I reviewed Split Fiction recently and loved it. The characters, story, and gameplay were all on an elite level. Yesterday, I got the chance to interview Josef Fares, Hazelight Studios’ founder and all-around badass. We talked about the creation of Split Fiction, having a passion for gaming in general, how that insane spectacle of an ending came about, and more. I really enjoyed speaking with him and hope this interview lands for you the way it did for me.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
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To start, I was doing a little bit of research on you and saw that you directed several movies before getting into game development. I thought that was awesome. And playing your games, it makes sense. How did you connect to games as a storytelling form?
Josef: It’s been a rough ride, let me say that. I’ve always been a huge fan of gaming — I mean, a hardcore gamer. Played since I was a kid pretty much since Atari, so it’s always been my true passion. But once I was in the movie industry, I would always talk about games and how much I loved them in every interview I did in the local news here in Sweden. Eventually, I got connected with a friend of mine who had a video game school.
Josef: And he said during the summer, they have a small project I could work on if I wanted to and make a demo. So, that was the start — and actually, the same day he said that, I came up with the concept for the first game I developed, which was Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. So, it started there, and then from that demo, I made another demo. Then, Brothers happened, so on and so forth.
Okay, so you always had the bug — that’s cool.
Josef: Yeah, for sure!
That was something I wanted to touch on. Because you have said — and gamers have been pounding this drum for years — that games are art. And I feel like your experience as a director has helped with that, where in your games, the way people emotionally connect in them is different. Especially with the co-op, there’s no option to do this by yourself, and there’s nothing that you can do by yourself. So, how important is connection in gaming to you?
Josef: Look, at the end of the day, I truly love games. I mean, if people approach me with the argument that — even questioning if games are art or not — I don’t even take that discussion. To be honest with you, I think it’s a stupid opinion. It doesn’t make sense from many aspects. I mean, my only argument is that you believe that a drawing is a piece of art? Well, that’s a tiny, tiny bit of what a game is. That’s where the passion comes from, you know?
Josef: I think that, yes, what we do at Hazelight, some of it is the connection between players. But also the urge to push the medium forward. I mean, I am living my dream to have a studio with an extremely talented team and to be part of pushing the industry forward from a creative perspective. That’s really what I hope for. And also make games that I love playing. And hopefully, that people love. I mean, we’re seeing that people are loving them because they’re selling a lot and people really appreciate it. So, that’s for sure the key thing.
Yeah, they’re definitely incredible. And before I ask my next question. I just wanna say, I don’t care what anybody says: I love Dr. Hakim. I think he’s hilarious.
Josef: [Laughs] You know what? I always said he’s misunderstood, that character. He’s so misunderstood. I’m telling you. He’s gonna have his comeback someday. People will realize that “Oh, he was really a kick-ass character.”
Yeah, people will come back around! I’m waiting for it. I can say I was there on that one.
Josef: Yeah, thank you, thank you. I really appreciate that.
‘SPLIT FICTION’ deserves its flowers
So, for ‘Split Fiction,’ you named the characters after your two daughters. Was that born out of a desire to get them involved, or was this a story you already had in the chamber?
Josef: No, it was more kind of an homage to them for when they grow up. Because they’re just 4 and 3, so they’re quite young. It was just a way for them to look at Dad’s game and see their names. Plus, it was a way for me to have them close by. Every day during the three-and-a-half years of production, you hear their names all the time. So, it was a way of having them around.
That’s pretty cool. I bet that feels good. You have that feeling of missing them, and then you hear their names. As far as the games themselves, when you get into the relationships between the characters, how do you decide how the relationships evolve and move the story forward?
Josef: I mean, we always try to make sure that our characters have a clear arc. Something to go through, something to learn. But the tricky part is it’s sometimes hard because at Hazelight, we really want the gameplay to be the number one key thing. And we do it best when we blend the narrative and the gameplay. But sometimes it can be really tricky because coming from a movie background, when you write the story, you focus on the story solely.
