Split Fiction Review (PS5)

Split Fiction, like Hazelight Studios' previous titles, is only playable in local or online co-op. To match this collaborative direction, the Push Square review is a back-and-forth between the pair who played through the game, as has become tradition. This time, assistant editor Stephen Tailby had a helping hand from video producer Aaron Bayne. Enjoy thoughts from both in this joint review!

Stephen: So, as with Hazelight's last two games, Split Fiction is an action adventure with a heavy emphasis on two-player co-op. Funnily enough, it's a niche that this studio occupies more or less on its own. Nobody else is making games quite like this, and while you'd think that gives the team the luxury to take its collective foot off the gas, the opposite is true; each title outstrips the last, and that's absolutely the case here.

Aaron: Yeah, you really get the sense that Hazelight has been improving things with each new game, and I think that's felt the most with Split Fiction's premise. Here we have two aspiring writers fall into a simulation of their respective genres: science fiction and fantasy.

Stephen: The pair of protagonists, Mio and Zoe, each enter this mega-publisher's high tech machine for different reasons, but an accident forces them into the simulation together. It's a wild setup, but it provides a great backdrop for an insanely diverse adventure. As you say, you get a mix of science fiction and fantasy realms as we explore each character's stories, and there's lots of variation right from the start.

Aaron: Hazelight wastes no time getting right into the action. It almost feels a little rushed at points, but I don't think the team wanted to bog the players down with the technicalities of its premise. Who cares how the giant machine simulates your story ideas? It just does. Immediately we're getting into what Hazelight does best: varied co-op mechanics.

Stephen: Yeah. It doesn't waste any time in giving players control, and when it does, you'll get a feel for how simple but polished the action is. Mio and Zoe's core moves provide a double jump, dash, and grapple, and it all feels super smooth and responsive. Just moving through each environment is snappy and enjoyable. However, what really makes this game special is how frequently it changes things up — it's super impressive, isn't it?

Aaron: Oh for sure! One of my biggest issues with It Takes Two was its pacing. The mechanics it introduced were around a wee bit too long for my liking, and it really made that game feel much longer than it was. That just isn't the case in Split Fiction which, despite being a similar length to It Takes Two (12-13 hours), I felt like we flew through the game. And the way that it moved around genres with its gameplay and mixed up its mechanics was seriously impressive. We kept saying, "this could be its own game", yet nothing ever overstays its welcome. It sort of reminded me of Astro Bot in that way.

Stephen: I know what you mean, yeah. Much of the game features that core move set I mentioned earlier, but it almost always builds on that in some fashion, and that's when it isn't altering the gameplay and turning it into something else entirely. One minute, you'll be flying an armoured ship, with one player in the pilot seat and the other operating the gun, and the next you'll be running away from a bunch of burly trolls in a medieval town obsessed with lemons. As you rightly say, the variety really keeps things moving, and we never found ourselves bored at any moment.

Perhaps more impressive than the sheer variety is that all of it is executed to a consistently high degree. There isn't any one mechanic, puzzle, or set-piece that feels phoned in; everything is fun and super-polished from beginning to end.

Aaron: A favourite segment of mine saw us venturing across a sci-fi world with jetpacks. Across a multi-stage boss fight, the perspective was constantly changing. One minute, it's a 2D side-scroller, the next we're running towards the camera like Crash Bandicoot, then it opens up and we can control the jetpacks in an entirely 3D environment. All the while, it's changing up the attack patterns of the boss, the music is popping off, and when it finally opens up, we're getting references to things like Alita: Battle Angel in the environmental design. There's so much packed into just about every level of Split Fiction, and that's without mentioning the Side Story we then played through immediately after this, which was aesthetically and mechanically entirely different. The Side Stories were a bit surprise for us, weren't they?

