Available for: PS5, Xbox, PC | Length: 14 hours
Split Fiction is the latest game from the studio behind It Takes Two, and like its predecessor, it’s an imaginative, crowd-pleasing adventure that’s designed from the ground up to be played with another person. It moves fast, it plays great, it’s lighthearted and it has a Nintendo-like commitment to presenting new perspectives and forms of play. One moment you’re speeding through hovercars in a neon cyberpunk city, the next you’re flopping around as hot dogs, then you’re leaping from the fingertips of mountain-dwelling giants, then you’re frantically completing a CAPTCHA test to stop a phone from exploding.
The plot follows two writers who become trapped in their own stories after hooking up to a corporate device designed to extract artistic ideas. (One can imagine these devs’ thoughts on AI.) The meta joke is that both writers are kind of hacks, their tales littered with clichés. Split Fiction has a good time poking fun at these, but it mostly uses self-awareness as a form of defense. “The writing is supposed to be bad,” it seems to say. But even if you accept that, the leads struggle to rise above clichéd characterizations and forced dialogue themselves.
This is also a harder game than It Takes Two — not that difficult, but it expects you to understand the language of video games more, so it’s not quite as welcoming to novice players. Still, it’s fun, the Runnin’ Around is top-notch, and some of those set pieces are breathtaking. Plus, while its plot has issues, this is the rare popcorn game that expresses its themes and characters through level design and the act of play, not just writing. — J.D.