Josef: Because it’s a controlled experience, it’s pretty much what the audience experiences. While in games, the game mechanics are so important. But still, we really try to make sure to have this arc — this growth of the characters — so you really feel that you’re connected to your character. And you feel that you learned something. So, hopefully, in this game, what I would love to see is that, no matter how different you are, you can still find friendship and peace between each other.
And both of those characters are very different, that was something I noticed very early on. I personally identified with Mio more.
Josef: Yeah, it’s funny how people identified. It’s also funny because obviously, they are two entirely different people, and people resonate with different ones. Which is cool because that’s kind of the point — and they also have different mechanics. But when we started the casting, we made sure that their personalities are actually in there. So, the actual actors, Kaja and Elsie, were amazing at having their own personalities in the characters as well. There’s an interview on YouTube that’s super cool. Go and check it out; they’re super cool people. You’ll see it more when they talk about the characters.
I can tell they definitely put a lot of themselves in the characters, they felt very life-like. So, as far as finding that balance between the gameplay and the story, was it harder to do that in ‘Split Fiction’ or ‘It Takes Two’?
Josef: It’s hard in different ways, you know? It’s always challenging, but the key thing for us is obviously gameplay because this is still a game you are playing. Like I said before, we try to combine them as much as possible. But at the end of the day, if the gameplay is not working, then we have to change the narrative. But that’s also part of the excitement, I believe. That’s what’s so cool about video games.
Josef: We’re still, I would argue, learning how to tell a story in a video game because it’s still tricky. I mean, obviously, you have some games out there — Last of Us, God of War — you know, big games that have done it really well. But we’re still, I would say, figuring out how to truly tell a story in a video game. And that’s something I want Hazelight to be part of as well, figuring out how to do it, you know?
When I played ‘Split Fiction,’ I played it with my girlfriend. There was a point where we would just mess with each other. That was a thing I found in ‘It Takes Two,’ even ‘A Way Out,’ and now ‘Split Fiction,’ there’s always little stuff that you would give the player. And you can just screw around with each other for a little bit. Is that something that you intentionally do? Or is it just “we’re putting this cool stuff in and letting people do whatever”?
Josef: Yes, and it’s something that started with Brothers, just making the world interactive and fun and nice. For me, that’s why you don’t see any collectibles in our games. Because I feel that if you want to explore the world, you should be rewarded from the world, not something you just find and collect. And that’s where the idea came from, but yes, for sure. I mean, it was there a little bit in A Way Out, but it became more in It Takes Two, but that was because of the actual nature of the story with the couple bantering and arguing with each other.
Josef: And we realized quite early, when we did some early testing, that some couples who came to test the game, we were like, “Oh shit, they need to work on their collaboration.” And I still say today that if you want to see where your relationship is, you should play our games. Because it’s a good way to see if your communication is actually good. Because when we design the gameplay and the characters, it’s key that you can communicate. You’re still together with your girl?
[Laughs] Yeah, yeah, it’s funny you say that because when we were playing ‘Split Fiction,’ there were times when we didn’t really have to say too much. It was just like, “Look over there,” and she knew. And then there were other times when I knew I had to be a little bit more deliberate in my communication because I’ve been gaming forever, and she plays games, but it isn’t her thing.
Josef: And even if you play with a gamer, you still have to communicate because there are moments in the game where you have to time, where you have to talk, where you have to literally communicate to make it through. And that was part of the design, for sure.
That was one of the most fun things — those moments when I’d have to go, “Not yet, not yet, NOW.” Piggybacking off something you said there, there’s one Side Story in ‘Split Fiction’ that isn’t explicitly called out by Mio and Zoe. Was that intentional to see how much people were interacting with the environments?
Josef: Which one are you thinking of?
It’s the one by the port-a-potties in the sci-fi world, where you get right to them, but it’s behind you.
