PREVIEW: Split Fiction is 2025’s most creative co-op game

The sheer amount of stuff you do in “Split Fiction” almost defies comprehension.

In my four-hour hands-on with Hazelight Studios’ online and splitscreen co-op adventure, which releases March 2025 on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S, I go from racing a neon-wheeled motorbike across rain-lashed rooftops while my buddy fires an uzi at tailing assailants, to sneaking past a gang of vicious ogres by distracting them with lobbed apples, to snowboarding though an icy cavern pulling “SSX”-style tricks as it collapses around us.

For director Josef Fares, this breathless variety is very much the point. “We have a lot of crazy s*** in this game, I’m telling you,” says the man behind previous co-op gems “It Takes Two” (2021) and “A Way Out” (2018).

“A lot of people ask why we do so much variety. I think it’s because of my background as a filmmaker. Imagine having a really kick-ass scene in a movie. They’re not going to repeat that scene just because it costs a lot of money. It’s actually the opposite. It takes out the initial cool feeling if you reuse it all the time.”

Some sections in “Split Fiction” took nine months and many millions of dollars to make, and you’ll blitz by it in a minute, never to see it again.

At one point my co-op partner and I (they’re sitting next to me on the couch) are turned into pigs. The aim? To find apples and present them to a talking door. My pig can fart rainbows, while my partner can elongate their body like a Slinky.

It’s a scenario from the brains of “Split Fiction” protagonists Mia and Zoe, two writers trapped in their own stories after a corporation hooks them up to a machine designed to steal their ideas. Their minds are a fertile ground, which results in the introduction of new mechanics and novel concepts roughly every 30 seconds.

As our differently powered pigs, we work together to solve environmental puzzles. I use my fart jump to vault high into the air and land with force on a teetering spade, catapulting my partner onto a ledge.

It’s fairly straightforward stuff – until that is we jump into a giant meat grinder and transform into sausages before cooking ourselves on a grill and becoming the main course of a sumptuous BBQ, finished off by a POV shot of our ketchup-drenched selves entering the chomping mouth of a hungry child.

“Probably,” says Fares on whether he could stretch any of these sections into its own game, “but that’s not how we work at Hazelight. We want to keep you on the edge all the time.” True to his word, you never know what’s coming.

Next, we’re plunged into Slopes of War, a story from the mind of Mio combining snowboarding, sci-battles, and giant robots. We’re careening across iced-over lakes as giant drills burst from below, grinding across the hulls of dropships, and finding time to pull sick tricks on the way, which counts towards an ongoing high score meter.

Is Split Fiction Good?

Despite the breakneck pace routinely switching up gameplay styles, you’re rarely confused. “Split Fiction” feels intuitive, whether you’re manning a spaceship turret to blast fighter jets as your partner pilots you through a vortex, climbing and jumping through a sidescrolling 2D platformer, or helping each other navigate a giant pinball machine as one of you controls the ball and the other flips the paddles.

Fares promises the best is yet to come. “I mean, I don’t want to spoil,” he says, “but just play it to the end, and trust me, you will see a system that you have never played before. I mean, I know I’m cocky, but you’ve never seen anything like it before. I can guarantee you that.”

Unlike the gloomy, often po-faced “A Way Out”, there’s plenty of humor in “Split Fiction”. In one section we battle a robot parking attendant that takes the form of a huge metal sphere who flings cars at us while saying “Your meter has officially expired.”

My partner must use a lightning whip to expose its glowing pylon while I grapple myself onto it. The orb has its own localized gravity, so I can run across it in all directions to evade damaging shockwaves before smashing the pylon to pieces. Multi-stage boss fights like these are a highlight inviting communication and collaboration, the hallmarks of all the best co-op games.

Is Split Fiction Online Co-Op?

One of “Split Fiction’s” best qualities is its commitment to asymmetrical co-op in both splitscreen and online. In almost every section you’ll be applying each character’s distinct powers to help each other through. For instance, there’s a fairytale fantasy land in which I can turn into a walking tree and conjure vines that my partner can cling to in the form of a grinning blue gorilla.

Later in that section, I transform into a flying imp who can ride on pockets of air current unlocked by my partner when they smash their fists on the ground. It’s forgivable, with generous checkpoints and fast respawns after death, but that’s not to say it’s easy. One scenario near the end in which we both play as dragons confounds us for 20 minutes as we struggle workshopping a solution.

Essentially, my dragon can glide, and their dragon can charge into objects and send them flying. What they have to do is smash a magic bell that then summons a floating blue platform I can jump on, but the platform lasts a few short seconds before disappearing, which calls for synchronized teamwork and fine timing.

Again, all of this changes up constantly, making Split Fiction feel like a new game minute by minute. “I don’t know why people aren’t doing it, to be honest,” says Fares of publishers largely ignoring splitscreen co-op games. “We’ve kind of created our subgenre a little bit, and I think in a year or two we’re gonna see more games like this out there.”

The depth and variety means “Split Fiction” feels poised to become yet another Hazelight couch co-op classic, perfect to play with a non-gaming companion both online and off.

When is the Split Fiction Release Date?

“Split Fiction” releases for Windows, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and Series S in March 2025.