‘Split Fiction’ Is a Psychedelic Co-op Thrill Ride That Goes Off the Rails

It’s safe to say that It Takes Two was a breakout success for Swedish developer Hazelight Studios. The co-op action adventure won “Game of the Year” at The Game Awards in 2021 and has since gone on to sell 20 million copies in four years — an impressive feat for any title, let alone a cooperative game about a couple working through their troubled marriage together. After the immense success of its previous title, the studio now returns with one of the year’s most-anticipated games: Split Fiction (out March 6).

Like It Takes Two before it, Split Fiction is a (mandatory) two-player cooperative game that follows dual protagonists: Mio, a science fiction writer, and Zoe, a fantasy writer, both of whom are about to get published for the first time.

After arriving at Rader Publishing’s headquarters, Mio and Zoe quickly learn that the corporation and its CEO, J.D. Rader are less interested in publishing their books and far more invested in capturing the essence of their creative projects through a giant machine that creates virtual simulations of their stories. By recording those simulations, Rader plans to steal the ideas and recycle them into their own projects — a not-so-subtle depiction of how many authors feel about generative AI in our own reality. While Zoe is initially eager to get involved, Mio is hesitant, and soon both aspiring authors find themselves forced into the machine. 

Stuck within the genre settings of both their stories, the duo is forced to work together, trapped between the sci-fi-tinged worlds and fantasy realms of their own creation that they must escape. What follows are intense chase sequences, plenty of puzzle-solving, and escapades ranging from fighting through futuristic city streets filled with cybernetic threats to traversing ancient ruins on dragonback. 

Split Fiction’s gameplay resembles a theme park, full of looping thrill rides and twists around every corner, all leading to a showstopping apex. But, as with actual theme parks, there’s also far too much time wasted in between the big tentpole moments. It’s a game whose narrative peaks are elative; but while there’s a wealth of moments big and small to enjoy, pacing issues drag down the campaign for extended periods filled with inert padding, preventing its best aspects from fully coalescing.

[Editor’s note: As Split Fiction requires two players to complete, this review is co-authored by writers Echo Apsey and Kyle Wilson, who played through the full game together.]

Gameplay gluttony

Like its spiritual predecessor, Split Fiction prides itself on offering players variety, both visually and in gameplay sequences. It consists of eight immersive levels, which have Mio and Zoe hopping between a sci-fi thriller from the former and a high-fantasy adventure created by the latter. In one moment they both may be stranded aboard a prisoner ship in space, with a gorgeous view of the galaxy in the distance, before being pulled into a vast labyrinth of underground ruins where they befriend spirit animals to help traverse the landscape. 

This smorgasbord of gameplay styles and tonal shifts is the core appeal of Split Fiction. While each level is largely locked into one genre (science fiction or fantasy), it’s not necessarily forced narrowly into one style of gameplay. The game gives players the chance to enjoy third-person action that feels like Devil May Cry or side-scrolling platforming from a Mario title, alongside an isometric RPG-style experience like Diablo (and much more), all within the confines of just a single level. The game’s ability to continually break free of genre constraints and bounce between completely different settings and control schemes is impressive. It’s a minor miracle that the whiplashing change-ups never feel overtly jarring.

As Split Fiction switches between playstyles, it continues to introduce new character abilities and tools Mio and Zoe have to master. Each level has a dozen or more ways it uses these that fit the individual world they’re exploring. Those systems are captivating from the time they appear and evolve frequently as each stage progresses. There are rarely two segments that ever feel the same, either within a level or between them. 

Even when a similar gameplay experience returns in a later chapter — say, side-scrolling platforming — it arrives with fresh twists tailored to the world Zoe and Mio are currently occupying. Where players are using the momentum from portals to navigate a maze of routes in one section, they’re flipping gravity to make their way through a puzzling level the next.  

Progression in video games is often built on evolving a set of skills over several hours, whether that be buying new ability points, increasing your health, or expanding your inventory. However, Split Fiction ignores all of that, disrupting the formula to continually deliver surprises almost every few minutes, rather than spend too long on any single core gimmick.

All of the sequences in Split Fiction rely on co-op gameplay, with both Mio and Zoe working in tandem using their individual abilities to achieve a goal. A good example of this is in one of Zoe’s fantasy stories, wherein the characters befriend a pair of dragons, each with an bespoke abilities for players to take advantage of throughout the level. Where Mio’s dragon spews acid that melts metal and can glide great distances, Zoe’s can curl into a ball and use momentum to move or break objects and certain parts of the environment. Both players must then coordinate to overcome a series of puzzles and environmental obstacles that require Mio and Zoe’s powers combined. 

