Phenixx Gaming

One of my most anticipated games of 2025 has finally come out! In fact, it was one of two that I put on our collective list for 2025. Split Fiction is the anticipated follow-up from Hazelight Studios, the developers who brought us the phenomenal It Takes Two in 2021. This new game offered a unique hook for me since the plot focuses on stories and writers. Being a writer myself I was fascinated to see what they could do with this idea. Having now played the game, I can say that Split Fiction captures the best and worst about being a writer. Let me explain.

For those who don’t know what Split Fiction is, this is a cooperative game that allows players to take the roles of Mio and Zoe. They have both arrived at Rader Publishing, a technology company that is promising writers the ability to get published by connecting them to a machine that reads their minds and records their ideas. Mio gets cold feet right before getting connected to the machine, and while attempting to leave, she gets shoved into the connection that Zoe is already in.

This causes an error in the machine, which leads to Mio and Zoe’s stories to start breaking into each other. Determined to find a way out, Mio and Zoe must learn to work together, as it takes two of them to get out of the machine. As they race across their stories, they begin to discover that Rader Publishing is up to more than they originally thought.

While Split Fiction uses a similar formula to Hazelight Studios’ A Way Out and It Takes Two, Split Fiction seems to take a bit more time to find its rhythm. For the first hour of playing the game, my friend and I couldn’t tell if it was due to the story or the gameplay that things seemed off. After looking back on the footage, it seems like the story is what holds the game back for a bit.

You are quickly thrust into the back-and-forth world of fantasy and science fiction that is a lot to process at once. Add to this the fact that Mio and Zoe do not get along at all, and we have a somewhat bumpy takeoff into this game. Luckily, things start to smooth out about two hours in, and answers begin to come to the forefront to explain what is going on. 

The level design for this game is gorgeous! While there are a variety of science fiction and fantasy settings that make up the core of the game, there are also plenty of other settings used in various side stories that you can discover. My personal favorites are the ones where you play as a pig and eventually get turned into hot dogs, as well as the one where you are in a sketchbook exploring a world that hasn’t quite been finished yet.

All of these levels show the amount of creative freedom that the developers can explore despite the limitations that come with the gameplay from time to time. The gameplay is very similar to that of It Takes Two and A Way Out, where each level provides slightly different abilities or things to control to progress through the level. The one thing that my friend and I missed from previous games is the lack of minigames, as they have been replaced by the side stories. There are a few that do have competitive aspects to them, so my friend is certainly relieved by the fact that he can be #1 during parts of this game.

Despite this, two key things keep this game from reaching the quality of It Takes Two: the dialogue and the controls. I find it a bit ironic that the dialogue is one of the things that doesn’t quite work in Split Fiction, considering that the whole story revolves around writers. The overall dialogue of Zoe and Mio is rather cringey at times and causes there to be a few times where my co-op buddy had to tap out. From my point of view, I can see that the writers may have been trying to make Zoe and Mio sound this way since most writers are terrible at speaking to others or have very odd social skills.

There is no way for me to know this for sure without talking to the writers of Split Fiction, though, so that’s just speculation on my part. The controls are a bit of a mixed bag. There are many parts of the gameplay where either controller or Mouse & Keyboard work perfectly fine, but others where either type of control seems to fall apart. There is one specific challenge that comes to my mind yet I will keep it to myself as it might be deemed a spoiler.

Overall, I believe that Split Fiction is a good game. It doesn’t quite reach the same level of quality that It Takes Two managed, but this is a significant step up in terms of scope for Hazelight Studios. As silly as this may seem, I have to give them credit for still having the Friends Pass, as Electronic Arts could have easily pulled that away to potentially make more money. If you are looking for any other games to play with friends, consider checking out David Sander’s updated review of Humankind right here.

A PC Review Copy of Split Fiction was provided by Electronic Arts for this review

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Split Fiction

49.99

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• Great Sound Design
• Wonderful Environments
• Fascinating Side Stories
• Constantly Changing Gameplay
• Friend's Pass

Cons

• Some Annoying Dialogue
• Occasional Control Issues