GameCentral will get to play over three hours of the follow-up to It Takes Two, in what’s a number of the most pleasant co-op motion ever seen.
When we interviewed Split Fiction director Josef Fares just lately, the one query he had no reply for is why different corporations haven’t tried to repeat him. His earlier title, The Game Awards 2021 Game of the Year winner It Takes Two has bought over 23 million copies, and but it has had no discernible impact on the general variety of co-op video games being made and there have been no direct clones.
Instead, Swedish developer Hazelight Studios has been left to do every thing itself. It Takes Two was preceded by the extra grounded A Way Out and is now going to be succeeded by Split Fiction, which has the same method – by way of solely being playable with a second participant – however is in all different methods a totally completely different sport, with new characters and story.
The sport bought a brand new trailer in the course of the State of Play on Wednesday however a couple of days earlier we had the possibility to play three hours of gameplay and converse to Fares about it and the trade normally. We loved each experiences a terrific deal and the excellent news is that Split Fiction is out in only a few weeks’ time, at which level we count on it’ll be simply as profitable as its predecessor.
The plot for Split Fiction is a peculiar one and revolves round two younger novelists, named Zoe and Mio, who’re invited by a really clearly evil techbro to check out his new digital actuality machine. The concept is that it means that you can visualise and discover your personal tales and creativeness, which instantly goes fallacious when Mio and Zoe’s worlds turn out to be conjoined.
We’re unsure the place the story goes with all this, as whereas there are allusions to firms making the most of creatives it’s all very on the nostril and appears to lack subtlety. According to Fares, the principle theme of the sport is friendship, and you’ll undoubtedly see that within the burgeoning relationship between Zoe and Mio, though it’s nonetheless pretty by-the-numbers from a story perspective.
The gameplay conceit although is that, as a result of Mio writes sci-fi and Zoe fantasy, the pair maintain ping-ponging between completely different imagined worlds and that works nice. Even if it’s important to query simply how good the pair are as writers, given Zoe’s worlds are extremely generic Tolkien-esque fantasies and Mio’s are a reasonably straight cross between Blade Runner and Tron.
As a sport although it really works nice, by way of providing up an expertise that’s each vastly different and, regardless of the fixed modifications in setting and gameplay fashion, impressively constant by way of high quality. Although you’ll be able to play on-line (like It Takes Two, just one individual has to personal the sport) we had been enjoying cut up display screen with Victoria Kennedy from Eurogamer.
Hearing that Hazelight video games characteristic a number of completely different sport types, which are consistently switching round, may lead you to imagine that they’re essentially shallow, however that’s not the case in any respect. Although there are exceptions, the default gameplay is that of a 3rd individual motion platformer, full with double jumps, dashes, and 3D motion whereas swimming and flying.
Right from the beginning, the sport’s problem just isn’t trivial, with some tough jumps and correct puzzles – lots of which contain one character doing one thing to assist the opposite progress, from merely urgent a change to leaping on a seesaw.
This is completely not Mario Party with a narrative and our solely concern is what occurs if you attempt to play together with another person of a really completely different ability degree. That wasn’t the case in our preview but when we’d needed to sit there making an attempt to elucidate it’s important to transfer the digicam with the precise stick, as a result of we had been enjoying with an off-the-cuff gamer buddy, it will have been a really completely different expertise.
As it was although, every thing was extraordinarily entertaining, with little punishment for failure. The controls had been additionally very intuitive, which is welcome contemplating what the assorted buttons do is continually altering, relying on the extent. After a few tutorial-ish phases, one in every world, issues had been instantly taken up a notch as the sport began enjoying round with gravity in new sci-fi ranges, permitting you to stay to partitions and ceilings and run alongside them.
Mio (who we had been enjoying as) will get a katana and Zoe a whip factor that permits her to seize objects and throw them, though each have grappling hooks that allow them to swing by means of a Fifth Element fashion site visitors jam of flying automobiles. A boss battle then concerned Mio releasing explosive barrels that Zoe might whip into the air and throw on the unhealthy man.
