A representative of a rare variety of games — you can't play alone, only multiplayer — Split Fiction has already become the second most popular EA release on Steam, and major review aggregator sites note that the average action score exceeds 90%. In Russia, the project was not hindered by the lack of a translation into Russian — domestic gamers rushed to buy the game on all platforms, because the last release of the developers of It Takes Two has long received cult status. Izvestia got acquainted with the latest hit simultaneously with the worldwide release.
What's Not to Like about Split Fiction
The new game, despite the flurry of enthusiasm all over the world, causes contradictory feelings, so let's try to first tell you what is most confusing about it. And it's seriously embarrassing. The fact is that It Takes Two, the last Hazelight Studios game released as early as 2021, became a cult game for a reason, not just popular. There was an excellent concept behind the vibrant and intense arcade experience, which forced two gamers to constantly interact with each other. Because it wasn't a timekiller, but a psychotherapy session.
Screenshot of the game "It Takes Two"
According to the plot, the main characters were spouses on the verge of divorce. Their upset child accidentally turned them into two dolls, and the parents, trying to regain their human form, were simultaneously establishing a relationship. And the arbitrator was a talking book on family psychology. It was just clear that it was necessary to solve the problem not on the couch, but in action, team action, which was really a lot in It Takes Two. That is, the path to the final reconciling kiss was long, exhausting, but so fruitful that many gamers seriously played It Takes Two with their girlfriends or wives in order to improve the microclimate at home.
Split Fiction was also positioned as a game with a concept, and even more ambitious. In the story, two young writers Zoey and Mio (the former specializes in fantasy, the latter in science fiction) are invited to participate in an experiment. Instead of just publishing their books and paying royalties, they are placed in special chambers with direct access to their brains — as it turns out later, in order to steal all their ideas, even unrealized ones. The other participants in the experiment were placed separately, and Zoey and Mio accidentally ended up in the same capsule, as a result of which their minds (and creative worlds) entered into an amazing "dialogue." Now they need to join forces and return to their bodies, and at the same time expose the copyright theft corporation.
Screenshot of the game "Split Fiction"
It is impossible to imagine a better bait for the Russian audience. We are a literary-centric country, we still have the best gift for a book, and it would be very interesting to talk about topics related to the most popular genres now. Fantasy is on the rise: "Game of Thrones", the new series on "The Lord of the Rings" (the most expensive in history), "The Witcher", "Star Wars", "Stranger Things" — all this is now developing, breathing, millions are talking and thinking about it. Science fiction is a lot of space here. "The Three-Body Problem" is the most important novel of the 21st century, magnificent TV series based on Isaac Asimov are being staged, Christopher Nolan is shooting Sci-Fi one after another, and the truly spectacular "Dune" has finally been released. All this needs to be rethought, a fresh look, and interactivity, which will be a reason for reflection. Yes, Split Fiction was very much expected to think about literature together, look for crisis points, outline development paths, and check watches with those who also like to read.
But unfortunately, all this is not in the game. The fact is that Zoey and Mio are very mediocre writers (one reviewer wittily called his article Paperback fighters). Both worlds of their fantasies consist of flat cliches, borrowings (up to plagiarism), stupid and even not too funny idiots. The worlds they invented are boring, the characters are boring, moreover, Zoey and Mio themselves are boring. And the game is actually built dramaturgically in the same way as It Takes Two, that is, as a psychotherapy session. Because girls are running away from solving their personal problems, and all their writing is just a form of escapism. And they don't have to write books, but sit down and take a hard look at themselves, which they eventually do during the game. For that matter, the creator of the project, Youssef Fares, readily reports in his interviews that he copied the heroines from his daughters and gave them the same names.
Screenshot of the game "Split Fiction"
Is this disappointment fair? Maybe not quite. Were we promised Oxford literary professors, or maybe Stephen King and Liu Qixin, as consultants for this game? Did someone submit the game for review in The New York Review of Books? Maybe there were discussions about the genres announced in the game during the promotional campaign? None of this happened. It's just that we live in a country where the word "writer" is often capitalized, where a poet is more than a poet. And we are waiting for a game about literature — Literature. But she's not there.
Action is the main advantage of Split Fiction
Why is the game called an event and given such high marks? And why do we join these assessments, despite all the bitterness of unfulfilled hopes? Because Split Fiction is completely uninteresting to think about, but it's incredibly interesting to play. Thanks to the largest Russian importer, Achivka, we received the game at the same time as the worldwide release and found that the pride of the developers was not a concept, but a radical, incessant action, inventive, spectacular, and sometimes quite complex — but not to the point of "hardcore".
Screenshot of the game "Split Fiction"
It Takes Two had lyrical digressions, plus a bunch of optional mini-games or interactive gizmos — for example, a character could be put in a toy car and launched directly to the ceiling of a room, although this was absolutely not necessary for anything. In Split Fiction, you can sometimes find, say, a floor laid out for playing hopscotch, but these are rather the rudiments of a past hit. And so for most of the 10-20 hours of passage, depending on skill, you will have to fly rapidly, swim, run, roll, slide along walls, bungee jump, shoot, etc. This is clearly visible from the gameplay recording.
Moreover, all this time you will have to depend heavily on each other, because there is no single-player game, and if, conditionally, Zoey does not hold the box, then Mio will never be able to bridge the gap. At the same time, if one hero is dead, and this will happen thousands of times, then while the second one is alive, the partner will resurrect nearby and run on.
Most of all, the passage of Split Fiction resembles a trip to the complex with slot machines in good company. It's like you're running from one slot machine to another, quickly inserting tokens and speeding through one level after another so that you can try all the other machines nearby to save time. The sensations are about the same, and the mood and pace refer not to the console experience, but to a place where it is very noisy, a lot of people, always crowded, but very fun.
Screenshot of the game "Split Fiction"
The palette is such that it will take a long time to come to your senses and bury your eyes with a natural tear, these are millions of color impressions in a few minutes, so even an hour of Split Fiction gives a huge release, and, most importantly, adventures are almost never repeated, and the heroines periodically discover new abilities. To master them in such a hurry, you need to work hard, but a more successful partner is waiting and nervous, which makes the gameplay even sharper and more emotional.
The lack of literary-centricity has become a virtue for Russian users: since the plot is schematic and predictable, the lack of translation can be ignored, although it is still desirable to understand what the heroines are talking about. However, most of the time their remarks come down to the fact that, they say, you came up with something unintelligible, my friend, so I have a better book. No, we are responsible for her companion, not better. Let's keep pushing the buttons, and we'll look elsewhere for the pleasure of real books.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
