Review: SPLIT FICTION is Another Fantastic Co-Op Adventure

Towards the beginning of March, EA and Hazelight Studios released a new co-op buddy adventure called Split Fiction. The game is available now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S and was recently announced for the Nintendo Switch 2 at launch on June 5. The EA team was kind enough to provide me with a digital code to play on Xbox, but all thoughts below are my own.

In Split Fiction, you and a friend will need to master a wide range of ever-changing abilities as you take on the roles of authors Mio and Zoe, working together to escape their fictional sci-fi and fantasy worlds.

Escape a sun that’s going supernova, challenge a monkey to a dance battle, try out some cool hoverboard tricks, fight an evil kitty and ride everything from gravity bikes to a sandshark. With worlds that are entirely different from each other, surprising challenges await you at every turn.

In case you haven’t caught on yet, Split Fiction is a mandatory co-op game like It Takes Two. I have been playing the game with my wife, but if you don’t have anyone who can sit next to you and play, you can use Friends Pass which lets you and a friend play together even if only one of you has the game. What makes this even better is that there are crossplay options so you don’t both have to use the same platform.

First things first. I have not been able to complete the main story of Split Fiction. Based on HowLongtoBeat, I would guess I’m roughly halfway though. I will also do my best to keep this review spoiler lite.

Overall, I’m greatly enjoying Split Fiction. I really like these buddy adventures (I freaking love It Takes Two) and this one is no different. Mio is a sci-fi author and Zoe is a fantasy author and as you play the two learn about each other and themselves.

Admittedly the overall story feels a little generic as it’s about an evil corporation looking to replace human creativity and art with technology. However, what makes the story interesting are the character moments and growth. I won’t go into these, but trust me when I say that I have greatly enjoyed getting to know Mio and Zoe and seeing other themes pop up such as grief, despair, being open-minded, and more.

This is where I’ll bring up my biggest gripe with Split Fiction. So, as you play you’ll have main stories and side stories. I highly recommend playing the side stories by the way. The main stories (particularly the sci-fi ones) often feel too long.

For instance, in the most recent one, we got to a point where we had to defeat a giant robot which felt like a climax of the story, but then we had about 45ish minutes of gameplay to wrap up the story and actually get to what it represented and why it was important.

I’m not opposed to long sections in general, but they often feel too long and not well paced from a narrative perspective. Although, maybe that’s the point since these characters are unpublished authors and maybe that’s why?

It’s a little hard to talk about gameplay as the details change based on the story that you are in. But overall it feels good and I have not noticed any performance problems on the Xbox Series X. As is common, each of the characters has unique abilities in each of the worlds and you’ll have to work together in order to progress.

Sometimes, the puzzles put forth require some real thinking and adjusting, but I haven’t found anything in the game’s design to be too difficult or ridiculous. In fact, traversal in Split Fiction can feel really fun with sections where you can use a grappling hook or similar device to grab things and either propel you forward or swing like Spider-Man.

I think one of the most fun aspects of these buddy adventures is seeing them wear their inspirations on their sleeves and Split Fiction is no different. Both in terms of gameplay and overall aesthetics, you can see so many influences and the team is not scared to show them. I’ve commented on seeing influences like Tron, Mega Man, and Portal to name a few.

Now I want to revisit side stories. I already mentioned these briefly and recommended you play them, but I want to share what a couple are like. One of them has you play as pigs on a little adventure.

One pig stretches vertically and the other propels itself via magical farts horizontally. Another lets you access a magic wand that can turn each other or even NPCs into various items including a wheel of cheese. I really don’t want to go too far into them so I’ll leave it at that, but I wanted to give you a taste for two of my favorite side stories.

At the end of the day, I am really enjoying Split Fiction and cannot wait to finish playing it. Hazelight has another hit on their hands and I would highly recommend it. Sure, the main story sometimes feels dragged out at times, but that’s really my only complaint.