Must know
What’s it? A world-hopping co-op journey with a pair of aspiring authors.
Launch date March 6, 2025
Anticipate to pay $50/£40
Developer Hazelight Studios
Writer EA
Reviewed on RTX 4090, Intel i9-13900k, 32GB RAM
Steam Deck Verified
Hyperlink Official web site
Test Amazon
Cut up Fiction units a relentless tempo—one which it maintains all through the whole 15-hour caper. To play Hazelight’s co-op journey is to expertise the whole thing of a theme park’s myriad diversions whereas you are on a rollercoaster: plummeting down into the corridor of mirrors, leaving nothing however a path of glass behind; hurtling by means of a taking pictures gallery, gunning down targets as you blitz previous; colliding with a haunted home, spilling animatronic horrors in all places.
Besides Cut up Fiction’s diversions are a wee bit extra thrilling than funky mirrors and low cost scares. One minute you are fixing puzzles in a fantasy realm by shape-shifting into apes and fairies, the following you are area marines in a 2.5D sidescroller, utilizing your weapons and the facility of friendship to bust right into a futuristic jail. No matter you are doing, although, there’s often loads of working, leaping and flying—gotta go quick.
It’s fairly frankly nuts how steadily Cut up Fiction shakes issues up—much more than Hazelight’s It Takes Two—given its unstoppable ahead momentum. However that is baked into the very premise. Two aspiring authors, Mio and Zoe, have been invited to a gathering with a writer, Radar, whose CEO seems to be an enormous arsehole and plagiariser.
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Mio and Zoe discover themselves caught of their tales, compelled to work collectively to flee the worlds of their very own creation.
By some half-baked sci-fi nonsense, Mio and Zoe discover themselves caught of their tales, compelled to work collectively to flee the worlds of their very own creation. I say “compelled” as a result of they’re removed from keen collaborators. Mio loves sci-fi, hates fantasy and has no social abilities. Zoe is annoyingly extroverted, loves fantasy and hates sci-fi. It is a very primary, very on-the-nose odd-couple dynamic with two boring, broadly-written characters.
Naturally, they uncover that they’re extra alike than they realised (I will allow you to get your gasps out of the way in which), and that they make a terrific workforce. Oh yeah, the factor that makes them bond? Trauma. Which is revealed by means of the tales they’ve written, and by taking part in by means of them collectively, they let one another in. It is tacky and apparent, however look: generally you simply wanna see some folks grow to be buddies. It is good! It is even sometimes touching.
There are benches scattered across the tales the place Mio and Zoe can have a fast relaxation and verify in with one another. Some transient bonding earlier than the following madcap misadventure. It is very twee, however you’d higher consider my co-op buddy and I made certain to cease at every of them, hitting all these heart-to-hearts. They’re transient palette cleansers, earlier than you hop again into the lunacy.
I confess that I did think about skipping among the cutscenes, although—at the very least those the place nothing thrilling was occurring. Mio and Zoe aren’t essentially the most fascinating of authors, and the story of their blossoming friendship is not precisely novel. You may see all of the beats coming a mile away. Additionally, I want the sport would simply as soon as acknowledge that they’re horrible writers—their tales are a blast to play by means of, however you could not pay me to learn them.
Co-op cocktail
In the end it is an excuse to throw all types of world-hopping, reality-flipping, genre-switching shenanigans into the combination. Every chapter is devoted to one of many buddies, so both sci-fi or fantasy, however they’re all from completely different tales, which means that each chapter introduces new mechanics, guidelines and themes. And inside these chapters yow will discover facet tales—mini-levels impressed by Mio and Zoe’s brief tales, which Hazelight well locations within the different author’s worlds, switching issues up with a brief detour to a different style.
This lets Hazelight pull off a convincing phantasm that it is a recreation devoid of repetition.
This lets Hazelight pull off a convincing phantasm that it is a recreation devoid of repetition. Only a cavalcade of infinite surprises and new distractions. The truth is that you will tread over the identical floor fairly a bit, however there are frequent tweaks and wrinkles, and each exercise is shuffled and reconfigured to such a level that the phantasm would possibly as effectively be actual.
The place there’s repetition, it stems from user-friendliness fairly than a scarcity of concepts. There must be some constant mechanics and ideas working by means of the sport—they preserve the brisk rhythm from turning into discordant. Even when it’s spitting out a barrage of recent twists, you may by no means be clueless for lengthy. It is at all times pretty apparent what it’s essential do—or at the very least how one can have interaction with the world.
This isn’t to say there’s an absence of conundrums. Certainly, there are puzzles scattered all through the journey, starting from very primary rhythm video games to physics teasers. These nearly at all times lean into the sport’s cooperative nature—like Mio remodeling her little robotic buddies into a ship to ferry Zoe’s sentient robo-ball throughout a collection of water-based puzzles—elevating them effectively past their simplicity. One way or the other, primary trigger and impact appears like magic in a co-op recreation. “If I stand right here and do that, you can go over right here and do this! It is a miracle!” They don’t seem to be actually obstacles; they’re excuses for teamwork. And, sometimes, mischief.
Hazelight—I am certain very intentionally—included a complete bunch of how to troll our buddies, together with commanding an enormous plant to eat them, or letting them plummet to their demise by taking your hand off a button. I significantly loved locking my partner-in-crime in a jail cell. He deserved it. You may additionally discover mini-games hidden away, which serve no function aside from to get you cooperating and competing. Cut up Fiction at all times needs you to do issues collectively.
