Split Fiction Review

After winning the Game of the Year gong for It Takes Two astatine the The Game Awards 2021 I’m definite that developer Hazelight Studios was positively brimming with ideas of what to bash next. I’m definite of this due to the fact that the squad appears to person utilized each 1 of those ideas successful Split Fiction. An enchanting and assured two-person escapade similar nary other, Split Fiction is non-stop, co-op restitution that had maine smiling consistently arsenic we progressed, parkoured, and pulverised our mode done to 1 of the champion finales I’ve ever played. Is it a puzzle platformer? Is it a third-person enactment adventure? Is it an utmost sports game, oregon a side-scroller, oregon a twin-stick shooter?

The reply is yes.

Split Fiction is the communicative of 2 young and unsuccessful authors, Zoe and Mio, lured to a mysterious tech institution by the imaginable of yet being published. What they didn’t number on, however, was having their brains portion mined of each communicative they’ve ever conceived. When a scuffle involving a suspicious Mio thrusts her into Zoe’s idiosyncratic lawsuit wrong the machine system, the 2 find themselves forced to enactment unneurotic to flight and foil the company’s plot. Zoe and Mio are rapidly and efficaciously established arsenic polar opposites successful everything from their attitudes to their accents, but Split Fiction wastes small clip tossing them together.

It’s an easy-to-grasp premise, and it’s astir baffling that it hasn't travel on successful a twelve games already. That is, the thought of being trapped successful an interactive, virtual satellite is simply a trope that’s been remixed repeatedly successful movie for decades. Of course, Split Fiction nevertheless arrives successful 2025 arsenic a peculiarly timely takedown of our grim aboriginal of being drenched successful AI slop against our will. The information that, astatine its heart, Split Fiction is 2 arrogant mediate fingers to the conga enactment of entitled tech bros who’ve decided creation is simply a commodity that tin beryllium scraped, stolen, and repackaged by their plagiarism engines lone adds to its charm.

Non-friction

As with It Takes Two earlier it, Split Fiction’s platforming is instantly connected point. With a jump, double-jump, and aerial dash astatine each character’s disposal, Split Fiction boasts the aforesaid precocious grade of aerial maneuverability arsenic its predecessor. Wall runs tin beryllium spectacularly chained, grappling hooks are thrilling swings oregon slingshots, and rails, poles, and tiny landing spots person a brushed fastener that draws Zoe and Mio onto them – truthful agelong arsenic you’ve pointed them mostly successful the close direction.

The upshot is simply a question strategy that’s highly approachable and casual to go adept with rather fast, and 1 that focuses connected momentum and timing alternatively than getting excessively bogged down punishing tiny mistakes oregon a deficiency of expert-level finesse. It’s similar having conscionable 1 bumper up successful a bowling alley; it’s blessed to springiness you a flimsy nudge successful the close absorption connected occasion, but it’s not going to render you immune from making mistakes entirely.

My lone existent disapproval of the platforming is that determination are a fewer occasions wherever it becomes tricky to drawback up aft falling down your partner, arsenic 1 subordinate hurtles up and the different gets stuck successful a little loop of dying and respawning trying to get backmost connected track. It’s besides a insignificant bugbear having some Zoe and Mio simply clipping done each different whenever they inhabit the aforesaid space, arsenic it results successful a amazingly unfinished look. Make nary mistake, having 1 quality go an existent obstacle for the different would wholly destruct the snappy gait of Split Fiction, but it would’ve looked truthful overmuch amended (and inactive made cleanable sense) with immoderate benignant of digitised effect breaking up Zoe and Mio’s avatars whenever they recovered themselves perched connected the aforesaid tiny platform.

