t land simply because of the way they were written and worded.

What really defines Split Fiction however is its fundamental gameplay.  Like all of the prior games, this game cannot be played solo; it has to be played with two players at any given time.  This puts a lot of focus not only individualizing Mio and Zoe from a narrative element but also from a gameplay element too.  In terms of navigation, the controls for each character are the same but what sets them apart is the unique abilities they are afforded within every world.  Mio and Zoe’s worlds have specific roles and abilities tied to their presence in them.  That’s the core crux of this game’s appeal as it constantly shifts the functionality and specifics of what the two players will be doing all throughout the game’s runtime.  The level of variety behind this is simply incredible.  Hazelight really put an insane amount of effort to diversifying the gameplay elements not just within each world but within each section of them.  This means no one segment ever sticks around for too long to risk becoming tedious.  The game presents you with so much distinct gameplay scenarios it makes progressing throughout it so much fun.  

Co-operation is the aim of the game though and that design philosophy is baked deep into every aspect of the gameplay.  You need to rely on one another to overcome a number of gameplay obstacles throughout the course of the game, so the way the gameplay features work to make you weigh on one another to synchronize constantly is really impressive.  It reinforced the idea that this is a co-operative experience in which you need one another to be able to truly progress further.  The distinct abilities Mio and Zoe are given are so well thought out too, there’s no sense of redundancy with these gameplay aspects, as you genuinely feel like you’re contributing towards the end goal with your player partner. The level of creativity behind some of these abilities is incredible too.  I love how unique my role felt in the gameplay for each segment and equally how much it made me want to experience playing the game once again but as the other character to experience their abilities in the game.

The design end of the game also deserves major praise.  As the idea behind this game is it’s simulating different fantasy and sci-fi worlds all throughout, Hazelight really went above and beyond in creating so many distinct environments to play around in.  The major worlds showcase the scale and core themes behind the story through their environmental design.  I loved how much detail is layered into the environments of this game. The sci-fi worlds rely on metallic structuring with neon lighting to help emphasize the futuristic setting smartly.  In turn the fantasy worlds use a lot of colour and natural design elements to help give a cozier and embracing aura.  You’ll be exploring these environments in many different ways too, with on rail segments and open exploration sections intertwined all throughout. I also love how throughout the game you’ll find little side stories in which you dive into small vertical slices which play around with gameplay and visual ideas even more.  There’s not a single section of this game’s overall design that doesn’t feel enticing to progress though, it’s a proud showcase of the sheer magnitude of Hazelight’s determination to experiment and be creative.

Visually, the game also knocks it out of the park.  Everything is rendered and animated so fluidly within this game.  The fact the game relies on two very distinct world designs helps give them a lot of room to experiment with scale, depth and colour in a lot of interesting ways.  Character design also feels top notch, especially with the facial animations on Mio and Zoe, the game gets across a lot of emotional moments simply with the way they can animate inflections across there faces.  The game’s soundtrack also kicks so much ass too. Gustaf Grefberg and Jonatan Järpehag like Mio and Zoe, work with an insane amount of synchronicity to give this game a lot of musical structure to utilize in a lot of its key moments. They know how to amp up the tension as well as handle the more somber moments within their original score.

Split Fiction feels like a massive booster shot of creativity that the gaming industry needs to learn from.  Too many games these days from AAA publishers rely too much on repetitive formulas and identifiable trademarks.  Game design is at risk of becoming too regimented if we don’t start letting developers experiment and actually design games they want to.  Split Fiction shows the level of quality you can achieve if you simply step back and let your developers run with an idea. I’m happy Josef and his team at Hazelight are committing to their ideas with so much passion and love because by the end of their creative endeavors, we as the general audience get to experience some truly phenomenal games as a result.