Split Fiction Is Worth Looking Forward To
It Takes Two, the game of the year that won 2021 TGA Award, has left a deep impression on many players. Hazelight Studios has once again brought out their new work Split Fiction after three years.
Hazelight Studios seems to have a special preference for two-player cooperative games. From their first successful work, A Way Out to the annual award-winning It Takes Two, Hazelight Studios has always insisted on the goal of letting players play cooperative games. This time Split Fiction is no exception.
Split Fiction
The protagonists of this game are named Zoe and Mio, who are fantasy novelists and science fiction novelists, respectively. They are two strangers who don’t know each other, but they are trapped in their own novels. They have to work together to escape from their own novel worlds. In the process, the two began to get familiar with each other gradually. The names of the two protagonists come from the two daughters of game producer Josef Fares.
Split Fiction will be released on platforms such as consoles and PC on March 7, and the game is made by Unreal 5 engine. Compared to the themed levels of It Takes Two, the level design of Split Fiction will be more imaginative. Josef Fares’ pursuit is to keep players fresh and not get bored.
The art style of Split Fiction is somewhat different from It Takes Two. Compared with It Takes Two, Split Fiction’s style is more mature. Josef Fares explained that the game style should match the content of the game. The two protagonists are writers and adults, so they will naturally present a mature design style. And the fun of the production team is to try new things. They like to design games with different styles.
Although Josef Fares said that there was no special source of inspiration when he created it, there are indeed some tribute elements to classic games and movies in the game. In addition, Josef Fares said that he likes Half-Life 2, Uncharted 2 and Mario Galaxy 2 very much. Perhaps in Split Fiction, players can find tribute eggs to these works.
Gameplay Of Split Fiction
Josef Fares told the players that there are many side quests in Split Fiction. These side quests are for the players’ good participation experience and to explain the identity setting of the protagonist. The two characters are writers in the game, so the side quests need to be in line with their professional inspiration and creative ideas. Split Fiction contains a huge and rich side quest system. Players may even accidentally miss some of them when playing. This part needs to be explored and discussed by players after the game is released.
Split Fiction is more difficult than It Takes Two, Josef Fares admitted. But he believes that although Split Fiction is challenging, it will not cause players to be unable to pass the level. Even children can have fun in this game. Regarding the situation where some couples broke up after playing It Takes Two, he thinks that this is not caused by the game. In this case, these couples should seek the advice of a relationship counselor.
Hazelight Studios will not add AI players to the game, because the core of a two-player game is to allow two players to communicate frequently and experience fun together. If AI is added, it becomes a pure single-player game, which is inconsistent with the desired goal of Split Fiction.
As for online matching, although it has not yet been added, it may be the future development direction, and its implementation is relatively difficult. Of course, players can find like-minded people from Hazelight community to play games together.
This game will not have DLC because Hazelight Studios has focused their work on the development of new games. After It Takes Two, what kind of fun will Split Fiction bring to players? Let us wait and see.
