There was a moment, after years of development on Split Fiction began to come to a close, where director Josef Fares found himself playing through his latest co-op narrative adventure, and had something of a revelation.
“It’s kind of crazy. [During development] you play the game a lot – like over and over and over again. The last time I played it, with one of the lead designers, I was sitting there, like, ‘What the f**k have we done here?’ It’s almost like when you wake up from a dream: ‘Did we actually do that?’ It’s crazy how much stuff is in there.”
With Split Fiction coming to Xbox Series X|S tomorrow, March 6, Fares is in a reflective mood. The team at his studio, Hazelight, has already started work on their next game, but this feels like a brief moment where Fares can look back rather than forward. And the overall feeling I get from him is one of pride in how he’s seen his team progress.
Hazelight effectively created the genre it now makes games within – after experimenting with how a single-player, narrative-led adventure can be delivered with multiple characters in the modern classic Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Fares created his current studio with a goal of pushing that idea further. A Way Out saw the team create a truly original co-op only tale, and then pushed that into truly mind-blowing territory with the award-winning It Takes Two.
Split Fiction takes the idea forward again, using the more familiar video game worlds of fantasy and sci-fi, but blending them and blowing them apart with new ideas that arrive at breakneck pace – one moment, you’re escaping from trolls through a beleaguered medieval village, the next you’re a cyber-ninja slashing or laser-whipping scores of enemies, and then you’re suddenly a couple of magical pigs who… well, I’ll let you find out about that bit on your own.
It might initially seem like a familiar format for Hazelight – this is still a game that requires two players (either local or online), and uses a mixture of single- and split-screen sections to throw new mechanics at you constantly. But Fares sees this as a true step forward in how competently his team can make new mechanics, and tell experimental stories.
“It’s a natural evolution,” he tells me. “A more mature team, better technical tools, better understanding of design of the mechanics, we’re better at writing a story for co-op, and obviously we’ve become better knowing what and what not to cut early.”
He doesn’t think that an earlier version of Hazelight could have created Split Fiction, in effect – and makes clear that, no matter how familiar you are with their older games, Hazelight has hidden some truly magical new ideas in here:
“Play it through. You will understand what I mean. Trust me – get to the ending. You’ll see stuff that you haven’t seen in a video game.”
I ask, then, if the core drive for Hazelight is to make things no one else has tried to – but Fares sees his work in a more nuanced way.
“The number one key thing at Hazelight is that there is a passion to what we do. There’s no specific rule, like, ‘Oh there has to be a new thing all the time’. We just to have to feel that passion, because if it’s not there, the game won’t be good. Period. But we also love to push ourselves forward, like, ‘What can we do that we haven’t tried before? Can we do this thing that we haven’t tested before?’ It’s always nice to challenge ourselves.”
It was the idea of combining sci-fi and fantasy that was the initial passion for Split Fiction – the story sees two writers invited to a tech company in hopes of getting a publishing deal, before one realises that they’ll in fact have their ideas drained and repurposed by a newly invented technology. After an altercation, both writers are pulled into the same simulation based on their creations, and their very different ideas begin to blend into one another. You (and your co-op partner) will play through the wild results in what Fares describes as a playable buddy movie.
And it’s in that blend of ideas that Fares and his team found their way to go further than their previous work.
“It’s about taking this to the next level, then the next level – what can we do to keep the players on their toes, keeping this, ‘What the f**k is going on?’ feeling and making sure that the pacing feels right. There’s always something around the corner that’s going to surprise you and delight you.”
Of course, this is a huge amount of work. Split Fiction feels as though it’s introducing new mechanics every 15 minutes, and jettisoning the old ones – but it can’t allow each new idea to feel half-baked.
“In Split Fiction, [there’s a section where you ride] dragons – just one of those dragons took, I think, eight months to create. And in the beginning of my career, a lot of the team members were like, ‘Why are we doing all this and you’re only playing it for like 10 minutes?’
