Four years after taking home Game of the Year in 2021 with the beloved co-op adventure game It Takes Two, Hazelight Studios is back with Split Fiction — another two-player cooperative multiplayer experience with the developer’s trademark always-on splitscreen perspective. This time around, the studio has brought Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PS5 fans a genre-bending journey of sci-fi and fantasy to embark on, and now that Split Fiction’s review embargo has lifted, various critics and outlets are sharing their thoughts on the ambitious experience.
At the time of writing, Split Fiction is off to a tremendous start, with the game achieving an impressive “Universal Acclaim” 91/100 score on both the review aggregation sites Metacritic and Opencritic. Notably, not a single review shared so far has given the title a negative score, and the overwhelming majority of them have a score in the 90-100 range. Here’s some quotes to show what people are saying:
- VG247 (100/100): “Split Fiction, just like Hazelight’s projects before it, will not only have you belly-laughing throughout the experience, reminiscing about games, movies and literature the game regularly reminds you of, but it’ll also tug at your heartstrings and have you wiping tears from your eyes. The game’s biggest victory is that it reminds you that endeavours as wonderful as Split Fiction (and those that it pays homage to) were created by the passion, devotion, and authentic experiences of humans such as Zoe and Mio, and the team over at Hazelight — not idea-extracting machines trained solely for profit off the human ingenuity that’s so rawly at the beating heart of Split Fiction.”
- GameSpot (100/100): “Split Fiction could very well be the best cooperative game I’ve ever played. At the very least, I firmly believe it sets a new standard for the genre. And yet, it’s more than that. Split Fiction is a love letter to creativity–to stories, games, and the people who make them. It is funny, dark, joyous, childish, tender, cheesy, thrilling, and remarkable. All this combined with gorgeous environments, fantastic gameplay, and sheer spectacle make Hazelight Studio’s newest release an early contender for the best game of 2025.”
- TechRadar (100/100): “Split Fiction is the third co-op game from Hazelight Studios and arguably its largest and most imaginative to date. It packs an array of captivating mini-games into a linear, yet highly rewarding platformer, laced with Hazelight’s trademark storytelling to keep you on your moral toes. Players will have fun recognizing the vast pop culture references that have been peppered throughout Split Fiction, which deliver a unique twist whilst nostalgically returning us to the early days of gaming.”
- IGN (90/100): “An expertly crafted and absorbing co-op adventure that pinballs from one genre extreme to another, Split Fiction is a rollercoaster of gameplay ideas and styles that are usually discarded as quickly as they’re introduced. This keeps it fabulously fresh for its full, 14-hour duration. With no idea sticking around long enough to get stale before making way for the next, it’s a victory of imagination and restraint in equal measure. Hazelight may have been rewriting the co-op rule book for a decade now, but Split Fiction is a new chapter that you (and a partner) cannot miss.”
- PC Gamer (87/100): “It’s hard to imagine another game cramming so many surprises and script-flips into a single 15-hour romp, but I thought something similar when I played It Takes Two. Clearly Hazelight isn’t done trying to push how much it can keep us on our toes. While these two stand out as the studio’s most similar games, Split Fiction is absolutely trying to aim higher. More intense, more variety, more flash and spectacle. And it’s paid off. This is the studio’s best game—though I’ll always carry a torch for A Way Out—and one of the greatest co-op games around.”
- Digital Trends (70/100): “Split Fiction is hokey, muddled, and needlessly self-defeating. It’s also lively, inventive, and so earnest that it’s hard to be mad at it for long. These aren’t opposing forces that tear Hazelight’s latest apart; the clumsiness is inseparable from the delight. Both are born from the ambitious vision of artists who still believe in the magic of creativity and are willing to take big swings in its honor. Sometimes it absolutely whiffs. We all do. Fail again. Fail better. But it’s those moments where it connects, where simple ideas turn into unforgettable spectacle, that remind us why art can’t be automated. Even the most advanced machine can never dream bigger than a human with a heart.”
There tend to be at least some differing opinions about games in their reviews, but Split Fiction is one of those rare cases where pretty much everyone who’s evaluated it has given it a high score. As the roundup of comments and scores above shows, most reviewers love and greatly enjoy the game, with only a couple reviews out of over 100 giving it a mixed rating.
Split Fiction has received universal praise for its creative and thrilling co-op gameplay, with critics lauding its diverse array of level-specific, teamwork-driven mechanics and the mind-bending ways each gameplay scenario hops between sci-fi and fantasy in blinks of an eye. The story, style, and presentation have all gotten high marks, too, with reviewers charmed by the game’s art direction and its narrative that’s centered around the brilliance of human creativity.
My colleague Samuel Tolbert reviewed Split Fiction as well, awarding Hazelight’s new adventure 4.5/5 stars and calling it a “must-play co-op game” for friends and loved ones to experience together. “Split Fiction proves that Hazelight Studios isn’t done defining what co-op games can be, with excellent gameplay and unique level design that stays fresh throughout the entire experience,” he wrote. “Mio and Zoe may drift into some cheesy genre clichés, but that’s entirely the point of this warm story that emphasizes human creativity above all.”
I’ve seen a few other reviews dock points for the cheesy nature of the story and its protagonists, but overall, one thing is clear: Split Fiction is a triumph, and it’s joined games like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and Monster Hunter Wilds as a frontrunner for Game of the Year nominations.
With how well the game has reviewed, I wouldn’t be surprised if Split Fiction enjoyed a tremendously successful launch period with tons of players and sales — perhaps one that surpasses the heights of A Way Out and It Takes Two before it. It’ll be an interesting thing to watch once the game is out on March 6.
Notably, like Hazelight’s other games, Split Fiction has a Friend’s Pass that allows a second player to join you for free as long as you own a copy of the game. Also, for the first time ever, Hazelight is supporting cross-play with Split Fiction — including with the Friend’s Pass.
Split Fiction will likely stand out as one of the best Xbox games and best PC gamesto play this year if you’re after a memorable co-op experience. Preorders for it are available now from a number of different retailers, with the Steam version notably discounted down to just $40.59 at CDKeys.
