Our Verdict
Hazelight Studios outweighs itself in split fiction by innovating and expanding its previous work. The world of Mio and Zoe is a fully realized region with loving respect for real-life inspiration, and the optional side story encourages many smiles. This is a shocking view of the creative writing process and essential cooperative adventures.
“Rainbow farts are the best!” Zoe informs us. Our double hero transformed into an adorable little pig. One has the ability to turn into a slink, while the other is a rainbow fart for speed boost. We feed apples into our greedy door locks, and begin to roll through the mud, slowly but surely towards the end of this wild, amazing adventure. We dive into the darkness in hopes of reappearing in Mio’s Cyberpunk-esque dystopia. Instead, blood covers the screen, and the adorable little piggy transforms into a pair of sausages, and is tasked with cooking for herself. I think this is the only summary of chaos Divided fictionbut it really just scratch the surface.
Hazelight’s latest cooperative game revolves around imagination. Create a world where anything can be done. You are cast as Zoe and Mio. Two unpublished authors have been selected for their new project by Rader Corporation. It is soon revealed that something ominous is ongoing, urging Mio to try and escape the building. Unfortunately, she falls into Zoe’s “bubble.” This is a unique, isolated dreamscape with Zoe’s fantasies running into the wild. It becomes clear that the radar is planning to suck up these ideas for profit and you have to stop him.
But where Zoe likes high fantasy drama, Mio writes about the gritty cyberpunk world and the interstellar struggle between robots and humanity. This creates a “glitch” that provides access to both Zoe and Mio’s fictional worlds. So we split the fiction. My Warhammer 40K and dune-obsessed partner Ross chooses to play as Mio. There is a stage set, and all that remains is to lock in.
Split Fiction is quickly Hazelight’s fastest game. We appear on alien planets, particularly caught up in a nasty war, whispering into a whimsical fantasy village by orcs. Introducing the smooth platform game Parkour.
However, the first main level is neon revenge. With swords, anti-gravity boots and powerful whip, “Zoe and Mio are thrust into a ‘Cyberninja’, a ‘Zoe’ style megacorp, Zoe and Mio are tasked with transforming into ‘Cyberninja’. Ross’ immediate urge is to hack me with Katana, prompting a disgruntled response from Zoe. Don’t worry, I quickly Jones his ass and I found out that I was probably a little faster than he thought.
In general, MIO is equipped with more aggressive tools, but Zoe’s PlayStyle is more distorted towards the puzzle (at some point it converts it into a Groot-like tree that can rebuild the environment). You can switch characters at any time in the main menu and try out everything on offer.
You can hold your breath when you come out on the roof. Mio’s Cyberpunk Dream is instantly reminiscent of a grid from Tron. Neon properly soaked, billboards flickering in the background, futuristic cars zip through the sky on anti-gravity highways. As someone who grew up watching Tron, it makes a fairy tale dream come true – if you feel that Night City in Cyberpunk 2077 is hostile, there’s something strangely cozy about neon revenge, just like it’s like Assumption To become a house away from home.
However, the action begins. There are high-speed motorcycle tracking, fighting angry parking robots that transition to side-scrolling perspectives, enemies that need to be dispatched with new weapons. In the final battle, you will be seen riding a bike and in a tank (which has definitely not been stolen). And when the Corpora collapses and its leader is defeated in ruins, I wonder if split fiction can be better than this. Its relentless pace and high octane combat set a bar so high that the procedural levels couldn’t match perfectly, but that’s not to say the rest of the game is a disappointment.
Other highlights include the zone where Ross tells her that he is inspired by the Alita Battle Angels. Here we have blue and red portal style weapons that drill holes in the corresponding coloured force fields. It’s fun in its own right, but you take on a robot that needs to burst the color changing shield as well. It reminds me of it, it requires two sap guns and a match, but it is smooth and a little more challenging.
Next, in one of the final zones, you become friends with spectral creatures who unite their abilities to seamlessly traverse the creepy crowding cities. Mio’s owls illuminate gold objects, while familiar Zoe’s fish magnetizes gold. I feel my chin fall once more as a sparkling, almost angel-like light cuts through the darkness. I can’t help but stare as the galaxy glowed beneath me, pulling every way by my particularly greedy companions. And it’s one of the most innovative and impressive sections of any game I remember these days, let alone the final mission of Split Fiction.
As you progress, the first limited split-screen perspective opens, taking a more complete look at the level and its complexity. The world of Zoe and Mio grew to understand that they would not be simple reskins to each other, but would be completely rethinking in two very different styles.
The split screen boundaries begin to shift and reflect the collapsed veil between both writers, and you can finally jump back and forth. The action is seamless and I can’t see any stud sounds despite my PC being a little rusty. I experienced one progression heartting bug throughout the playthrough. This was easily fixed by restarting. Other than that, it was all a smooth voyage.
The core missions certainly shine, but the side story is easily one of the best additions of the game. Unlike the two whose side content focuses primarily on mini-games, Side Story is a portal that leads to long-forgotten ideas from Zoe and Mio. These take 5-10 minutes to complete, but they all unfold in a unique world. The aforementioned pig incident (I don’t want to talk about it) occurs in one, and another sees you riding a giant skeletal shark creature through the desert.
My personal favorite is a hand-drawn fantasy story narrated by Zoe. You run through the pages of her diary as she trades your weapons, rewrites the main story beats, and pits you against the “giant enemy crab” (I know what you did there). It’s fun, cute, and most of all, he sells Zoe as a trustworthy author.
As you can imagine, some side stories are fun nods to prominent video games and pop culture franchises. I also found references to Dark Souls, Sonic the Hedgehog and Assassin’s beliefs scattered throughout the main game.
Split Fiction proudly wears inspiration on its sleeves and lovingly honors cultural touchpoints. When I needed two references early on, I remember that I might or might not have ripped my foot off the stuffed elephant (not sin, your honor). We feel our bond has become even stronger as two people, who grew up immersed in slightly different pop culture, excitedly educated each other about many references to split fiction.
After all, it’s a game about friendship. The central focus of Wayout was brotherly love, but the two were relationships, but Mio and Zoe begin their adventures as two seemingly different parts. Mio is a disillusioned city girl, and Zoe is a country bumpkin that is prone to excitement. Do they probably have the same thing? As the story unfolds and the pairs are drawn closer, we begin to learn what bothers them. I won’t spoil the details here, but as writers who have experienced similar circumstances, I can say that their stories certainly reflect my own impulse to pull my mind and translate internalized trauma into fantastic stories of victory and glory.
Hazelight overcomes himself in split fiction by simultaneously innovating and expanding his previous works. The world is persuasive and a joy to explore in a cooperative. Whether they feed a dragon or do hopscotch in the alley behind Cyberpunk City. They are a universe that is far from ourselves, but feel very innately linked, as in their writings, the trauma of Zoe and Mio is.
Split fiction is the best iteration of HaseLight’s split screen formula to date, and is intrigued to see what comes next, but it encourages questions about how it can raise the higher. But in the meantime, I can see that I ride a dragon and demolish the facility, curl up into hot dog bread at the same time, wondering where my life has gone. very Wrong – or correct; I don’t know.