You may at all times see what your companion is doing, too. Whereas I began taking part in in native co-op, I used to be unable to get my buddy—a middle-aged dad of two, with an actual job—to decide to a 15-hour play session, so we performed the second half on-line. Even then, it was in splitscreen. The one time this vanishes is throughout actions the place you are at all times going to be proper subsequent to one another, and that transition is often performed in an especially putting approach at simply the best second.
This makes it loads simpler if you’re working collectively however not seeing the conundrum from the identical perspective, since you can also make sense of the puzzle by checking your companion’s display. Generally, although, you possibly can’t spare a look over at what your pal’s doing, which is why my neighbours obtained to get pleasure from two males loudly shouting issues like “UP! NO, TO THE LEFT! DOWN, NOW, DOWN!” at 12 am final Saturday.
Dynamic duo
Cut up Fiction’s dedication to selection extends to the variations between the characters, too, with every chapter giving them new, distinct powers. Within the first chapter—a tacky cyber ninja yarn about unpaid parking tickets—Mio dashes round with swords, slicing and dicing, whereas Zoe has a whip that may seize objects. Each are central to smashing the chapter’s challenges, and infrequently must be utilized in tandem, however the guidelines and mechanics governing them are distinctive.
Good friend zone
To make it simpler to play with a buddy, Cut up Fiction comes with a Pals Cross. Like It Takes Two’s cross, this lets you play with a pal even when they do not personal the sport. You simply want one copy between the 2 of you. Even higher, this time it is crossplay, so so long as your mate has an Xbox Collection X/S, PlayStation 5 or PC, you can play collectively.
In a later chapter, we obtained to boost a pair of child dragons. At every stage of their life, the dragons unlock new, extra highly effective skills. Mio’s dragon can spit acid and will get to fly first, which I am satisfied means she obtained one of the best dragon. That mentioned, it was laborious to disregard the whoops of pleasure coming from my buddy, who was rolling throughout the place and gleefully smashing into issues with Zoe’s dragon.
There is not any time for something to out keep its welcome, so even when there is a dud, and there are a number of, it by no means sticks round for thus lengthy that it leaves a nasty odor. This economical use of time blesses even the best of actions with a freshness that retains them entertaining.
A piece the place I managed a drone that my buddy was hanging from—floating him above, under and between lasers—was tense as hell and genuinely enjoyable, however would have completely had diminishing returns if I would wanted to do it 10 occasions, or if the part was stretched out to 5 minutes as a substitute of two. It got here out of the blue, gave us one thing new to do, after which obtained out of the way in which.
Hazelight additionally clearly is aware of how one can make a memorable scene.
It is genuinely spectacular how completely Hazelight has timed every part—simply sufficient room to generate some laughs and anecdotes, a wee little bit of rigidity, a touch of threat, after which it is off to a jetpack chase, or a boss battle or a physics puzzle. This isn’t to say that every part is over in a flash. It is extra that each part is as lengthy and full-on because it must be—although there’s completely a bent in the direction of brevity.
Some ugly 2.5D platforming sections apart, Hazelight additionally clearly is aware of how one can make a memorable scene, and it loves set piece sequence. Free-falling from a drop ship right into a secret facility, spelunking by means of the innards of an unfriendly dragon, leaping throughout flying vehicles on a sci-fi freeway—the backdrops and settings do an excessive amount of heavy lifting, and even when little is admittedly being requested of you, it nonetheless feels thrilling and high-stakes.
Whereas I reckon that loads of components of Cut up Fiction, in isolation, would not essentially stand out, the way in which it has been constructed elevates the entire. And I do not need to counsel that there aren’t some genuinely good particular person moments. A piece the place you are working collectively whereas gravity seems to be flipped for only one of you proved to be an actual journey, and I had a hoot throughout my brief sports activities profession, tossing an explosive ball to my buddy whereas screaming.
Then there are all of the occasions the sport performs with perspective in bizarre and interesting methods. Simply as Cut up Fiction retains throwing new actions at you, it simply as steadily modifications the way it presents these actions, altering the display’s structure on the fly and forcing you to adapt to a unique mind-set. It is one other approach Hazelight retains issues thrilling and fascinating—leaving your mind perpetually vibrating.
That is all main as much as an distinctive last chapter. Crikey. I’ll present some restraint and never give something away, however it’s in all probability the raddest factor I’ve ever seen in a co-op recreation, constructing on every part Cut up Fiction did within the earlier 14 hours, after which throwing in some new mind-fucks for good measure. This has grow to be a little bit of a theme, however let’s simply say there was loads of yelling.
It is laborious to think about one other recreation cramming so many surprises and script-flips right into a single 15-hour romp, however I believed one thing related once I performed It Takes Two. Clearly Hazelight is not performed attempting to push how a lot it will probably preserve us on our toes. Whereas these two stand out because the studio’s most related video games, Cut up Fiction is completely attempting to intention increased. Extra intense, extra selection, extra flash and spectacle. And it is paid off. That is the studio’s finest recreation—although I will at all times carry a torch for A Method Out—and one of many best co-op video games round.
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The Verdict
87
Learn our assessment coverage
Cut up Fiction
An extremely ingenious, rapid-fire co-op journey that by no means breaks its stride, regardless of its boring protagonists.
TOPICS
Fraser Brown
On-line Editor
Fraser is the UK on-line editor and has really met The Web in individual. With over a decade of expertise, he is been across the block a number of occasions, serving as a freelancer, information editor and prolific reviewer. Technique video games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he by no means turns down the prospect to rave about Whole Struggle or Crusader Kings. He is additionally been identified to arrange store within the newest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. Today, when he is not modifying, he can often be discovered writing options which are 1,000 phrases too lengthy or speaking about his canine.