One instance sees Mio melting a metal grate that’s blocking a castle gate before Zoe charges into it to break it open. This combination of moves later returns in a boss battle, with Mio liquifying the armor of a giant knight so that Zoe can drop in to deal damage. This same sequence also applies to puzzle-solving, like the need to remove a coating from a bell for the other player to ring it. It’s the same general concept, but given different contextual usage throughout the course of the game.

The need to problem solve and apply the learnings in increasingly complex ways throughout a level is persistent throughout all of Split Fiction’s roughly 14-hour narrative. Split Fiction constantly switches things up, but it is a lot to keep up with. Players could be contending with several new gameplay concepts or need to learn new abilities within minutes of each other. That feeling is only amplified by the side stories littered throughout levels. These optional mini-levels are some of the most enjoyable moments in Split Fiction and often where the game’s most creative ideas shine through.

From running around as farting pigs in a farmyard, escaping snapping sand-sharks while inside a shifting hourglass, and racing in a breakneck hoverboard chase with controls that feels ripped straight out of SSX, the side stories add to the already diverse wellspring of experiences the main game has to offer. Through these side stories, Hazelight often experiments with genres and styles that would otherwise feel out of place even in Split Fiction’s eclectically-designed primary levels. 

One stage centers on a side-scrolling cave rescue set entirely within a notebook featuring an entirely hand-drawn aesthetic, while another forgoes the puzzling and action sequences entirely just to let you hang out in a cozy town with some moles. Even if someone isn’t a fan of any particular slice of the game, it’s all but guaranteed that something totally different is just around the corner.

Although the constant change-ups might be difficult to grasp for less experienced players or those unfamiliar with genre-blending games like It Takes Two, each of the tonal and mechanical side-steps adds a new flavor to the mix — with mostly great results. However, players are constantly forced to adapt and learn, with frequent boss battles requiring them to master everything they’ve been taught up until that point. Even for more seasoned gamers, there are moments where Split Fiction can be overwhelming with simply too much to keep track of in any singular instance. It doesn’t help that there are no options to change the difficulty, either.

ADVERTISEMENT

On top of that, players are also asked to remember and keep up with the larger story and the personal details about Mio and Zoe’s lives that are swifty doled out in between levels. The tone of the game constantly swings between the heartbreak of Zoe’s history, the depression of Mio’s, and the more ludicrously nefarious affairs of Rader and his corporation.

Two players, two traumas

As players wade through Mio and Zoe’s shared adventure, their personal connection deepens, delving into why they each fell in love with writing and what the stories they’re now forced to endure together mean on an emotional level. From Zoe’s point of view, Split Fiction is an uplifting tale about making the most of each day in the face of adversity and accepting loss. She’s a bubbly, outgoing person with enough charisma to open up even the most reserved individual. Bright and idealistic, her personality shines in the fantasy-genre yarns attributed to her character. Like other high-fantasy projects, these levels boast stunning mountain landscapes, incredible castles, magic, mystery, and whimsy in abundance. They’re grand adventures through gorgeous environments where the stakes are always high.

Mio is the polar opposite of Zoe. A guarded realist, she has spent her life succumbing to systemic oppression and the weight of daily life, all rooted in the instability of an unhappy childhood. The futuristic worlds that she’s created reflect that, from the dark and dismal cityscapes to the authoritarian prisoner ships run entirely by soulless robots. There is rarely any tranquility or relief in Mio’s stories, and the levels from her book ideas are often about fighting back against the system. 

This is what Mio wishes she was able to do in her real life outside of the simulation, while instead often feeling beaten down or pulled asunder by external forces around her. It’s easy to sympathize with Mio; her story is grounded in how capitalism’s broken systems have left her disadvantaged compared to her peers. 

On the other hand, Zoe’s fantastical stories feature all the absurd charm Hazelight has become known for following It Takes Two. This chaotic blend of off-the-wall genres and concepts is fully explored in the Zoe-focused side stories, in which players will mix magical potions in a fairytale village, rescue a prince in a perilous pencil-drawn adventure, and navigate a picnic table to turn themselves into tasty hot dogs — with ketchup and mustard, of course. 

However, as the softer of the two protagonists, Zoe’s empathetic persona also informs how she plays in Split Fiction, regardless of the conceptual setting. In situations where Mio is afforded an aggressive gameplay ability — an energy sword, hacking skills for enemy robots and control turrets, or a mighty monkey that can punch and slam enemies — Zoe is always left with the more passive alternative, like an energy whip able to move environmental objects, or the ability to transform into a minute fairy creature who can glide on wind currents from flowery fans.

