Let’s face it. I died loads in Cut up Fiction after I performed it with a associate at a preview occasion held by Hazelight and Digital Arts. However I bought proper again up and went again into the fray. And I actually loved my time with the split-screen co-op motion journey sport.
Cut up Fiction, is popping out on the consoles and PC on March 6, 2025, for $50. However I bought to attempt it out for a number of hours and I additionally interviewed Josef Fares, founding father of the award-winning Hazelight studio, after enjoying the sport.
Sitting on the sofa with my associate, the sport began with the humor of a few ebook authors who instantly didn’t hit it off. You play as Mio and Zoe — two authors, one sci-fi, one fantasy. They’re like oil and vinegar in the case of personalities. However they’re thrown collectively into a standard disaster. Solely by working collectively — with one participant serving to the opposite — can they get out of it.
The 2 go to a simulation tech firm the place they’re promised a publishing deal. The writers turn out to be trapped in their very own tales after being hooked as much as a machine designed by an evil ebook “simulation” writer who desires to steal their inventive concepts.
To flee with their minds intact, they’ve to beat their variations to crash the system that holds them. The exhausting half is studying to work collectively, Fares stated in an interview with GamesBeat. Mio isn’t notably pleasant, however she has an correct, skeptical intuition towards the corporate’s intentions. Zoe is much more trusting and is keen to just accept any indignity to get revealed.
She fortunately steps onto a platform because the machine prompts a bubble that places her right into a type of sleep stasis — and begins extracting the tales from her head. However Mio resists and needs to go away. The evil CEO gained’t let her, struggles together with her and she or he falls into Zoe’s bubble. They fall into the identical fantasy world, with Mio showing inside Zoe’s story world via a glitch. They begin looking for their method out by following the glitch, which alternately takes them into completely different fantasy or sci-fi worlds.
The gameplay begins out pretty simple, however in every encounter/puzzle/combat, it took us a few tries to get the timing proper on combating and motion. It wasn’t tremendous tough in that we by no means bought caught for a very long time. However generally one participant needed to carry the opposite via a given combat scene.
It was early to study to play quick. I noticed that a lot of the interactivity was shade coded. If there was a purple lettering, that was meant for Mio and so I needed to hit my proper bumper on my controller to make use of my grappling hook to fly via an area rapidly. If it was inexperienced, it was meant for the opposite participant, Fares on this case, to make use of his controller to get Zoe to do one thing. You may run on the partitions like in Titanfall, and you would leap on a rail and slide like in It Takes Two.
A few hours in, there have been some harder fights the place it took us a very long time to get via the battles. We favored how the problem ratcheted up regularly via the sport. The humor of the pig aspect quest was gross in a captivating method — Mio flies round with atomic-powered farts, whereas Zoe climbs by . I all the time favored how each battle concerned Mio doing one factor and Zoe doing one other — and victory solely coming via cooperation in combating the enemies.
As you may know, split-screen video games are very exhausting to day. It’s like utilizing one sport console to show two completely different video games directly on the identical display. That pushes the computing sources to the restrict, and the developer has to ratchet down the standard of the graphics to maintain the twin body charges up. Thankfully, with the animated type of the sport, the standard seems to be fairly good, as it’s constructed on Epic Video games’ Unreal Engine 5.
Hazelight additionally has a number of veterans engaged on the sport. Fares began with Brothers: A Story of Two Sons, a transferring story of two brothers. Hazelight adopted that up A Method Out (about two prisoners in a jailbreak) in 2018. In 2021, Hazelight gained Sport of the 12 months for the split-screen sport It Takes Two, a couple of couple on the verge of divorce. I’ve performed every sport, however have but to get to the tip of It Takes Two. Alongside the best way, Hazelight stored working with EA Originals, and so they have the components down and a uncommon capability to inform a narrative that’s each transferring, humorous and stuffed with gameplay originality.
Cut up Fiction’s has an array of ever-changing mechanics that retains each gamers on the sting of the sofa. Each Mio and Zoe have to acknowledge the scenes from their tales that the simulation is visualizing as digital worlds. They usually should work their method via the luxurious fantasy areas and sci-fi skylines.
It’s a must to do issues like rework your self with a button push right into a fish to swim via a fantasy stream. Zoe has to make use of a magnetic arm to fetch containers and throw them at attacking flying police vehicles. Mio has to enter shut fight with troopers and hack away with a cybernetic sword. They should experience on hoverboards via desert sands and surf round sand sharks from one thing like Dune. I’m conscious there will likely be extra surprises within the gameplay however I’m not going to spoil them.
A part of the narrative enchantment of the sport is that Mio and Zoe don’t get alongside at first, however they study they’re one another’s solely hope. The characters will change in a roundabout way alongside their journey. They usually should study extra about one another as they go alongside — and defeat issues collectively.
I requested Fares for those who would ever have the ability to play as a human participant, paired with an AI character. Fares stated that will simply be a traditional single-player sport that wouldn’t be as enjoyable, as your AI associate can’t actually behave like an actual human.
“If it’s isn’t broke, don’t repair it,” he stated.
Is that this sport going to be value $50? For positive. It’s a 15-hour sport that to this point may be very entertaining. And it’s one other title that would win the ever-creative Hazelight a number of awards.
Disclosure: EA paid my technique to the occasion for the aim of this preview.
