A Jaw-Dropping Cooperative Game Lets Writers Run Wild

It seemed obvious after the first couple of hours of volleying frantic choreography instructions with my pal that Split Fiction will go down as one of the most beloved co-op games of this generation. There are so many moments in this split-screen adventure to savor with a companion, so many spectacles that make you pick your eyes up off the floor, that it’s hard to knock its shortcomings.

The latest title from the Swedish developer Hazelight (It Takes Two, A Way Out) is a manic mash-up of science fiction and fantasy that brings together space marines, trolls, cyberninjas, dragons, robots, magical cats and other stock figures. Over eight chapters, players hopscotch among settings to help two aspiring authors escape a computer simulation that has turned their imaginations against them.

From the beginning, Zoe, a fantasy writer, and Mio, a science fiction writer, are presented as a classic odd couple — the former is bubbly and optimistic, the latter curt and wary.

When they first run into each other in an elevator of the tech company Rader Publishing, Zoe tries to lure Mio into a light conversation only to be rebuffed. The two then meet the company’s eponymous founder, who says they’re about to take part in a pilot program that will allow them to live out a simulation of their creative work that will then be repackaged for sale to the public. Zoe embraces the proposition while Mio bristles.

When the time comes for the writers to climb onto platforms that sprout enveloping pods connecting them to a machine, Mio refuses and gets in a physical altercation with Rader, who inadvertently pushes her into Zoe’s pod. The mishap causes a glitch in the system.

Early stages find the pair in a bucolic forest and a neon-lit cyberpunk city. In the forest level, the two work together to solve environmental puzzles by shape-shifting (Zoe transforms into a fairy and an ambling tree, Mio into a gorilla and an otter). The “Blade Runner”-esque city sports some fantastic vehicle sequences that find Mio and Zoe dashing about on motorcycles, zipping up walls and over surfaces bedazzled by lights and glowing advertisements. All of this is accentuated by camerawork that moves smoothly from angle to angle, hinting at some of the astonishing kinetic sequences to come.