Platform(s): PS5 (version reviewed), Xbox Series X | S, PC
Genre: Sci-fi/Fantasy, Co-op, Puzzle, Platform, Action, Adventure

There was once a time when playing games with a friend meant sharing a couch, a screen, and occasionally a fistfight over who got the controller with the dodgy button. It was a simpler time. A better time. The golden age of split-screen co-op, where camaraderie and chaos went hand in hand. Then, the internet happened. Suddenly, you didn’t need to be in the same room—or even the same country—to play together. How convenient. How utterly soulless.

Because let’s be honest, online co-op is a pale imitation. You can’t glare at your teammate when they let you down. You can’t nudge them in the ribs when they miss an easy jump. And you certainly can’t revel in their misery when they get absolutely obliterated by an enemy you warned them about. No, modern gaming has robbed us of these simple joys. Instead, we’re left with laggy voice chat, awkward silences, and the occasional rage quit disguised as a “disconnection.”

So when Split Fiction landed in my inbox, I saw a rare opportunity—not just to put the game through its paces, but to finally play something co-op with my girlfriend. We’d been meaning to try It Takes Two for ages, but life (and my ever-growing backlog) got in the way. Then, out of nowhere, Split Fiction arrived. Two birds, one stone. I get to review a brand-new co-op game, and we get to spend quality time together—ideally without wanting to kill each other in the process.

And that’s exactly what Split Fiction is trying to bring back—the kind of co-op experience where success isn’t just about working together, but surviving each other. Hazelight Studios, the masterminds behind A Way Out and It Takes Two, have once again refused to cave to the single-player masses. No AI partners. No solo mode. Just you, your chosen co-op companion, and the potential for either glorious victory or complete, relationship-ending catastrophe.

So, does Split Fiction recapture the magic of split-screen gaming? Or will it have me sleeping on the couch by the end of the night? Well, there’s only one way to find out.

A Story of Fiction… or Therapy?

If you’ve played a Hazelight Studios game before, you’ll know they don’t just give you two generic avatars and call it co-op. No, they throw you into the shoes of fully fleshed-out characters with quirks, baggage, and enough personality clashes to fuel an entire sitcom. A Way Out had Leo and Vincent, two prisoners who hated each other just enough to make their escape entertaining. It Takes Two had May and Cody, a married couple on the brink of divorce who were forced to work together after being turned into tiny dolls by, well… magic. Because of course.

Now, Split Fiction takes that same character-driven approach but cranks up the absurdity. You play as Mio Hudson and Zoe Foster—two struggling, unpublished authors who arrive at Rader Publishing Headquarters expecting a shot at their big break. Instead, they get sucked into a malfunctioning simulation of their own books, and the only way out is to survive the chaos of their combined imaginations.

Mio, a city-raised cynic, isn’t in this for literary prestige—she just wants to get paid. Her sci-fi stories are drenched in neon, packed with towering cyberpunk skylines, ruthless megacorporations, and so much futuristic tech it’d be easier to mistake the world you’re in to be Elon Musk’s wet dream. And when it comes to survival, she’s got plenty of tricks up her sleeve. One moment she’s a gravity-defying ninja slicing through enemies with an energy sword, the next she’s piloting drones in a high-tech exosuit. And when subtlety fails? Dual-wielded laser blasters in full-body combat armour usually do the trick.

Zoe, on the other hand, is the exact opposite—an overly enthusiastic country girl determined to prove to her family that she’s not a failure. Her stories are all grand fantasy epics, filled with enchanted forests, ancient prophecies, and dragons that always need saving. Trapped inside her own creations, she finds herself soaring through the skies as a fairy, galloping into battle atop a fire-breathing beast, or gliding across floating islands with a magical kite.

Together, these two are forced to navigate a world where sci-fi and fantasy violently collide—where laser turrets meet medieval castles, and dragons do aerial dogfights with cybernetic war machines. So yes, just like Hazelight’s past works, Split Fiction is no different. It doesn’t just test your teamwork—it tests your patience, your reflexes, and quite possibly your ability to resist throwing your controller at your co-op partner. Or in my girlfriend’s case… Me.

