A Hazelight game release always feels like a big event. The studio excels in making funny, sparky co-op players; their last release, It Takes Two, became a massive hit, scooping Game of the Year at the 2021 Games Awards – as well as tens of others.
Does their latest, Split Fiction, continue this grand tradition? You bet – but this time, with a twist. We’re no longer puppets brought to life by our daughter (long story) – no, this time we’re playing frenemies Mio and Zoe.
They’re budding authors, who couldn’t be more different. Mio is surly and reserved, while Zoe is sunny and optimistic. Regardless, they think they’ve been given the chance of a lifetime when they’re offered a publishing deal with sinister mediacorp Rader. All they have to do is be hooked up to a machine, that will let them experience a simulation of their own story in real-time. Afterwards, they’ll walk away ten times richer.
Surprise! Rader’s bad news (who’d have thought?). And after a series of misadventures, Mio ends up careening into Zoe’s simulation, breaking it beyond repair.
Now, they have to fight their way out of the simulation, which has glitched and created a world in which both their stories have intertwined in strange ways. In practice, that means puzzling your way through a series of levels that alternate between fantasy and sci-fi.
The resulting chaos is an absolute delight. Hazelight have always excelled at the sheer imagination they manage to pack into their games, and Split Fiction is no different.
In the space of a few hours, Mio and Zoe are transformed into cyber ninjas, flying pigs (who get around with the power of rainbow farts) and desert explorers, who travel around via sand-swimming massive sharks that are attracted by rhythmic thumping.
Very Dune – and there are nods to other influences too, such as Halo (specifically, the iconic opening sequence from Halo 5), Prince of Persia and (of all things) Interstellar. It makes the entire game a joy to play, because you never quite know what will be coming next.
Will the pair be fighting an evil robotic parking attendant? Or entering into a dance competition with a giant monkey king? All of it is drawn from the depths of Mio and Zoe’s brains, which also lends some amusing context to the scenarios we find ourselves in (”I was a kid!” Zoe protests at one point).
Hazelight also seem determined to never use the same mechanics twice, which keeps things endlessly entertaining. Every level comes with its own set of power-ups (space-whips, portal-pistols, living baby dragons and shapeshifting powers, to name a few), but the game keeps us on our toes, switching up the ways in which those powers need to be applied to get from A to B (and, occasionally, giving us little minigames that are there for no other purpose than to be silly).
It’s never very challenging, which is good – prioritising co-operation over fiendishly difficult puzzle solving. And as the game progresses, it also digs deeper into Mio and Zoe’s relationship. “[Sci-fi] is by far the most overrated and pretentious genre,” Zoe tells Mio at one point, who responds that fantasy is “so boring” – but, surprise surprise, their real lives also start bleeding into their fiction in interesting ways, forcing them to bond.
They make a good double act, even if Zoe’s hysterical screeching gets a bit much at times – and the game doesn’t so much signpost plot points or reveals as bash them in front of our faces with no subtlety at all.
But hey! Subtlety is not the point of this game. The point is to enjoy life as an adventurer in a pencil-drawing world, to hunt down magical cats in a magic market, or to vanquish an evil ice king. It’s a joy from start to finish; they’ve done it again.
Out on Windows, PlayStation and Xbox from March 6
