Split Fiction review: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Okay, how do I start this thing? I mean, there are going to be hundreds of Split Fiction reviews going live at the same time. If I’m going to get people to read mine, I need a strong hook. I want this to feel like the definitive review of the thing! How about a funny anecdote about my girlfriend getting me killed? It’s personal, relatable to the people out there planning to play this with their partner. No, too easy. Everyone is going to do that. Oh, what if I come out swinging? This sucker is going to get breathless praise and immediate “game of the year” buzz. I could lead with my criticism of its weak writing. A dissenting opinion! Actually, maybe that’s too much. I mean, I still really enjoyed my time with it.

Oh, I’ve got it! It’s a game about writers! I can do a whole meta thing! Like, I’m writing about writing the review. I can reflect what the story says about the creative process, while doing a sort of “co-op” review shtick where I’m arguing with myself. That’s clever! That’s unique!

No, wait, that’s so, so stupid.

Split Fiction, the latest co-op adventure from It Takes Two developer Hazelight, couldn’t be landing at a better time. The story about Mio and Zoe, two writers who become victims of a publishing house’s exploitative new tech initiative, comes right at a moment where artists are having their work mined by AI models and regurgitated into soulless drivel. Their adventure isn’t just a fun excuse for Hazelight to flex its design muscles and create more world class co-op puzzle platforming; it’s a much needed reminder that creativity is inseparable from humanity.

Great art can’t be generated from a series of prompts. Everything from a book to a video game is born from meaningful decisions that only a human could make. The pain of losing a loved one can become evocative words on a page. The warm memory of playing Sonic the Hedgehog for the first time can create the foundation for a lovingly crafted platforming level. Even the way a story begins is shaped by countless creative decisions built to pull readers into a specific mindset. It doesn’t always work. Art can be as messy as the people making it. It can be thematically incoherent, self-indulgent, or in desperate need of an editor. God knows Split Fiction isn’t perfect — far from it, in fact — but that just means that it has a pulse. That’s something that we’ve begun to take for granted in our current age of big tech annihilation.

Okay, that all sounds smart. Probably. People love it when you smack talk AI, at least. Easy win. And hopefully that gives me enough leeway to tear this thing’s poor writing apart, while still leaving space to celebrate it as a sharply designed co-op adventure made from a passionate studio of artists who put their whole heart into their craft. Sure.

Games on books

Duplicating the winning formula of its 2021 Game of the Year winner It Takes Two, Split Fiction is another Hazelight adventure game built with two-player split screen in mind. Though while its previous game was a playable rom com that made it a perfect thematic marriage of story and gameplay, Split Fiction has a tougher time wedding those halves. The story here is that Mio and Zoe are struggling writers who are so desperate to get published that they take a shady offer from Rader, a corporation that has built a magical machine that brings stories to life. When Mio gets cold feet about the process, she accidentally winds up getting trapped in the machine alongside Zoe, where their clashing ideas manifest as sci-fi and fantasy worlds.

Should I mention VGC’s interview with director Josef Fares here, where he shrugged off the idea that AI is a real problem and seemed fine with the idea that it could lead to layoffs? Is that relevant context that helps set up my criticism? Or would that just be a performative paragraph built for people to screenshot and share on social media? I mean, art should function on its own, but surely the discrepancy between the story’s take on tech and its director’s can start to explain why it doesn’t work. No, better to focus on the work in front of me.

In a cruel twist of fate, the social commentary is trampled by confounding writing at every turn. Mio and Zoe are both presented as great artists and total hacks interchangeably throughout the story. Their “novels” manifest as a series of humdrum genre setpieces that don’t have much plot behind them. There are high fantasy dragon battles, explosive motorbike chase sequences, and other thin plots that are built entirely on tropes. Few of them tell an actual story; they’re just sequences of events largely inspired by scenes from nerdy media. Mio and Zoe even comment on that throughout the story, criticizing one another for writing such overplayed ideas. These are tales that a machine could in fact come up with, kneecapping Split Fiction’s message about originality.

In the same breath, Hazelight wants players to believe that the silly stories it is poking fun at are also emotional and human. Most stories end with some sort of sob story monologue about how all that jumping between flying cars is actually about family drama. Surprise! It’s entirely unearned every single time; the ideas are never told through level design and gameplay, something that Psychonauts 2 so expertly nails. We’re expected to take Zoe and Mio at their word, but art has to function on its own. Their stories never do and Split Fiction rings hollow as a game about intricate creative decision making for it.

Split Fiction has a thin relationship with art. This is a game about books that could not be less interested in actual literature. We’re supposed to be playing through visualizations of Zoe and Mio’s novels, but those levels only ever speak in the language of movies and video games. They are told through puzzles and action set pieces exclusively. How many books have you read where the heroes must dance with a monkey king by doing a Simon Says minigame? Why am I constantly seeing Dark Souls Easter eggs and Sonic the Hedgehog jokes in their story worlds? Split Fiction feels like a game made by people who have never read a book.

God, no, that’s so pithy. People are going to take that literally and drag me for it on Reddit. You’re supposed to be the nuanced critic! What do I actually want to say? Maybe it’s that it feels symptomatic of a larger loss of literacy in culture, something that’s tied to the very tech commentary Split Fiction is making. This is what some people think books are actually like. The complexity of the written word is lost on GoodReads reviews and BookTok influencers that just see them as genre movies made of paper. Isn’t it counterproductive to make a game about books that’s actually just about games? Are Zoe and Mio writers just because books feel more aesthetically serious than video games? Would it have killed Hazelight to reference Frankenstein instead of Tron?

Oh, that’s kind of funny.

Would it have killed Hazelight to reference Frankenstein instead of Tron?

