Split Fiction

Split Fiction is the third game from the Swedish studio Hazelight Studios, released on March 6, 2025. Its Metacritic score of 92 on PC earns the "Must-Play" status (given only to games rated 90 and above) and makes it the first Electronic Arts title with such a score in 13 years. OpenCritic gave it the "Mighty" status (91+), and on Steam the game gathered 96% positive reviews from more than 120,000, surpassing the results of the studio's earlier games It Takes Two (95%) and A Way Out.

The story centers on Mio Hudson and Zoe Foster: two aspiring writers with opposite styles, whose minds the corporation Rader Publishing uploads into a simulator that literally brings their manuscript drafts to life. Mio writes science fiction, Zoe writes fantasy. The simulator mixes the genres and threatens to push both of them out for good. There is no single-player mode: the game is made only for two players and will not start without a partner.

Genre jumps are Hazelight's signature technique, taken to the maximum in Split Fiction. Each episode has a different visual language, different mechanics, and different rules of physics: science fiction gives way to 80s-style cyberpunk, then to horror, magical fantasy, pirate action, and a world of dragons. Josef Fares, the studio director, openly calls repeating mechanics the main failure, and Split Fiction carries this philosophy to the limit.

Friend Pass: one purchased copy is enough. The partner downloads the free Friend's Pass (Steam appid 3052150) and plays the whole game without restrictions. For the first time in the series there is full cross-play: the owner on PC can invite a partner on PS5, Xbox Series, or Nintendo Switch 2. Play between different systems requires a free EA account; within the same system, only a Steam invitation is needed. The EA App is not required to launch the game.

There is no official Russian localization, neither interface, subtitles, nor voice-over: EA officially declined to add the Russian language. A fan voice-over by R.G. MVO (Mechanics VoiceOver) exists, released on November 30, 2025 with community support and the studios RavenCat and Kansai. It is installed as a separate patch and is not supported by EA.

Split Fiction received 4 TGA 2025 nominations: Best Game Direction, Best Narrative, Best Family Game, Best Multiplayer. Its peak online count on Steam was 259,003 players in the launch week, the second best result among Electronic Arts titles in Steam history after Apex Legends. Sales: 1 million copies in 48 hours, 2 million in the first week, 7 million by April 2026. Steam Deck: Verified status from the first day of sales.

Split Fiction is a co-op action adventure from Hazelight Studios (creators of It Takes Two and A Way Out). Mio Hudson and Zoe Foster are two writers stuck in a simulation that throws them from science fiction into fantasy, and from fantasy into horror, with each level in its own genre. Friend Pass: one copy is enough for two players, for the first time with cross-play (PC, PS5, Xbox, Switch 2). Metacritic 92, 4 TGA 2025 nominations.