Stephen: Absolutely. The Side Stories are completely optional areas, but after going through the first couple, we realised these are totally worth checking out. Essentially, these are shorter stages, wrapped in the context of each character's scrapped ideas for stories, and they're where Split Fiction gets much more experimental and weird, in a good way. All of them offer something unique that gives you a bit of a breather from whatever the main level is, and without giving anything away, present some of the most memorable moments in the whole game.

Aaron: I think the Side Stories are where the premise of the game really started to gel with me. From a narrative perspective, I really like how each stage of the game, whether it be a main level or a Side Story, was a story that either Zoe or Mio had written at some point in their life. It gave the game more concrete reasons to switch up gameplay and locations, but it was also an opportunity to dig into the characters, and really explore where they were at as a person when that story was written. Sometimes that's done in a funny way, like when you play as a magical farting pig, and sometimes it gives us a more authentic look into their pasts.

Stephen: Yeah, as I said before, the premise is kind of bonkers, but it really throws open the doors for a lot of gameplay variety within a context that makes sense. Mio and Zoe are very different people, and begin their journey as total strangers, but over the course of the game become firm friends. This feels quite natural and is handled well, even if some story beats are fairly predictable. Despite this, I think the story serves the experience very well for the reasons you've pointed out, and is probably the strongest yarn Hazelight has spun so far, all told.

Aaron: Yeah like you say, some of the story beats we saw coming from a mile off, but it didn't really negate their impact when they did eventually happen. I think the villain was a bit one note, and his whole scheme is full of holes if you think about it too hard, but it wasn't overly important. Zoe and Mio are at the forefront of Split Fiction, and I eventually came to really like both characters. The progression of their relationship is much more natural than what we saw with Cody and May in It Takes Two.

I do want to take a moment though to talk about performance, which I have to say, was impressively smooth.

Stephen: It really was. I played with a standard PS5 and the performance was pretty much flawless for me, running at a very smooth 60 frames-per-second. Something worth mentioning too is that we played this entirely online, and there was never any hint of latency, to the point that we were able to execute timed jumps and other mechanics without losing step with each other. Visually, the game looks great as well, particularly some of the vistas you come across. There's a high level of polish here, clearly a cut above Hazelight's previous work.

Aaron: Yeah, the game looks fantastic. There are several moments throughout that you have to stop and soak in. I was playing on the PS5 Pro, and similarly I had zero issue with performance or connectivity. Split Fiction is supposedly PS5 Pro Enhanced, but there were no graphic mode options pre-launch and, from what we could tell, there was no discernible difference between the two consoles versions either. Maybe this is something we've yet to see post-launch, but what we have there already looks brilliant and runs excellently.

Stephen: Speaking of the presentation and performance, we need to mention the game's finale. The game's last stretch is incredibly impressive — not just visually but in terms of what you're doing and, again, the seamlessness of it all. It's something I've certainly never seen a game do before; we were both laughing like idiots at what was happening onscreen. Not everyone loves the split-screen effect in Hazelight's games, but without spoiling anything, this one sequence should quieten any doubts about that.

Aaron: The finale is easily one of the best levels I've played in an age. All the inventiveness and creativity that flows through this game comes rushing out in this finale, and for me it just brought to light how much fun I had been having with the game. I almost didn't want it to end.

I do want to briefly bring up the approachability of Split Fiction's gameplay compared to Hazelight's previous games. Both A Way Out and It Takes Two were great games to play with non-gamers. I played It Takes Two with my wife who has barely touched a controller, but I kept thinking as we played Split Fiction that she'd really struggle with this game.

Stephen: It's definitely not a total walk in the park. There are some pretty tough sequences that require dextrous and coordinated play, and that's a fun challenge to overcome, but perhaps less so for more casual players. On this point, though, there is a failsafe in the accessibility settings whereby you can skip any gameplay section if you're really struggling, so you can simply move past the game's trickier parts if you need to.

Aaron: I don't personally think it's a bad thing. At the end of the day, there will be more gamers playing this than non-gamers, but it's just something to note!