Co-op creativity

Jeeze, that was more searing than I expected it to be. It sounds like I hate this thing! I don’t … right? I had a great time playing it. Killer puzzles. Smooth platforming. Creative as heck. I’ve got to balance this back out before people get the wrong impression. Let’s get a good transition line here, real slick like.

What Split Fiction lacks in story it makes up for in its gameplay. Moron.

Split Fiction more effectively communicates its thesis on creativity where it counts: through design. There’s a good reason that It Takes Two took home the Game Award for Game of the Year; Hazelight is a studio that’s both loaded with ideas and cares enough about them to do them right. The story is broken up into two-hour chunks that swap players between Mio’s sci-fi stories and Zoe’s fantasy worlds. The two halves are linked together by strong platforming fundamentals, as Zoe and Mio magnetize to footholds and poles to keep the adventure manageable for inexperienced players who are pulled into it by their gaming partners.

Well, I mean, aside from the momentum-killing flying sections that feature unwieldy controls to pilot floaty spaceships and wingsuits. But don’t force every nitpick into this. Save it for hour five of a deep dive podcast that’s longer than the game, where you can tell some boring anecdote about having to help your partner through a few sections.

That dual-genre premise allows Hazelight to play around with ever-changing gameplay hooks, dropping them before they’ve run out of new ways to use them. In one level, my girlfriend and I start out by transporting dragon eggs around and using them to open doors. Soon after, they evolve into bigger lizards with unique powers. Mine can glide through the air and spit acid that melts metal; hers can climb up vines and spin dash into objects. Later, they grow to their full size and we’re sent into a cinematic aerial chase sequence. Part of the fun comes from trying to guess where each unpredictable idea is going to go next.

The best levels use those ideas to fuel ingenious co-op puzzling that’s built for split screen play. My favorite section turned both my girlfriend and I into orbs. She could magnetize to some surfaces and repel from others, while I could turn into a swarm of nanobots that could hack objects and transform. Some puzzles had me turning into a boat that she could jump into so I could safely transport her across water. Others had her unraveling a metal walkway for me with her magnets. Each puzzle required us to talk through exactly what we were doing and coordinate with one another. It’s not about skill and timing so much as cracking the execution together.

Don’t do it. Don’t you dare say it’s the best co-op game since Portal 2. You already did that with It Takes Two, and Split Fiction isn’t even as consistent as that. I don’t care if there are some space-bending levels here that clearly call back to it. That game came out 14 years ago. We as a society need to move on from comparing co-op games to Portal 2.

It’s not that Split Fiction is doing anything groundbreaking here. These ideas were present in It Takes Two and largely made more thematic sense in that context. That is a game about relationships that was designed to feel like a couple’s therapy session. Teamwork isn’t as relevant to Split Fiction’s weaker story, but the creative spirit is. Every level is a hand-crafted design flex by developers who are excited to show off. You can see that most in Split Fiction’s optional side stories, which toss players into Mio and Zoe’s old, unfinished ideas. Some of those offer the adventure’s best levels. A childhood tale plays out in a 2D adventure drawn in pencil, while another casts the duo as walking teeth in a hyperactive 5 year old’s birthday story. More than anything, it reminds me of Super Mario Bros. Wonder with its wealth of playful gameplay twists born from sticky notes.

We care a lot

Split Fiction may not reach the same heights as its predecessor, but … but it’s a suitable follow-up that … that …

Oh no. No. Not writer’s block. Not now. I’m right at the end here. I’ve got a deadline to meet. Why did I make this so complicated? Why couldn’t I just file a normal review instead of drawing up some high-concept bit? I could have been done with this hours ago.

“Its drab sci-fi visuals leave much to be desired, but it runs at a smooth framerate and I never encountered a single bug, even during its technically stunning finale.”

“Each level goes on 30 minutes too long for a casual session, ballooning up what should be a tight adventure with a few too many gimmicks.”

See? Easy. That’s all people really want to read anyways, right? Nobody is looking to this review to learn something about the human condition. It’s a checklist attached to a reductive score that people can argue about online. Fodder for YouTubers overreacting to out of context pull quotes in videos with sensationalized titles. An opinion to be unwillingly aggregated and incorrectly summarized by Google Gemini. Why should I put so much time into each word, desperate to communicate something to readers with each choice I stress over, when we live in a cultural climate that is outright hostile to original thought?

Maybe that’s why Split Fiction still resonates with me even in its messiest moments. Its writing hardly lands, but the sheer craft on display is inspiring. Every time I jump into a side story and discover an entirely new art style or gameplay idea that lasts for a few short minutes and then disappears, I’m left in awe of Hazelight’s commitment. This isn’t a fast food value menu item generated from careful focus group testing; it’s an outpouring of original ideas from people who care about their craft. Who cares if it lives up to It Takes Two’s high bar? Who cares if it’s “GOTY material?” Who cares if it’s the best co-op game since Portal 2? What’s more important is that we take the time to engage with what its creators want to tell us, respecting the art people make for one another enough to both criticize it when it doesn’t work and celebrate it when it does.

Okay. Yeah, okay. So, how about something like this:

Split Fiction is hokey, muddled, and needlessly self-defeating. It’s also lively, inventive, and so earnest that it’s hard to be mad at it for long. These aren’t opposing forces that tear Hazelight’s latest apart; the clumsiness is inseparable from the delight. Both are born from the ambitious vision of artists who still believe in the magic of creativity and are willing to take big swings in its honor. Sometimes it absolutely whiffs. We all do. Fail again. Fail better. But it’s those moments where it connects, where simple ideas turn into unforgettable spectacle, that remind us why art can’t be automated. Even the most advanced machine can never dream bigger than a human with a heart.

Split Fiction was tested on PS5.