I Played 3 Hours Of Split Fiction And I'm Convinced This Is A New Benchmark For Co-Op

1 month ago 38

Split Fiction

Split Fiction honestly blew me away. I was excited going into this hands-on preview session, but my expectations were tempered by the sheer ambition of this game. Was this going to be gimmicky or a new standard of cooperative play? It's no secret that co-op is a dying style of play in the industry. It was once expected for a story-based game to have some form of co-op included, but that started to dwindle in the past decade.

Then, we have Hazelight - the studio that made A Way Out and Game of the Year winner It Takes Two - carrying the torch for co-op in the world of gaming, having made a name for themselves with the aforementioned two titles. And now they're working on a brand-new game that aims to reshape those two previous releases almost as stepping stones, thrusting players into seemingly dozens of ideas or stories (or levels) that can't be considered anything but ambitious. Again, my concern was Hazelight becoming Icarus here, but that doesn't seem to be the actual case.

The Story Of Split Fiction

You Play As One Of Two Authors

Mio and Zoe with dragons on their back in Split Fiction

As shown in trailers so far, Split Fiction follows two characters - authors - named Mio and Zoe. The game begins with both of them arriving at Rader Publishing, looking to get a publishing deal for one of their stories, but they couldn't be any different from each other. Mio is a skeptical, pessimistic, closed-off individual whose stories are almost always focused on science fiction, whereas Zoe is a trusting, bubbly, open individual whose stories are almost always focused on fantasy - and they each dislike the other person's chosen literary genre.

Once they go through an orientation at Rader Publishing, the company's founder, James Rader, appears and introduces all the prospective authors to a machine of his own design that creates a simulation for them to explore. The simulation is something akin to The Matrix in which the participants are thrust into new worlds, sometimes with abilities or powers. But the true purpose of the simulation isn't for the authors to experience their stories first-hand but rather for Rader to steal their ideas, which is where things go awry.

Mio tries to back out and escape, but is stopped by Rader. During a scuffle, she falls into Zoe's simulation, which is how we end up with the story of... Split Fiction. A rather apt title considering their fictitious stories have been quite literally split, and the only way for them to break out of the broken simulation and prevent their ideas from being stolen is to travel through "glitches," which throw them from one story (or level) to the next.

What I Played In Split Fiction

I Played 3 Hours Of Split Fiction, And As Zoe

My co-op partner and I started Split Fiction from the beginning, where we first entered Zoe's fantasy story, but the first actual mission is one in which Mio and Zoe were cyber ninjas (it was Mio's story). Right away, it became clear just how different each level would be. Over the course of three hours, we played through an estimated 10 levels (including two side missions), each one jumping between fantasy and sci-fi. And given the game is approximately 12-14 hours long, that's a lot levels. Imagine the film Everything Everywhere All At Once in video game form, but even then that description feels somewhat disingenuous.

Throughout the game, you will play as cyber ninjas - one person with a sword that allows them to walk on walls and ceilings and the other person with a whip that can take hold of specific objects - as well as transform into a pinball with gravity abilities, a pig that can fly by farting, and someone who can shapeshift into a fairy and humanoid tree (like an Ent, or a supersized Groot). In some cases, you'll have to shapeshift from the fairy to the tree, and back, in a matter of seconds, which may need to align with what your co-op partner is doing with their own shapeshifting.

You'll also control a dragon in the game - three times, I hear - each time at a different stage of the dragon's growth. The dragons were young in the level we played; one would roll like Sonic (albeit much, much slower) and climb walls, while the other would spit acid and fly.

Interestingly, one of the last levels we played through in our hands-on session was the toughest to solve. It's not that it was particularly difficult in any way; we knew what we had to do, but we didn't know that my partner's dragon could fly. It required him to be in the air before he could start flying, which meant he needed to jump off a ledge and potentially die. We figured it out after a couple minutes and felt ridiculous afterward, but later noticed that other groups got stuck at the same place.

Split Fiction is filled to the brim with puzzles and moments that require both players to be on-point, but it's not an overly difficult game. It prioritizes fun - and the friendship that is being built between Mio and Zoe, not to mention the players playing the game. Because of this, while the game may jump from an action-heavy boss fight a la old God of War to a sidescroller that looks like it's been pulled from the 1980s (with modern graphics, of course), it doesn't feel jarring.

The gameplay is designed to make it easy to understand. You have primary and secondary abilities, and most of the time a grapple for the sci-fi missions. Sometimes those abilities allow you to shapeshift, fire a weapon (or a shield breaker), roll around, use a gravity whip, or one of dozens of other things. Then you have the ability to jump, dash, and interact, which make up the core mechanics of the game. There's not a whole lot here, which gives Split Fiction an easy entry point.

Why I Enjoyed Split Fiction So Much

Split Fiction Is Easy To Get Into And Is Quite Unique

Mio and Zoe riding a motorcycle in Split Fiction

Hazelight has earned good will from fans (and people like myself) with their previous two titles, but Split Fiction has promised so much more. I can't say if the full game will deliver on everything, but what I've seen, heard, and played, I'm optimistic. One of my biggest gripes with AAA games across the entire industry is repetition - not to mention overuse of simple mechanics, therefore falling into gimmicky territory. I'm not seeing either one here.

There's enough variety that the game almost always feels fresh, even when you return to being a cyber ninja for the second or third time. Even beyond the gameplay, the evolution of the story is immersive, enjoyable, and sometimes humorous. At one point, we were fighting a giant orb villain above the city skyline because of a fear of overdue parking tickets. (Split Fiction doesn't just take stories the two authors wrote down on paper but also pulls from the ideas they dreamed up throughout their life.)

What we saw barely scratched the surface, as Josef Fares said there are things in this game that have never been done in gaming before. He was also quite excited about the ending and for us (and everyone) to experience it, but he wouldn't give any clue as to what the ending will entail.

I'm not easily impressed with games that try to introduce a new gimmick or push boundaries that most people didn't know existed, simply because those titles tend to fall short while also falling into classic traps that compromise quality. But Split Fiction... this is a different beast. I can tell even with just three hours of game time. Again, that's not to say the full game will deliver on all of its promises, but what I played showed me that Hazelight aimed for the stars - and did so with grace and understanding of their limitations.