Zoe’s distinctive gameplay is far from unrewarding, but it highlights a clear imbalance between the two characters that can at times leave the sole “Zoe player” feeling as though they’ve missed out on a more active experience. Zoe doesn’t show as much agency as Mio; she’s playing the supporting role in both Mio’s stories and her own. However, there are many occasions where both Zoe and Mio have the same abilities and attacks, putting both characters on a level playing field.

So, playing as Zoe in Split Fiction is still a lot of fun, even if it’s hard to ignore the occasional cringe-worthy line of dialogue (like calling Mio a “total party pooper”) that feels a few decades removed from how a modern 27-year-old woman would speak. The issue extends to Mio, too, whose quips or poorly timed retorts to Zoe’s dialogue don’t really align with her generally apathetic persona. Zoe might feel like a dork, but at least she’s consistent.

Additionally, the unfurling of Mio and Zoe’s backstories remains a drawn out slog, with the game’s narrative spinning its wheels for far too long before hitting mostly predictable reveals; the main story beats to come can be clocked just minutes into any given chapter. The lack of surprises leaves the emotional moments feeling deflated, serving less like authentic reveals and more like confirmation of the obvious.

Pacing is paramount

The big problem with Split Fiction is that its excellent gameplay and charming characters are underserved by the larger plot involving Rader Publishing. The individual stories that play out in each level are disconnected from the overarching narrative of the game. In each chapter, Mio and Zoe explore one of their own stories in isolation before hopping to the next — or worse — stopping down entirely for exposition dumps with Rader in an amorphous virtual space. While they’re interesting enough in isolation, reserving any meaningful appearances by the game’s main villain for ritualistic pockets in between the actual gameplay leaves everything feeling scattered. Rader’s entire scheme feels like a forced rail to chug along while the real story is happening in more disparate chapters.

This is exacerbated by the length of half of the game’s levels. They each take anywhere from 90 minutes to nearly three hours to complete. Those chapters are so stuffed with endlessly changing gameplay experiences that the significant narrative reveals, usually placed midway through and at the end, are too far apart to have any impact after prolonged stretches of exhaustive action or puzzle-solving.

It’s all too common that players may end up wondering how they’re still working through the same level as they were almost an hour and a half earlier. In these moments, it’s easy to feel that Hazelight’s drive for constantly trying more is ultimately a disservice to the narrative. At a certain point, it’s clear that at least some of the studio’s gameplay concepts could’ve been scrapped for brevity’s sake, if only to bring the emotional story at the game’s core to the forefront.

Zoe and Mio don’t have a pre-existing relationship, and the shaky dialogue and lack of organic in-game storytelling — aside from scripted stopping points throughout — means the developing connection between the two characters doesn’t feel natural. Where It Takes Two works as an introspective look at a struggling marriage between playable characters Cody and May, the bulk of that story is explored through dialogue occurring mid-gameplay. Split Fiction fails to deliver the same engaging emotional core between its two protagonists. The overarching narrative takes air away from Mio and Zoe, with the growth in their relationship drawn out in favor of more gameplay twists.  

Rader’s character development is almost nonexistent; he’s a by-the-numbers evil CEO archetype with trite dialogue and vague motivations. He spends swaths of screen time ordering subordinates to “fix the machine” and throwing tantrums. It feels overly cartoonish considering the more serious portrayals of Mio and Zoe. There’s also a lack of any clear stakes to his actions; we never know if Mio and Zoe are in actual danger, and the fact that he’s stealing story ideas seems to suggest that Rader Publishing’s ultimate goal amounts to little more than intellectual property theft. Although, sure, that does suck.

By the story’s climactic moments, Rader (eventually) takes a more active role in the proceedings, interacting with Mio and Zoe directly in gameplay. The endgame manages to gel the best parts of Split Fiction together and delivers a showstopping, genre-fusing, radical evolution of everything that comes before it. It’s impossible to explain in full without delving into spoilers, but Split Fiction’s finale is unlike anything else we’ve ever seen in gaming.

The course correction during the final third of Split Fiction makes it easy to overlook the pacing flaws of earlier levels, and the finale ensures players finish on an exhilarating high. It feels less congested with consistent gameplay shifts and a tighter overall act. 

Despite some periodic slumps, Split Fiction works overall, thanks mostly to its well-designed levels that emphasize engaging co-op puzzles and satisfying platforming. Hazelight blends gameplay styles and genres to routinely deliver fresh experiences, and Split Fiction continues to prove that the studio is one of the best at crafting transformative couch co-op thrill rides that, at the very least, bring players together in ways no other games are willing to.

Split Fiction launches for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on March 6.

From Rolling Stone US.