Josef: Ah, yeah. The reason there is it would be nice if you didn’t find all the side stories immediately. And that’s such a huge side story that’s so epic. I’ve seen some people who were like “Aww, how could I miss that?” The whole point with Side Stories is side content that is crazy. We’ve seen people say, “Oh, shit, what is this?” when they find them. Some people, that was their favorite thing, but it would just be fun that you wouldn’t find everything in the beginning.
Yeah, that dentist one was absolutely nuts! I loved it, though. So, the cellphone sequence that everyone is talking about. It’s gone viral, and it should. It’s hilarious, and I put every bit of effort into actually completing it. But the one part that stuck out to me outside of the ending — and we’ll get to that — is the pinball segment. How hard was it to do that? Because that segment was incredible.
Josef: Well, thank you. In all our games, we do a lot of iteration back and forth. We start with having an idea, and then we start to implement that and test it and try it out. There’s a lot of back-and-forth until we find something really good. One of the key things we wanted was to add in a boss. Because we always try to find co-op mechanics that feel nice, that feel connected to the player and complement each other. But this felt really nice, and we were really excited about it. And that’s also why we put a lot of effort [into it]. We started first without a boss, and then we added the boss on, just because it felt like such a cool mechanic to have in the game.
That was the one that tested our communication because I was the ball. So, there was a lot of “you gotta wait before you hit it.” But it was a lot of fun. I know I annoyed her to death when I started doing this. But that last segment of the game, I just kept saying the whole time, “This should not be possible.” Like, this is actual magic. How long did it take to get that right?
Josef: We started pretty much from day one of production. I mean, I have a video here from three-and-a-half years ago where we started with this. The thing is, this was the first thing that came up with the vision of [Split Fiction]. There was a lot of stuff we had to cut away, but then when we put it together, it slowly comes in with the art, the music, the sound, everything — it just becomes amazing.
Josef: You know how I’ve been saying in interviews, “You haven’t seen anything like this in a video game before.” And people are like, “Oh, he’s bullshitting, what is he talking about?” And then you see people’s reaction: “Fuck, he was right!” Because we knew what we had here, we knew we had something that hadn’t been done in this way. So, it’s so cool to see people’s reaction where they go totally nuts when they see it. That’s such a cool moment for us.
Yeah, like I said, I know I was annoying her because the game nerd brain in me was just like, “This shouldn’t happen.” I put that up there with Tears of the Kingdom, how that whole game operated, [‘Split Fiction’] is on that tier for me as far as stuff you shouldn’t be able to do.
Josef: Cool, man. Thank you. That’s why I say at Hazelight: “We fuck shit up without fucking up.” We have that mentality here. We’re already working on our next game now. Obviously, I can’t talk about it. But if I show you when we start going crazy with these ideas, it’s very fascinating to be here.
How do you come up with your ideas? Is it just kind of a mashup of ideas you have in your head and you sort of piece it together?
Josef: So, the thing is, normally at Hazelight, when the game starts, we have a storyboard of all the beats in the game. Sometimes, there are gameplay ideas, and then from there, we just go at it and throw a lot of ideas out there. But we actually have something to go crazy from. I think if you don’t have that core vision, it’s quite hard to go crazy. I mean, we know what we’re doing, where we’re heading, and what levels we’re doing. And we have no limitations. It’s really just me and the team.
Josef: So, there are no layers of producers or someone that’s gonna say, “Do this or do that.” No, it’s just us. If we like it, it’s gonna be in. And I think that creative freedom, that’s the passion and the creativity that people are feeling when they’re playing the game. Because there are no limitations. So, when I say, “We fuck shit up,” I’m not just saying it, I mean it. And “without fucking up,” I mean that we are a focused and dedicated team that loves to do what we do, and we go with it one hundred percent.
the importance of BEING YOURSELF
That’s the thing I noticed. The passion you guys have for the games absolutely comes through. But I think the thing that people aren’t paying enough attention to is that those games are tight technically. There are no issues or anything like that. So, that’s incredible to pull off, especially with that last level.
