REVIEW: Split Fiction Brings True Video Game Co-op to PS5, PC and Xbox

The best way to understand co-op-only adventure Split Fiction is with a list of its top moments.

These include teaming up to take on a futuristic gameshow’s robotic host by whisking ticking bombs through an assault course, riding skeletal sand sharks through desert dunes like Paul Atreides, piloting spaceships in a bullet hell-style side-on shooter, and even turning into a hot dog and cooking yourself on a giant grill.

Don’t worry about any of that giving the game away, however, because Hazelight Studio’s EA-published two-player original title is almost impossible to spoil. If I were to reveal the exact amount of different puzzles, mechanics, and surprise set-pieces, we’d be here all day.

Now out on Xbox Series S|X, PlayStation 5, and PC, you can play Split Fiction either locally via couch co-op or online with a friend. One player controls Mio, the other Zoe. Both are struggling writers who unwittingly sign up to a shady publishing agency that, it turns out, steals ideas using mind-invading technology.

What is Split Fiction About?

When a malfunction traps Mio and Zoe within their own fertile imaginations, they must work together to escape – and bring down the company ripping off struggling creatives across the world.

Mio and Zoe each have their own favoured genre. For the former it’s sci-fi, which takes the duo to rain-lashed neon cities, hovering highways, and gravity shifting testing facilities.

The latter loves fantasy, her worlds consisting of gleaming castles, troll-filled villages, and fairy tale forests ripe for platforming from every imaginable perspective (3D, 2.5D, and at one point paper-thin 2D).

It’s hard to pick a favourite. In both adventures, which intertwine as part of one consistent 15-hour campaign, puzzles are always inventive and ludicrously unpredictable.

My partner and I water ski behind levitating trains, share dual custody of a conjoined centipede, drive Tron-style bikes on the tops of skyscrapers, and glide through giant dams into secret fortresses.

There are plenty of symmetrical sequences, in which both players are equally powered and targeting the same objective, but Split Fiction shines when it’s asymmetrical. For example, when one player can melt metal by spitting acid, and the other can smash crystals by rolling into a ball.

The game’s director Josef Fares is keen to pitch his product as more than a purely splitscreen experience – that is, a singleplayer game happening to contain co-op as an afterthought. Split Fiction is instead “written, designed, and created from the beginning as a co-op game only,” he tells Newsweek. “Most of the splitscreen games today have all the same mechanics…We’re going full at it.”

Is Split Fiction Good?

Asymmetrical puzzles unleash the unrelenting force of Hazelight’s creative vision. In one scenario, you’ll fight to keep hundreds of angry apes off your partner as they pilot a gigantic wooden beetle through a forest under siege. In another, player one controls a pinball, player two the paddles.

Whether harnessing the power of nature to sprout seaweed so your friend doesn’t get spotted by fierce undersea fish, moving a series of teleporters to ferry them safely through a maze of acid, or balancing on a slowly sinking pole as your mate drags you through a pond populated with carnivorous flowers, Split Fiction is best when it demands different skills from each player, be it reflexes, timing, memory, or problem-solving.

It’s also designed for accessibility. Controls are simple, often relying on one or two buttons, and puzzles are quickly conveyed with bold colours and clear signposting. Anyone, no matter their ability, can quickly understand the task.

What Do You Do in Split Fiction?

It helps they’re rarely more complex than having one player, who has short-lived control over a massive flower, swing a log at an egg thrown by player two, who’s currently inhabiting the body of a purple monkey. Another sees one player dive into bodies of water to launch a plant bulb, which the other grabs on and flings it at an ice door.

Boss fights present the biggest challenge. In fact, they’re slightly too sharp a difficulty spike for newcomers, mostly relying on you dodging projectiles and jumping over shockwaves. Their frequency exacerbates the problem.

Only a few bosses stand out. One of the highlights is a disco dance against a flare-wearing primate who challenges you to a button-matching funk-off. At one point you have to gather up a chain of monkeys and form an unbroken conga line. It’s mayhem when your partner’s line is growing in unison.

As is the Split Fiction philosophy, nothing is repeated or reused. If there’s a section you’re not enjoying, don’t worry, it’ll be over in about 30 seconds and you won’t see it again. This keeps the action moving.

So propulsive is the pace, you’ll appreciate the rare times the breaks slam on and you’re allowed a little breathing room. One scenario tasks you with retrieving three lost cats from different corners of a moonlit town square. On the way, you can mess around by shooting fireworks, riding snails, and chucking potion ingredients into a big pot.

Is Split Fiction Hard?

That also means there’s little real challenge, be it from jetpacking dogfights with drones, or jumping between hover cars as a rifle-toting militia gives fire. Often, once you’ve worked out the solution, the execution is almost too simple.

Two players who are experienced with games will fly through easily, potentially knocking a few hours off the completion time. You will be inclined to replay the game as the other character, however, given how divergent their paths through the game are. That potentially gives the game a 30-hour run time.

The ideal way to experience Split Fiction isn’t with someone who plays games, but with someone who doesn’t. You’re both an equal footing, able to engage in a full-length campaign as a synchronised team regardless of skill level, and in the same room. Games like that don’t come along often.

There’s something brilliantly pure about Split Fiction, with its complete lack of live service model, micro transactions, and alternate modes hastily assembled as an afterthought. “Nobody, nobody,” says Fares when asked if anyone from EA applied pressure to ensure the game ticks a few extra boxes.

“I tell you that we do what we want to do, period. and we will not ever, never, ever have microtransactions. Whatever, all this b******t. no, nothing. I think that’s what sets this company apart.”

Something else setting Hazelight apart is the Friend’s Pass. With the Friend’s Pass, you can play the entire game with an online partner if only one of you owns Split Fiction. All you need is an EA account linked to your platform account. Then, add a friend’s EA account to your EA Friends List from inside the game, and invite them in.

There’s even cross-platform play. For example, if you’re playing on Xbox Series S|X, you can invite a friend playing on PC or PlayStation 5. Just have Split Fiction running while signed in to an EA account within the game, provided cross-play is enabled in the game’s options menu or within your account’s privacy settings.

It’s as if Split Fiction wants you to play together at any cost. And not just play together, but have fun doing it.

The only area of disappointment is its lack of truly leftfield ideas. The game takes place entirely within someone’s mind, so you’d have thought rules don’t apply. It’s a shame, then, there are only a few genuinely subversive surprises that deviate from the sci-fi and fantasy themes. They’re best to discover yourself.

Split Fiction Review Score

Split Fiction is weird, wonderful, and absolutely wild. You won’t care about the path not taken when the paths you do take range from shielding each other from an exploding sun to planting flowers in the shape of a cat. A dream for duos, and the perfect game to pair up for.

When is the Split Fiction Release Date?

Split Fiction is now out on Xbox Series S|X, PlayStation 5, and PC. You can play Split Fiction either locally via couch co-op or online with a friend.