As we perceive, the sport doesn’t have any It Takes Two fashion mini-games however as a substitute there are a selection of aspect tales, that are full size ranges however with a twist. The first one we performed remodeled us each into pigs, with Zoe being able to leap vertically within the air (as a result of the pig was truly a type of toys with a springy head) and Mio can fly horizontally by way of a rainbow-hued fart.
The change in setting and magnificence works nice, with extra summary 3D platforming than the remainder of the sport – ending in you being remodeled into sausages, that it’s important to lather with condiments earlier than leaping right into a sizzling canine bun and being eaten.
That’s not a spoiler, because it was within the first trailer, however the different aspect story we performed was very clearly primarily based on arcade snowboarding sport SSX (for which EA can be the writer).’ It had somewhat extra of a sci-fi vibe, as a result of it was considered one of Mio’s tales, but it surely performed identical to the outdated video games and is hopefully one thing you’ll be able to simply entry at any time, as we’d gladly return to it.
Returning to the usual ranges, a few of them are feature-length boss battles, equivalent to an entertaining one towards a large robotic ball that retains throwing automobiles at you and has all kinds of laser beam and rocket assaults. This culminates with Mio having to leap onto it and working across the exterior, like a planetoid in Super Mario Galaxy, as Zoe flings explosives at its one weak spot.
There are fairly a couple of overt references to different video games all through Split Fiction, with Metroid clearly being a Fares favorite. Lots of the bug-like enemies are straight out of the sport, however one complete degree has you enjoying as a morph ball, the place Zoe is magnetic and Mio can remodel right into a swarm of insect-like robots that may type their very own parachute.
The inspiration is perhaps apparent, however the degree and puzzles are very properly designed, together with when it segues right into a pinball part the place Zoe continues to be a morph ball however Mio has to activate the flippers and plungers as she strikes by means of the stage.
Despite the nods to varied video games and flicks the sport by no means feels spinoff, just because co-op gaming of this complexity is so uncommon. For instance, one other enjoyable stage is a sci-fi one the place you’re racing alongside on motorbikes, which might additionally connect to partitions and ceilings at sure factors and ultimately get machineguns to make use of towards enemies.
A subsequent fantasy degree then has you remodeling into completely different creatures (a fairy and what’s principally Groot for Zoe and an ape and a few sort of dragon/otter/factor for Mio) in one of many extra puzzle-orientated sections.
It wasn’t totally clear the place these ranges got here by way of the general progress of the sport (they had been simply served as much as us mechanically, reasonably than us accessing them organically) however the remodeling fantasy degree was undoubtedly beginning to get tough, by way of the extent of co-operation wanted and the obscurity of the puzzles.
A subsequent one, the place you each get pet dragons, was much more so, with Zoe’s with the ability to roll like a ball and Mio’s with the ability to fly and spit acid. This was utilized in quite a lot of imaginative methods, by way of puzzle fixing, typically additionally requiring fast reflexes to finish.
Somehow, the sport’s problem all the time gave the impression to be pitched good and we had been by no means caught lengthy sufficient to get annoyed, with the answer all the time being satisfyingly logical.
The remaining degree was additionally laborious and principally a more-puzzle oriented model of Contra, with a soupçon of Portal. Not solely might you run and soar however you would additionally intention in all instructions with the precise stick, like a dual-stick shooter. This led to some tough colour-coded puzzles, requiring a number of teamwork, after which a remaining boss battle which was enjoyably taxing, with fixed modifications in perspective and techniques.
It was actually extra entertaining than the previous couple of official Contra video games and underlined that whereas Split Fiction might sound gimmicky and unfocused in concept it doesn’t really feel like that in any respect if you’re enjoying. Especially with somebody sat subsequent to you on the identical sofa, the sport is enormously entertaining and it’s extraordinarily spectacular how lastly balanced it’s.
The complete factor ought to be a complicated mess of random mechanics and unpredictable controls but it surely’s not that in any respect. The visuals, notably for the sci-fi ranges, are a contact bland at instances, and we’re not totally satisfied by the story and characters, however by way of co-op motion this appears a substantial step past the already glorious It Takes Two.
Formats: PC (previewed), Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5
Price: £44.99
Publisher: EA
Developer: Hazelight Studios
Release Date: sixth March 2025
Age Rating: 16
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