Josef: Exactly. Also, a lot of people forget that with split-screen, you have to render two screens at the same time while still running 60 frames per second on consoles. We have a huge amount of variety in the game. You know this, maybe because you are in the industry. When you make a mechanic, it’s quite fast to prototype stuff, but to make it to a level of polish, that’s the tricky part. And that’s why your normal game is usually a core mechanic that you polish, polish, polish until it feels good. But, we wanna do it differently, so I would say I’m extremely proud of what we have put together considering the amount of polish we have.
Josef: I mean, we just saw Digital Foundry when they do their technical . They were super impressed with what we did. So, that’s another good thumbs up from a technical perspective. But again, Hazelight has been around now for 10 years, so if you look at A Way Out, which was our first game. Obviously, it was a bit rough around the edges, then you see It takes Two and [Split Fiction], you see the evolution of the team. How we’re getting better and better, more mature, having more technical skills, building more correct tools for our games. We’re just getting started, man.
I think that’s one of the things I’ve appreciated about you specifically, everything you do, it feels like you. There’s nothing else in front of that. Even when you do the “Fuck the Oscars” speech, you are yourself one hundred percent of the time.
Josef: Oh yeah, all the time, man. This is always gonna be me — whatever happens. And I think at the end of the day, people appreciate that. The funny part is, sometimes, people say to me — almost in a fascinated way — “How can you just be yourself?” Which is — in a way — a weird question because shouldn’t that be the normal thing? Shouldn’t everybody be themselves? So, I really hope I can inspire people — not being afraid of actually expressing what you believe. Because at the end of the day, people appreciate it, I think.
And that comes through in the games and makes them better. I had another question about ‘It Takes Two’. Was that story based on a relationship you had, or was it more just like two people are arguing, and we want to get them back together again?
Josef: No, the thing is, that story fits the gameplay. But the first thing was that it felt like a story that wasn’t normally told in video games. So, this was kind of a romantic comedy. I remember in the beginning we were talking, “Are people going to play a romantic comedy between a couple?” But then we were like: “Let’s do it.” It just felt fresh, unique, and different. And it fit so well with the bantering between each other, they were arguing all the time, the mini-games, and messing around with each other.
Josef: Thematically, it fit with the gameplay as well. Also, one thing I’m really proud of is that we managed to connect the mechanics to the story. For instance, the level “Clockwork,” where the relation to time and how they react to that and the mechanics connected to that. Or their attraction as a couple, we played around with magnets and how their magnets grew and became more and more attracted to each other. So, there was a combination between the actual mechanics and the story that I think we nailed really well in that game.
Last question for you: I don’t want to spoil how you get there. But, the laser level in ‘Split Fiction’. What is wrong with y’all?
Josef: [laughs] You know, that started actually, if you remember in It Takes Two, we have the Hell Tower. And that was quite simple, and we just saw that it was fun to have another challenge there. Laser Hell started with us like, “Let’s do another one, but let’s make it harder.” And it’s really hard, I don’t know if you’ve played it.
Josef: I mean, we knew some people would finish it. Some of our designers worked really hard to finish it, it took like three or four hours. Because it’s really hard, and you have to do it at the same time or you die. And then, we just thought: wouldn’t it be fun to make a competition out of it that you actually won something? And people found it and won. We’re gonna have [sharkOvO and E1uM4y] come and play our next game as soon as it’s ready to be played.
I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. This has been an honor. I love your games. I love that you’re always you, and I appreciate your passion for gaming.
Josef: Thank you! I really like your voice, man. You have a really cool voice.
Thank you! I’ve heard that before. I’ve been trying to get into voice acting, but we’ll see how that goes. Appreciate it!
Josef: You should! Alright, my man, have a good day.
Thanks again to Josef Fares for taking the time to sit with me and talk. And if you haven’t played Split Fiction yet, get on that soon. You won’t regret it.
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