Split Fiction PS5 Review. I like writing and I like games. Naturally, I got very excited when Split Fiction was announced. It’s very easy to get overhyped about a new title, but when a game is being produced by an award-winning developer, it’s hard not to ride that hype with every fibre of your being. Thankfully, Split Fiction maintains the same level of integrity and stellar concepts that has made Hazelight Studios a deeply loved game creator.
Split Fiction Review (PS5) – Grab A Coop Partner Immediately
Getting Published
A group of writers, struggling to get that first piece of work published, get the opportunity to finally see their content made available to the public. Simply called The Machine, this device places each person in an energy orb, which takes in that person’s ideas and feeds them into a database. The Machine then takes that information and releases it to the public, seemingly streamlining the path from brain to consumable media.
Of the six writers, you follow Mio and Zoe, two people with entirely different personalities and styles. In fact, Mio writes science fiction while Zoe writes fantasy. Zoe jumps right into the opportunity, fully intoxicated with the idea of finally getting published.
Mio, however, starts to question the process, quickly understanding that The Machine, instead of publishing the work for writers, takes ideas as its own. While resisting, Mio ends up falling into Zoe’s orb, creating a hardware overload and intermingling the ideas of both writers. Between the two of them, they must figure out a way to escape their unlikely circumstance and saving their ideas by working together.
Between Worlds
You spend the entire game jumping between different scenarios, generally swapping from one of Mio’s worlds to Zoe’s and vice versa. The range of situations easily keep you engaged, with no aspect of the game overstaying its welcome. Generally, Mio’s stories portray high-action sequences while Zoe’s sees you dealing with less stress.
While Split Fiction presents itself in a realistic style, the gameplay keeps the game feeling entirely like a game. To clarify, I say this in a positive way. Each challenge and puzzle–hell, the entire experience- takes me back to when I played couch coop with friends and had friends to play couch coop with.
To extrapolate, the game often compensates for your shortcomings. For instance, if you end up jumping at a bad angle, you still get to use your grappling hook to cross a gap, even though it looks like you defy logic to do it. It does feel a bit weird when things like this happen, but because the game always feels like a game, these happening don’t disrupt your experience.
Thank You for The Friends Pass
In fact, these oddities end up keeping you moving forward. This maintains the pace nicely. Where gameplay starts to falter is during boss fights. These bosses throw so much at you all the time, which makes keeping track of everything too hard. In most cases, you have projectiles to deal with on top of coordinating mechanics and trying to communicate among all of that chaos.
When you combine all of those elements together, you have strong potential for frustration. To boot, you only get half of the screen to see all of the projectiles flying at you all at once. In our case, it’s worth mentioning that we played on a 55” TV, and the game only splits the screen left and right with no option for top and bottom.
What helps with this issue is that you can provide a friend a Friend Pass, which allows you to play online with a friend without needing to buy two copies of Split Fiction. For my living situation, my spouse and I can play this way because we each have a PS5, but not all households have multiple consoles.
Hit-and-Miss Checkpoints
Another thing that happens regularly is when your partner gets too far behind. A couple events make you flee. If one of you ends up failing, your partner can’t just stop without either dying or stopping progression. Here is one place where checkpoints are not friendly. My spouse struggled in one sequence, and I could not stop and wait or go back and help.
When my spouse died, their character got sent back to a checkpoint further back instead of just respawning near me. Then, in these fast-paced sequences, you can respawn at the exact same time that an obstacle or hole appears, causing you to die again right away.
In some of these, as long as you aren’t using vehicles, then you can benefit from more accommodating checkpoints. Otherwise, you can get caught in a frustrating loop if you end up struggling in a spot while your partner waits for you.
Bringing Us Together
The true fun is when you run around in each story, learning about Mio and Zoe, experiencing what they created, and seeing them work together. In fact, Split Fiction contains a sequence that is quickly joining the ranks of my favorite gaming moments, and it involves pigs. I will say nothing more about it. Just go play Split Fiction.
I spent my play time playing with my spouse, and we ate it up. For context, my spouse and I, two devout introverts, tend to play single-player games separately in entirely different genres. To boot, we also haven’t played many games together in our 22-year relationship.
Honestly, I believe that neither my spouse nor I would have played this game if I hadn’t gotten it for review. With that said, I deeply appreciate that we did get to play it together, regardless of the reasons why.
We struggled together. We worked together. We laughed together. Playing games together may seem like old hat for some, but it stands as a first in a loving relationship spanning 22 years. These were struggles, work, and laughter that we had been doing together for years but in a different way. It was revitalizing. This is why games from Hazelight Studio mean so much to so many and win so many awards.
Co-op Good Enough to Make Introverts Seek Out A Game Partner
Split Fiction is a damn good time. It has problems inherent to the gameplay, like checkpoint issues and overly taxing boss fights that don’t visually work well in split screen. There are ways around it if you have the hardware, and the game does help keep things moving forward.
Split Fiction is not a perfect game, but it does not need to be. What I remember most is the fun my spouse and I had together and that we got through the issues together. I don’t tend to play co-op games at all, but damn it if Split Fiction didn’t make me want to dabble in other games like it.
Review code kindly provided by publisher.
Split Fiction is available March 6, 2025 on PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S.