If we’re to expect anything from The Game Awards, it’s that Josef Fares will show up at some point and apply a lot of words that would normally be overshadowed by other game awards. But Geoff’s show allows people to be themselves, which is nice, especially if you’re Josef Fares. However, he was right to be ecstatic, because his modern title, Split Fiction, promises to be a lot of fun in co-op.
Josef Fares and the team at Hazelight Studios are best known for creating some of the most addictive and truly fun cooperative games of the last few years, including Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, A Way Out, and It Takes Two. they sell themselves by having fun with someone else. This ethos continues in Split Fiction, a brand modern game that separates science fiction and fantasy.
In Split Fiction, you and a friend take control of Mio and Zoe – named after Fares’ two daughters – as two aspiring writers who are seemingly tricked into giving their stories to an evil artificial intelligence machine. While artificial intelligence stealing people’s content comes disturbingly close to reality, the game finds Mio and Zoe sucked into the machine and their two stories, one fantasy and the other science fiction, become mixed and combined, with the duo jumping between them from level to level.
Fares showed that each level would introduce a modern mechanic and focused on one particularly nippy implementation in a fantasy setting where a pair of baby dragons are raised. At first, they attach to your back, and their petite wings assist you jump farther and glide down from great heights. As you progress, they grow, become more powerful, and walk around the levels like miniature, scaly tanks. In their final form, Zoe and Mio can ride them, and the game moves into a Panzer Dragoon/Century style section.
We hope this level of imagination and innovation carries over to every level, and we won’t have to wait long to find out, as the game is scheduled to launch on March 6, 2025 on PS4/5, Xbox, and PC platforms.