“But here’s the thing. [In a] movie, if you have a great scene that cost a lot of money, you don’t reuse that scene because it cost a lot of money. I do feel sometimes that cool moments like that wouldn’t have been as cool if we just reused them all the time. There is [an idea] in video games that, just because something was very expensive, it needs to be reused. But why? Why do you have to reuse it? Because that takes away the actual feeling of when you first experienced it.”
Split Fiction takes that philosophy to its natural endpoint by including huge sections of totally optional content. It Takes Two included some mini-games along the way, but these sections (accessed through portals you’ll find along the way) go so much further.
“Here, it’s actually full-blown worlds with new mechanics, sometimes bosses, new visual worlds. It’s literally almost like a new game inside the game.”
It’s a truly brave approach to design, but Fares has been emboldened simply by the success this approach has brought. Millions of people bought his last two games, showing a desire for exactly what he’s doing.
Not that he’d change course, anyway:
“Well, here’s the thing – I’ve never adapted to anyone, even on Brothers. I really don’t care, to be honest. At Hazelight, we always do our vision. We’ve done it since the start. On Brothers, there was a lot of questioning. A Way Out, a lot of questioning. It Takes Two as well.
“Sure, there are fewer questions from the outside [now] – it doesn’t really matter. The game will always be the game that we want to do. The one thing I guarantee is that Hazelight will always be about passion, about making games that we love to make. We’ll never change.”
Fares won’t let on what Hazelight’s next game might be – and even if will continue the co-op form of its previous work – but Split Fiction proves that his team won’t be sitting still. I’m almost certain that, in a few years, Fares will be sitting down again and asking himself, “Did we actually do that?”
Split Fiction
Electronic Arts
$49.99
$44.99
Split Fiction is a unique action-adventure experience that keeps you on the edge of your couch with unexpected moments. One minute you’re taming adorable dragons and the next you’re fighting as cyber ninjas, escaping terrifying trolls, or dodging hover cars thrown by a robotic parking attendant. It’s weird, it’s wild, and it’s designed to be shared.
Grab your co-op partner and get ready to overcome any obstacle thrown your way.
• TRUE CO-OP ADVENTURE – This split-screen adventure is tailored for two. Experience co-op gameplay where you’ll have to coordinate your actions and timing as well as work together to overcome challenges. Invite a partner to join you for free, for cross-platform play, with the Friend’s Pass*. This wild ride comes to you from Hazelight, the co-op thrill-makers that brought you It Takes Two and A Way Out.
• UNPARALLELED VARIETY – Discover new mechanics and abilities in every level of your adventure, which will alternate between sci-fi and fantasy settings. Escape a sun that’s going supernova, challenge a monkey to a dance battle, try out some cool hoverboard tricks, fight an evil kitty, and ride everything from gravity bikes to a sandshark. Experience worlds that are entirely different from each other, unexpected new abilities, and a range of gameplay that includes platforming, stealth, puzzles, and more. There are surprises waiting for you and your partner in every new level.
• THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP – Mio and Zoe don’t get along at first, but soon enough they become each other’s only hopes. This journey will throw unexpected twists at them and if they want to make it through, they’ll need to have each other’s backs. They’ll encounter both bizarre situations as they traverse stories born from their own wild imaginations. Most importantly – they’ll face it all together.
*Friend’s Pass requires installation of the Friend’s Pass, persistent internet connection and applicable platform account. One user must own the full game in order for the co-op player to play the full game.
CONDITIONS AND RESTRICTIONS APPLY. SEE www.ea.com/legal FOR DETAILS
© 2025 Hazelight Studios AB. Split Fiction and Hazelight are trademarks of Hazelight Studios AB. EA Originals is a trademark of Electronic Arts Inc.
The post “Did We Actually Do That?”: Josef Fares Explains How Split Fiction Pushes the Co-Op Adventure Genre Further Than Ever appeared first on Xbox Wire.
