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All good things come in threes? Hazelight’s third co-op-only game takes us into two beautifully crafted worlds while tasking us with escaping a machine of a megalomaniac CEO.
Split Fiction, like the two previous titles from Josef Fares’s pen, A Way Out and It Takes Two, can only be played with a partner, either on- or offline. If you choose to connect via the net, your partner can download the game for free on PC, PS5 or Xbox Series X|S via the Friends Pass since the game launched on March 6th, 2025, and join regardless of the platform you’re playing on – brilliant.
Mio and Zoe are aspiring writers joining an experimental program at Raider Publishing. A machine is supposed to bring their creations to life, but the it’s being used by corrupt CEO J.D. Rader to drain all participants’ creative ideas without paying out any royalties. This may just be a highly topical issue in the gaming industry and one can only hope that, in light of this, all developers involved in the development of the action-adventure will also be credited in the credits, which isn’t always the case these days. Using a recurring glitch, Mio and Zoe try to destroy the metaverse and put an end to Rader’s evil deeds.
I am Caries
The duo must first acclimatize to the differing worlds, but there’s little time for that. In keeping with the two authors’ areas of expertise, the approximately 14 hour long campaign takes us to fantasy and science fiction worlds that never cease to amaze. Split Fiction is essentially a third-person action-adventure in which we collectively tackle platforming sections, solve environmental puzzles and fight bosses. Over the course of the game, however, this formula is continually adapted; after all, the camera perspective can change at any moment, transforming Split Fiction into a Metroid-like side-scrolling platformer or an isometric action game.
We particularly enjoyed the fantasy world, where we’re shapeshifters and can switch between one of up to three roles per character at any time. The puzzles are bursting with creativity, the level design remains largely clear despite the crazy camera changes and the incredibly charming game world feels very lively. While Mio climbs along purple plants as a monkey and guides Zoe safely across the rough sea as a fish, Zoe makes her way through the lush forests as a flying fairy and becomes one with nature as a talking tree. Mio’s sci-fi world offers a wonderful contrast with its sterile environments (including the usual sci-fi signposting clichés) and to Zoe’s cozy fantasy world with intense combat and explosions around every corner.
In Zoe’s world, we fight with energy swords and use Mio’s hacking skills in combination with Zoe’s ability to move magnetically across green spaces. A boat ride is fun, at least if the paddles of the two players aligned their rhythm. In the twelve optional side stories, we master increasingly difficult obstacle courses in which we must pass a bomb to each other before it explodes, experience the initially happy farm life of a group of pigs, explore a tranquil moon market where we can save some cats and find some gadgets by solving small puzzles and embark on a colorful journey of two teeth through a birthday world, only to have to face every child’s ultimate final boss at the end – the dentist.
Character development yay, Animus-like nay
The main story about the power-obsessed, one-dimensional CEO doesn’t exactly hold up until the end and the scenes in which he argues with the board members and snaps at his employees seem like lame time fillers, similar to the Animus lab scenes in the Assassin’s Creed games. It’s Zoe and Mio’s journey of self-discovery that provides some memorable moments. As in its predecessor, It Takes Two, there’s a certain touch of kitsch, but we quickly grow fond of the unlikely duo. The protagonists struggle with their personal fates and support each other in overcoming their traumas, with noticeable character development – which is desperately needed given the initially overly unsympathetic Mio.
Split Fiction’s cinematics are high quality, the action-adventure contains an excellent soundtrack and the characters’ facial animations in the cutscenes look quite authentic. However, the German voice-over, which fluctuates in quality, doesn’t always match that, as do the subtitles, which sometimes deviate from the spoken dialogue. The English voice acting, however, is top-notch from what we’ve seen. The character animations are also well done, as are the beautiful environments—somewhat more so in the detailed fantasy world than in the sci-fi world, although the frequent bombastic explosions look quite impressive.
Cross-platform joy
While the controls mostly work well with a controller, the aim assist can be a bit irritating at times. In some sections, we have tremendous auto-aim, while in others it’s nonexistent. Likewise, the input sensitivity varies frequently, and the by default inverted analog stick in-flight controls cannot be adjusted. Apart from that, the game offers a tremendous amount of accessibility options in terms of difficulty and assistance. Every modern game, especially one with the necessary budget, should have this level of accessibility. With a mouse and keyboard, you can mostly get by well after a bit of getting used to it, but you’ll occasionally have to contend with camera issues, which can put a damper on the fun, especially during wall runs and the wild, overstimulating final ride, in which the developers in which the developers go all out in terms of creativity and which brilliantly combines many of the gameplay techniques we’ve learned.
The PC version of Split Fiction runs extremely well at maximum details in 1440p on a relatively recent system with an GeForce RTX 4070, but you might have some issues with weaker graphics cards. We weren’t able to get the game to run on a powerful gaming laptop with an RDNA 3-based graphics card (iGPU / Radeon 780M), unless we set the game to 720p with FSR-upscaling set to Performance, rendering it so pixelated that it was barely recognizable. However, as soon as we switched to the RTX 4080 Laptop GPU, we were able to play Split Fiction at 1600p with Temporal Anti-Aliasing and maximum graphics details at a smooth 80 up to over 100 frames per second. Hazelight needs to further optimize the game for weaker systems and consider integrating Nvidia’s DLSS upscaler, which performs quite well in most games.
In our tests, Split Fiction runs smoothly on PlayStation 5 at 60 frames per second, apparently at a resolution of 1800p. It’s even said to run native 4K with Temporal Anti-Aliasing on PS5 Pro, but we haven’t been able to verify that. The connection quality was also consistently stable in our tests, whether via Steam or in cross-platform play between PC and PS5 via the EA servers – across borders and with varying internet speeds.
Final thoughts
Split Fiction builds on the tried-and-tested co-op gameplay concept of It Takes Two. Hazelight takes us on an emotional journey through two worlds that are beautifully designed and contain such creative and varied gameplay ideas that you don’t want to miss any of the side stories. The main story about the megalomaniac CEO who wants to change the world with his powerful invention is neither new nor told in an particularly interesting way—fortunately these scenes don’t take up much play time. Anyone who already enjoyed the first two fantastic two-player co-op-only Hazelight titles A Way Out and It Takes Two should enjoy Split Fiction similarly.
The PS5 portion of the review was contributed by Francesco. Split Fiction for PC and PlayStation 5 and the screenshots were provided to us by EA.
