Five minutes into my meeting with Hazelight Studios founder Josef Fares, I’ve already said some version of “wow” or “that’s so sick” at least a dozen times. Split Fiction, the studio’s follow-up to 2021 TGA Game of the Year winner It Takes Two, wisely sticks with that winning formula, but aims to up the ante at practically every turn. This is It Takes Two with a heaping helping of ‘the power of the PS5’, and if it isn’t one of your most anticipated games of 2025, it should be.
Split Fiction follows writers Mio and Zoe (named after Fares’ daughters) who find themselves trapped in a virtual reality world where their stories are made real. These strangers and would-be creative rivals are forced to work together, traveling back and forth between each other’s worlds through glitches in the program in order to find a way out.
Split Between Sci-Fi And Fantasy
The levels alternate between Mio’s sci-fi world and Zoe’s fantasy world, introducing new mechanics and abilities in each one. At its core, Split Fiction plays a lot like It Takes Two, with plenty of puzzle platforming and co-op puzzle solving, but at a bigger, more cinematic scale. The first Mio level I played had the writers escaping a facility under assault by a fleet of spaceships, dodging explosions and grappling across the battlefield to find a path to safety.
Both worlds lean into familiar fantasy tropes. In one fantasy level, the authors learned how to transform into mythical creatures. One could swap between a purple monkey and a sea creature while the other a pixie and a tree ent - each with their own traversal abilities and ways to interact with the world. In another level, the duo found a pair of dragon eggs that hatched into whelps and eventually matured into full-grown dragons to ride around on.
There are some fun twists on familiar settings too. One sci-fi level features sand sharks that will eat you if you step off of solid ground. One player has to activate a machine that sends concussive blasts into the sand to distract them while the other player crosses. Of course, you’ll eventually figure out how to ride the sharks across the desert. Sound familiar?
Another great level, based on Mio’s childhood love for video games, features a competitive hoverboard race that bares a striking resemblance to Tony Hawk Pro Skater’s Downhill Jam
Side Stories You Won’t Want To Skip
While I didn’t see a lot of the character and story elements in this gameplay-focused preview, there were some thematic hints about the way the game explores creativity and storytelling. One of my favorite features is the side stories; mini-missions scattered throughout the game that represent unfinished concepts of stories and worlds from each writer. Fares explains that while these are optional levels, you won’t want to miss them, and from what I’ve seen I have to agree. One stand-out sequence sees both players transformed into magic pigs with fart-propulsion powers. Gaming is alive and well.
The coolest aspects of Split Fiction that I saw I can’t even talk about yet, but suffice to say when Fares says the team wanted to make a game that pushes couch co-op to the next level, he’s not blowing smoke. There’s some technological wizardry going on in this game that has my jaw on the floor. My expectations for the preview were already high after It Takes Two and it still managed to blow me away.
As Fares mentions in the reveal trailer at The Game Awards, Split Fiction will feature Friend’s Pass, allowing one player who owns the game to play with a friend for free. This time you’ll even be able to use Friend’s Pass with crossplay between PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam.
Split Fiction launches March 6 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, and the EA App.
