These sites are ad—free

Another story

Hazelight Studios is known from games like It Takes Two and A Way Out which are two player games. I have played them both and I tremendously enjoyed them. They were fast-paced, intriguing, full of twists, and most of all, hilarious. Hazelight Studios’ next game Split Fiction was recently released and I did play it through online with my friend.

A little note: only one player has to own this game. The other player has to download a “Friend’s pass” that is completely free.

Plot

Mio and Zoe are two writers who don’t get along. Mio is a fiction writer when Zoe writes fantasy. Soon their lives are turned around as they’re pulled into this weird world where anything is possible—and everything will be possible. The plot was good, with it mainly revolving around the two main characters. First they don’t get along that well until they realise they need each other if they wanna survive from this odd predicament.

Gameplay, controls, audio and visuals

The gameplay in Split Fiction is very much alike to the two other games (It Takes Two and A Way Out). You must play this with a friend that can be local or online, but the other player must be on your friend list (or your EA Account friends list) as this cannot be played online otherwise. Meaning there is no random online pairing possible. The other thing is what both players likely need are headphones with microphone as players must talk to each other to do things such as in sync or other plans to solve puzzles. (Dual Sense controller has a microphone, but I didn’t try that out as I did play this using headphones).

So, what comes to the gameplay, well it is rather easy to understand. Players need to go from one story and environment to another, almost like level to level with mostly split screen setting. As the game is mostly adventure/platforming that is what is mainly done in Zoe’s fantasy worlds and with the other being Mio’s fiction world that is more shooting. What comes to the weapons that the characters had, I personally think me playing as Zoe I always got the worst weapons, but players can change characters every time they restart the game.

It is nearly pointless to tell every single twist and world the game offers as it liked to surprise all the time with new innovative and quirky gameplay elements. One moment we were in fiction world shooting robots when other we were rainbow-farting pigs in a fantasy farm.

The gameplay was fun and frustrating at the same time. Sometimes it wasn’t the easiest and some side missions felt like we cannot ever finish them. But it just takes some planning and trying. What helps the gameplay was the checkpoints that were very generously placed.

Controls are as easy to understand as the gameplay. I don’t think they needed anything extra, because otherwise the whole game would’ve easily become too intricate to play. As you die a lot in Split Fiction there is some mercy to it. When other player dies there is a little time-limit until they can return to the gameplay, if the other player stays alive until then. But if both dies then it is back to the latest checkpoint.

The game was fully voice acted and it was done nicely. But what I enjoyed the most was the music that was very action-like.

Visually Split Fiction looked good and it ran very smoothly. Technically there wasn’t barely any problems or lags, other than a few bugs here and there.

It takes two to make a thing go right

Split Fiction was full of fun and giggles, but also some frustration, because of the difficulty level. It had amazing level design, great co-op, easy to understand gameplay and controls, and good storytelling. The game is about 12 hours long. I don’t know what to say about this other than it is a must-play if you enjoyed the two previous games.

Split Fiction is available on PS5 (reviewed on using PS5 Pro), Xbox Series X|S and Windows.

SCORE:

4/5

“It is nearly pointless to tell every single twist and world the game offers as it liked to surprise all the time with new innovative and quirky gameplay elements”

RELEASE DATE: March 6, 2025
GENRE: Adventure
DEVELOPER: Hazelight Studios
PUBLISHER: Electornic Arts
PLATFORMS: PS5 (reviewed using PS5 Pro)
Xbox Series X|S
Windows

 

These sites are ad—free