At immoderate rate, Split Fiction’s fast-paced platforming is cleanable for its exclusively co-op approach, peculiarly erstwhile played by radical of differing accomplishment levels, arsenic it’s mostly frictionless. Die extracurricular of a brag conflict and you’ll rapidly respawn adjacent your spouse automatically. Die within a brag conflict and you tin re-enter the fray aft immoderate little fastener mashing. Checkpoints are generously frequent, adjacent during brag fights. Chip their wellness down to halfway and you won’t request to repetition an brushwood entirely, adjacent if some Zoe and Mio are defeated astatine the aforesaid time. This is invited because, arsenic incredibly imaginative arsenic the galore bosses are, it’s not antithetic to endure a mates of inexpensive deaths during the fights – commonly aft getting respawned nether a salvo of deadly attacks that hitch you retired the instant you blink backmost into existence. As specified they were lone ever little setbacks, and we ne'er had to repetition thing to the grade it felt similar a chore.

Overall it’s not a peculiarly hard crippled for, say, 2 dads with determination successful the vicinity 80 years of video crippled literacy betwixt them, but I don’t crave punishing trouble and ne'er have. For maine Split Fiction soars acknowledgment to its satisfying absorption connected communication, collaboration, and changeless variety. It’s figuring retired the way and the joyousness of suggesting the close puzzle solution. It’s laughing astatine untimely misunderstandings knowing the punishment for nonaccomplishment is ne'er particularly severe. It’s deciding whether to spell connected three, oregon if it’s one, two, three, GO! Split Fiction is thing if not a crippled that makes you cognize what it would consciousness similar to request your champion person to resistance you disconnected your booby-trapped toilet earlier it explodes. You’ve each seen Lethal Weapon 2, right? I did notation we’re a brace of 40-year-old dads, yeah?

Watching 2 of my kids play aft I’ve finished it I’ve since seen a mates of imaginable bottlenecks (related to timing their mode past a deadly obstacle) but if little experienced players person nary 1 astir to swoop successful and prevention the day, the enactment to simply skip guardant to the adjacent checkpoint is disposable arsenic a past resort. Split Fiction doesn’t privation to stall anyone indefinitely. It wants to beryllium played.

Clever, bending story

Split Fiction is truthful bully astatine wanting to beryllium played it’s hard to stop playing. It simply doesn’t enactment the aforesaid agelong capable for it to ever go boring. If you’ve ever wondered whether it would beryllium imaginable to compression SSX and Shadow of the Colossus into the aforesaid story, wonderment nary more. Split Fiction recovered a way.

Zoe and Mio are phantasy and sci-fi authors respectively, and the enactment is fundamentally divided arsenic betwixt the 2 genres, but the phantasy and sci-fi branches of Split Fiction are thing but static. That is, the communicative doesn’t pendulum betwixt a azygous sci-fi satellite and a azygous phantasy satellite repeatedly for 14-hours – the levels are ever different, each with their ain peculiar hooks. Mio’s intelligence archive of sci-fi ideas scope from a neon-splashed, futuristic metropolis afloat of flying postulation – with gravity-defying cyber ninjas that volition person you and a spouse helping each different down a high-altitude road portion operating connected totally antithetic axes – to a abstraction analyzable adjacent to a dying prima releasing pulsing blasts that volition disintegrate Zoe and Mio if they’re caught retired of cover. That’s conscionable two, and I’m highly hesitant to drill down connected immoderate more. Not knowing however each caller level and broadside communicative volition shingle up the backdrop and the gameplay is simply a immense portion of what makes Split Fiction specified tremendous amusive to scoot through.

Zoe’s phantasy worlds are initially a spot twee by comparison, and mostly had maine looking guardant to the abbreviated sci-fi diversions that are scattered throughout, but they bash diagnostic the amended brag battles (I’m reluctant to spoil the specifics of immoderate of those either but, broadly speaking, the phantasy bosses are much awesome successful size and person personalities than marque them vastly much memorable). The phantasy information does highest aboriginal successful the communicative arsenic it becomes a small darker and much grand-scale, which is simply a bully springboard for the lengthy and meticulously engineered last level. It’s not conscionable the astir impressively executed agelong of Split Fiction overall; it’s 1 of the astir memorable finales I’ve ever played. Split Fiction is simply a fine-looking crippled throughout, but the spectacle of the full ending conception is simply a existent ocular triumph for Hazelight.