Split Fiction review

I wasn’t sure how the team at Hazelight Studios were going to top It Takes Two. A wonderful game about two feuding parents getting turned into toy dolls, it’s about as imaginative as they come. Or at least, it was until Split Fiction came along. Hazelight’s newest game takes players on its biggest, boldest journey yet, one that spans out-of-this-world fictional landscapes, takes you to the furthest reaches of space, then back down to Earth on the back of a dragon. And that’s just for starters.

Like all of Hazelight’s games, Split Fiction is designed to be played in co-op. There’s no option to tackle this game by yourself: either locally or online, you’ll need to team up with a buddy, with one of you taking control of Zoe and the other Mio. Two young women who have been thrown together by the hands of their publisher, they’re both authors who somehow find themselves transported to the worlds they’ve written inside their books. Zoe is a fantasy writer, penning tales of dragons, trolls and green, luscious landscapes. Mio, on the other hand, prefers sci-fi: she’s written about cyberpunk cities, space stations and everything inbetween.

Upon visiting their publisher, Zoe and Mio find themselves unwittingly imprisoned in a strange machine designed to steal their ideas. But they’ve ended up in the same pod together, which sends the machine haywire — and blends Zoe and Mio’s story worlds together. Ending up inside the stories they’ve written, Zoe and Mio end up jumping between fantasy and sci-fi adventures with abandon. Not only will they have to face off against the threats and dangers they themselves have written, but they’ll also need to find a way to stop their publisher’s machine from stealing their ideas. No big deal, then. Just another day, right?

Split Fiction wastes no time in throwing you straight into the action — it’s a little jarring, in fact. To begin with, you’ll know very little about your protagonists, other than they’re both authors. Mio is reluctant to open up to Zoe, and Zoe is a little too enthusiastic for Mio’s liking. But over time, you’ll come to know both characters, learning titbits about their lives and where their fantastical, over-the-top stories have come from.

I’d say the story here isn’t quite as strong — or at least not quite as important — as it was in It Takes Two and A Way Out, but over time it certainly becomes more pertinent. The gameplay though? It blows anything else from Hazelight out of the water. This is a rip-roaring thrill ride that never lets up, and I’ve loved absolutely every moment of it.

One minute you’re running through a futuristic city, ziplining from flying cars and wall-running along billboards like you’re something from Ghostrunner. The next you’re a giant treant, affecting nature and the world around you by moving boulders and making plants blossom. The amount of imagination and ingenuity that has been poured into Split Fiction is second to none, and throughout the game’s 12-or-so-hour running time, it will never stop amazing you.

Along with the main storyline — which flips between Zoe’s fantasy worlds and Mio’s sci-fi worlds every couple of hours — you’ll also jump into ‘side stories’, which are based on other pieces of fiction that the two women have written throughout their lives. These are optional, but to skip past them is to miss out on much of Split Fiction’s fun and quirky side.

Most of these side stories will only take 10 to 15 minutes to complete, but they are absolutely wonderful: in them, you’ll be a pig that can fart rainbows, a boarder pulling off cool tricks, Cool Boarders style, a tiny human being helped by impossibly huge giants, and a whole lot more. I don’t want to spoil any of the surprises, because each of these side stories holds something really special that will have you grinning face-wide.

But even the main storyline holds plenty of surprises. Not only will you be switching up scenarios regularly, but you’ll also be switching up gameplay styles. For the most part, Split Fiction plays like a 3D adventure, but you’ll find yourself enjoying sections like a 2D run-and-gun, an isometric adventure and even a large-scale pinball game. It’s impossible to get bored, because Split Fiction never keeps you in the same place long enough. There’s enough time to catch your breath when you need to, sure, but you’ll never settle into one playstyle or one environment long enough to feel at home.

At times, it feels like a whistlestop tour through video games themselves, using as many tropes and styles that Hazelight could think up. I don’t mean that negatively, either: every genre that’s aped here is done so expertly that it will have you wondering why the developer hasn’t made more games outside of its palette of co-op adventures. That run-and-gun section? It rivals the likes of Contra in terms of competency, and it’s not the only part of the game that will have you wishing for more.

What’s particularly neat is that no matter what you’re doing in Split Fiction, whether you’re riding on the back of a dragon or shooting your way through robotic droids, Mio and Zoe never have the same abilities. Each player will have their own skills to master, both of which work together in order to reach the same goal. When it came to the fantasy dragon section, for example, Mio’s dragon could spit toxic liquid and glide through the air, while Zoe’s dragon could roll at speed. In a sci-fi section, Zoe could make use of magnetic powers while Mio could hack devices.

Nothing on offer in Split Fiction is particularly difficult, but some sections will require you and your co-op partner to work together and figure out what to do next. Your skills often need to be used in tandem, so you’ll need to be co-ordinated and able to chat with each other to figure out what to do. This isn’t the sort of game I could imagine playing with a random online — it’s definitely best played with a close friend.

I’ve been playing on PS5 Pro, and I’ve been continually amazed with how fantastic Split Fiction looks. Whether it’s the vistas of a green medieval landscape, or a crumbling castle ruin, or a neon-soaked metropolis, it always looks stunning. It has performed fantastically too, especially considering that being in split screen, it’s essentially having to do twice the work. I’ve experienced the odd graphical glitch, however, like a duff camera angle and a strange green square appearing over scenery for a very short scene, but there’s been nothing game-breaking.

There’s been very little to break the immersion of Split Fiction, in fact. There are a few small annoyances, like the fact that if you die, you’re sometimes brought back into a space where it’s almost impossible to continue from. But you’ll simply be brought straight back somewhere else and able to keep moving forward. It’s almost inevitable at times, because otherwise your death would affect the other player’s progress. But generally speaking, there’s very little punishment for dying, and checkpoints are very frequently littered through the game — even if both players fail, you’ll only ever lose a minute or two of progress.

I’d be foolish to wrap up my Split Fiction review without mentioning the game’s bosses. If you’ve read reviews of mine before then you’ll know I’m not a big fan of bosses, but even I have to applaud the huge, creative beasts you come up against here. No fight is ever easy — and sometimes they’re a little too frenetic, with you needing to simultaneously dodge attacks while carrying out your own — but each one is a sight to behold. From a giant knight to a robotic dentist, everything here is a whimsical and creative showcase that’s unlike anything you’ve ever fought before.

It looks like we’re going to have to rewrite our best couch co-op guides, because Split Fiction is undoubtedly the new gold standard for co-operative play. The amount of imagination that Hazelight has displayed here is incredible, and you’ll be constantly surprised as you move from one scene to the next. I’ve loved every minute of it — and there’s no doubt I’ll be playing it through again at some point just so I can experience playing as both characters.