Split Fiction is out now, and the game has sold over a million copies which means at least two million players have experience a good part of Hazelight’s latest split-screen co-op adventure. And if you read our review of the game, you know how I implore everyone that’s playing this to see it through the end. There’s something cool lies at the end.
Yeah, let’s talk about that. Spoilers for the final level of Split Fiction to follow. You’ve been warned. But for those who seen it, and those who’s curious but are okay with being spoiled, read on.
I need to gush about Split, the final level of Split Fiction.
It’s Time To Split
For the entire runtime of Split Fiction, the split-screen gameplay was straightforward. From my hazy memories of playing A Way Out way back in 2018, Hazelight was a bit more experimental with how it approaches split-screen gaming. So many wild gimmicks and curveballs. With a few games under their belt, a lot of the mechanics feel more grounded, which is good in that the core gameplay feels great and doesn’t entirely rely on novelty gimmicks to be fun. But it’s also a bit safe. As in, the way the screen is split is mostly consistent and is not messed about as much.
That is what I thought, which was a point I had written in my review draft before me and my co-op partner reached the final level, Split. And I was wrong.
Split is the culmination of the Split Fiction’s theme, in that the entire game has been a split between sci-fi and fantasy tropes where you switch between one theme to another every level.
And that’s the first magic trick the game’s finale throws at you: instead of alternating between sci-fi and fantasy, why not split them up and have them be in different worlds on the same screen.
So the first assumption we had was we’re playing two entirely different levels at the same time.
Wild that you can actually do that, as most co-op games especially split-screen titles are too afraid of letting players untethered. But here we are, in two different worlds.
Except we were wrong.
Here’s Split’s second magic trick: you’re actually playing in the same world that is rendered differently across the split screen.
The level brilliantly starts with Mio and Zoe on two different paths before converging, so we had the “wait, why are you here on this screen?” moment. It’s normal to see both characters appearing on each side of the screen when close together, but seeing them together here, but one screen the duo has sci-fi themed jumpsuits while the other screen has a generic fantasy garb was wild. And then we start lining up the screen where it clicked. The trees and the poles. The pathways.
Essentially, it’s the same white box level layout, just with different assets loaded up on the two split screens. Absolutely brilliant.
Now We’re Thinking With Split-Screens
And yet the mind-blowing continues. As this isn’t just Hazelight pulling a magic trick and show off some cool graphics tech you can do that most games don’t ever thought of doing. But it incorporates into puzzles.
Zoe can swim across the river on her side of the screen, but look at Mio’s and you see her now-friend swimming in the air. The simulation’s glitching due to the meddling of a certain CEO, and it’s a great way to show how things are going wrong right now.
There are even puzzles where both players have to work it out what exactly we need to interact across both screens. Figuring out how to open a laser door/waterfall where one person can gets to control when to shoot the laser/man-eating plant that auto locks to the other player was quite the mental exercise.
But once we were acclimated with what’s happening with the split-screen, the level throws even more curveballs and start changing how the split-screen behaves.
Now, the split screen isn’t rendering the same world on each screen with different assets, it’s altogether one, same world, but it renders different themes across the split-screen. But the split-screen is merely a suggestion, both characters can move across the two same-but-different dimensions like it’s one of the many shared screen sections of the game.
In a chase sequence, you have to run back-and-forth across the split-screen to avoid obstacles that only appear one screen but not the other. The dragon only appears on one side, and platforms may go missing on the other. It’s not the same whitebox layout anymore. The camera changes perspectives throughout the chase, and the way the screen is split also changes up throughout the sequence which makes it even more tense.
And if that wasn’t enough of a mind-bender, the split-screen boundary starts moving around, splitting it at funny angles. And the things that are being thrown at the screen continues. And then the split-screen becomes a portal hole where now it’s a jumping obstacle course as you hop on one platform to another, avoiding the many things the evil CEO throws at you and be mindful of what’s inside the split-screen is. Sometimes it’s a safe platform that appears there. Sometimes it’s a portal of doom where many things with teeth can be seen anticipating your mistake. It’s wild.
Pushing The Boundaries Of Split-Screen Gaming
And we’re still not done with deconstructing the split-screen. There’s two moments where Mio and Zoe takes turn being stuck in a small screen. Like a tablet. While one of them is stuck in like a video game level, the other interacts with that screen like it’s a tablet, like you’re playing a mobile game. Screen touches. Tilt controls. Xzibit heard you like mobile games so they put in a mobile game gimmick in this console/PC game.
Look, when I said in the review that Split Fiction is “pushing the boundaries of split-screen gaming“, I mean that literally.
One of the coolest moments as you fight the evil CEO hell-bent on feeding the ideas of aspiring (but not necessarily that good) writers into an idea generating machine is where Mio and Zoe literally push the boundaries of their split screen to push out his screen out.
After going through Split, I see why Hazelight is so confident showing buttloads of Split Fiction’s gameplay that for some onlookers feel like a constant stream of spoilers. In fact, there are bits of spoilers in those pre-release trailers. But none of them takes away the sheer novelty and awe of experience the final level of Split Fiction for the first time.
Peak Split Fiction
It’s very easy to feel like the modern crop of AAA games have started being too safe, too stale and too boring if you’ve been playing games your whole life like I did. It’s probably why last year’s Astro Bot resonated so highly among game critics, it found a way to make games feel and appear fun again.
And I bet there’s going to be even more folks that feel alive and excited about video games again after experiencing the finale of Split Fiction. Hazelight just showed us that there’s still room to innovate, to create awe and spectacle, if you just let the developers go wild. Jaw-dropping vistas and epic choreography in cutscenes can still do that, sure, but there’s just something more raw of having that special moment not something you see with your eyes, but something you feel from the gameplay.
While Split Fiction may feel like a collection of the greatest hits of video games you’ve played before, its levels like Split, and the many other sprinkles of gameplay design brilliance, that makes Split Fiction so good. And the bravery of withholding the coolest ideas in the game for the climactic final level, knowing that it’s very likely a good percentage of players would miss out on.
Turns out the “split” in Split Fiction isn’t just a metaphor for the two polar opposites of a character and their two opposite preferences of fiction genre. The split-screen experience in the final level sounds like a work of fiction, until now.
If I haven’t made myself clear, please, go experience Split Fiction until the end. Or, now that you’re all spoiled by it, get a friend to experience it for the first time. It’s peak.
Split Fiction is out now on PS5, PC (Steam, Epic Games Store, EA App), Xbox Series X|S.