That psychological focus becomes more obvious the deeper you go. Each world isn’t just some random level plucked from a developer’s fever dream—well, it could be, but that’s not how I see it. I see it as a full-blown deep dive into Mio and Zoe’s personal baggage, wrapped in laser turrets, dragon-riding set pieces, and just the right amount of emotional trauma. And while I’d love to spill the details, the publishers have politely asked me to keep my mouth shut. But let’s just say Hazelight has once again proven that co-op games aren’t just about jumping, shooting, and yelling at your partner—they’re also about confronting your demons, whether you like it or not.

But enough about feelings. Let’s talk about what really matters—how Split Fiction actually plays.

Gameplay That Keeps You Guessing

Like any story-driven game worth its salt, Split Fiction has a main storyline—Mio and Zoe’s desperate escape from the simulation. But along the way, you’ll stumble upon portals leading to short stories they’ve written. Most of these are optional, but I can’t help but imagine the developers had an absolute field day putting them together. Every conceivable sci-fi and fantasy trope has been thrown into the mix, creating a playground of absurdity that adds hours of extra fun and depth. While each short story isn’t exactly War and Peace, their narrative undertones complement the protagonists beautifully because, as I said before, these worlds are stitched together from Mio and Zoe’s personal experiences.

But, because this is a Hazelight game, there are also side stories. Lots of them. You’ll find portals leading to short stories they’ve written, which, while optional, are clearly where the developers lost their collective minds in the best way possible. Every sci-fi and fantasy cliché under the sun has been stuffed in, creating a bizarre mix of sheer brilliance and absolute nonsense that somehow adds hours of extra fun. While none of these side stories are exactly Game of Thrones, they serve a greater purpose—showcasing the inner lives of our two protagonists.

Now, trying to explain how Split Fiction plays is a bit like trying to describe a dream—it makes sense at the time, but the moment you put it into words, you sound unhinged. At its core, you can see the bones of It Takes Two—a mix of platforming, puzzle-solving, and co-op mechanics that demand actual communication with your partner (which, as any couple will tell you, is far harder than it sounds). But then you throw in the side stories, and suddenly the game stops being one thing and starts being everything.

Take one of Mio’s stories, for example, where you have to stop a runaway train. Simple enough. Except, towards the end, it suddenly turns into Gradius—yes, the old-school side-scrolling space shooter—where Mio and Zoe take control of two flying vehicles, dodging laser turrets and blasting obstacles out of the way. Because why not? But this sudden change in gameplay doesn’t exactly give you whiplash. It’s seamless. And I have to give kudos to Hazelight for that.

But let’s talk about the meat of the gameplay: puzzles. My girlfriend and I tackled them together, and while I’ve spent my entire life playing video games, she did not. So, naturally, I expected to carry us both through the trickier parts. And yet, to my shock, she figured out a fair few puzzles before I did. That’s not to say there weren’t moments of frustration—there were, mostly during the timed puzzles that required a certain level of finesse and precision.

Take another one of Mio’s sci-fi levels (and yes, I’m bringing her up again, because her levels were far trickier than Zoe’s fantasy ones). In this one, Mio and Zoe have to defuse a dying star. Yes. A literal, collapsing sun. As you do. Every few seconds, it sends out waves of solar flares that obliterate anything in their path—except for the reinforced glass barriers and the platforms you have to leap between. At first, it’s manageable. Then, the flares speed up, the gaps between safe spots shrink, and suddenly, what started as a simple platforming puzzle turns into a full-blown Dark Souls boss fight. 

And just when you think you’ve got the timing down, the game decides that dodging planet-melting fireballs isn’t quite stressful enough. It starts throwing puzzles at you. Now, my girlfriend and I aren’t bad at puzzles, but trying to solve one while sprinting between barricades and praying we don’t get turned into space dust? That’s a different story. Timing our movements, syncing up interactions, hopping between moving platforms—it was a chaos simulator in the best and worst ways. There was yelling, panicked button-mashing, and a few “Why did you jump there?” moments. But when we finally made it through, high-fiving like we’d just defused a real-life bomb, we agreed: frustrating as it was, it was also brilliant.

