From the studio that made co-op reinvention its trademark
Split Fiction comes from Hazelight, the team behind It Takes Two, and it carries over the same core philosophy: constant mechanical reinvention across a two-player-only campaign. Here the framing device is two competing writers, one sci-fi and one fantasy, whose stories get tangled together inside a machine that traps them in fiction of their own making.
Two genres, one shared toolkit
Structurally, one player is usually navigating a sci-fi sequence — jetpacks, mechs, cyberpunk cities — while the other handles a parallel fantasy version of the same beat, complete with dragons and magic. The two halves rarely play identically, which keeps both players engaged rather than one waiting on the other, and the game frequently swaps which player gets which genre so nobody's stuck doing the "less fun" half for the whole run.
Side stories as mechanical palette cleansers
Optional side-story detours — short, self-contained vignettes unrelated to the main plot — let the team throw in genuinely odd, one-off mechanics (a pig-riding chase sequence is a genuine highlight) without needing to justify them narratively. They're some of the most purely fun sections in the game precisely because they don't have to serve the story.
Where it's less consistent than its predecessor
With two genres running in parallel, the writing has less room to breathe than It Takes Two's tighter relationship drama, and a couple of late-game sequences lean on spectacle over the tight puzzle design the studio is known for. It's a minor step down in narrative focus, not in mechanical ambition.
Highlights
- Extremely high density of new ideas per hour of playtime
- Sci-fi and fantasy halves feel meaningfully distinct, not reskinned
- Side-story detours are some of the best individual sequences in the game
Lowlights
- Narrative feels thinner than It Takes Two's central relationship arc
- A few late sequences favor spectacle over puzzle craft
Final take
Split Fiction doesn't quite match the emotional focus of It Takes Two, but as a pure delivery vehicle for constantly-new co-op mechanics, it's just as inventive — and for two players looking for something to play together, that's most of what matters.