And then there’s The Pig Level. Yes, you read that right. At one point, Mio and Zoe turn into pigs. Why? Doesn’t matter. How? Also irrelevant. What does matter is that it’s easily the best level in the game. I could go into detail about what makes it so utterly ridiculous and brilliant, but honestly, just play it. You’ll understand.

Presentation & Polish

I’m not going to lie—if you’re looking for a visual masterpiece that pushes the boundaries of modern gaming, you’re in the wrong place. Split Fiction isn’t here to show off hyper-realistic lighting or make your graphics card weep. But what it does do is embrace an art style that perfectly fits its off-the-wall premise. Vibrant colours, exaggerated designs, and a touch of that handcrafted, storybook feel—it’s all there, and it works.

That said, it’s not without its quirks. At one point, during a flying section, a rogue flag decided it had seen enough and made a dramatic break for freedom—only to get stuck halfway across the screen like an awkwardly placed post-it note. Not game-breaking, but definitely immersion-breaking. Still, a minor hiccup in what is otherwise a visually charming game. It won’t blow your mind, but it absolutely does the job.

If I had to point out a flaw, it would be that the narrative takes its sweet time getting anywhere. It doesn’t exactly start with a bang—more like a gentle nudge followed by some awkward stumbling. And at the heart of that are Mio and Zoe, who, at the beginning, are both about as enjoyable as a flat tyre in the rain. Mio is cold, aloof, and oozing cynicism, while Zoe is so relentlessly optimistic that I half expected her to start singing about the joys of friendship. My girlfriend and I didn’t instantly click with them—in fact, for the first couple of hours, they grated on us like sandpaper.

But then something happened. I don’t know when or how, but at some point, we stopped rolling our eyes and started… tolerating them. And then, against all odds, we actually began to like them. Not because the game suddenly threw some grand emotional moment at us, but because we had spent so much time being them. We heard them bicker, joke, and—begrudgingly—support each other, and somewhere along the way, they started to feel less like exaggerated tropes and more like, well, people.

Now, whether that was intentional or just a side effect of being trapped with them for hours on end, I honestly can’t say. But what I can say is that by the time the credits rolled, we weren’t just playing as Mio and Zoe—we were Mio and Zoe. And maybe, just maybe, that’s the whole point.

A Tale of Two

Co-op gaming, when done right, is a thing of beauty. There’s nothing quite like screaming at your partner because they missed a jump again or celebrating a perfectly timed puzzle solution like you’ve just won the lottery. Split Fiction understands this. It takes the magic of working together, throws in some deep, psychological storytelling, and wraps it all in a package that, while not groundbreaking, is undeniably entertaining.

That’s not to say it’s perfect. The story starts slow, and the main characters are about as likable as a traffic jam on a Monday morning—at least at first. But as time goes on, their quirks become endearing, and you realise Hazelight has once again made you care about fictional people without you even noticing.

Gameplay-wise, it’s a delightful mix of puzzles, platforming, and pure chaos. One moment you’re delicately solving a puzzle, the next you’re dodging solar flares like your life depends on it. And then there’s that level where you become pigs. I won’t spoil it, but trust me—it’s the best level in the game.

Visually, it won’t melt your eyeballs, but it does the job. The art style complements the storytelling, and apart from the occasional odd bug (like a rogue flag taking centre stage during a flight section), it runs smoothly.

At the end of the day, Split Fiction is exactly what co-op gaming should be—fun, engaging, and just frustrating enough to make you want to throw the controller, but not the relationship, out the window. It’s not a revolutionary experience, but it’s a damn good one. And in a world where split-screen co-op is becoming rarer than a good Nicolas Cage movie, that’s worth celebrating.

Pros

• Excellent co-op gameplay with great variety.
• Side stories add depth and keep things fresh.
• Fun, creative levels that mix platforming, puzzles, and action.
• Thoughtful storytelling with deeper themes.
• The pig level. Just trust me.

Cons

• Slow start with initially unlikable protagonists.
• Some puzzles can be frustrating, especially under pressure.
• Graphics are serviceable but nothing special.
• Occasional immersion-breaking bugs.

Final Score: 80/100

Review code provided by publisher.