Let’s face it. I died so much in Break up Fiction once I performed it with a associate at a preview occasion held by Hazelight and Digital Arts. However I acquired proper again up and went again into the fray. And I actually loved my time with the split-screen co-op motion journey sport.
Break up Fiction, is popping out on the consoles and PC on March 6, 2025, for $50. However I acquired to strive it out for a number of hours and I additionally interviewed Josef Fares, founding father of the award-winning Hazelight studio, after taking part in 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 change into 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 laborious half is studying to work collectively, Fares stated in an interview with GamesBeat. Mio is just not notably pleasant, however she has an correct, skeptical intuition towards the corporate’s intentions. Zoe is much more trusting and is keen to simply accept any indignity to get revealed.
She fortunately steps onto a platform because the machine prompts a bubble that places her right into a sort of sleep stasis — and begins extracting the tales from her head. However Mio resists and needs to depart. The evil CEO received’t let her, struggles along 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 by means of a glitch. They begin looking for their approach out by following the glitch, which alternately takes them into completely different fantasy or sci-fi worlds.
The gameplay begins out pretty straightforward, however in every encounter/puzzle/combat, it took us a few tries to get the timing proper on preventing and motion. It wasn’t tremendous troublesome in that we by no means acquired caught for a very long time. However generally one participant needed to carry the opposite by means of a given combat scene.
It was early to study to play quick. I noticed that a lot of the interactivity was coloration 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 by means of 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 possibly can soar on a rail and slide like in It Takes Two.
A few hours in, there have been some more durable fights the place it took us a very long time to get by means of the battles. We favored how the problem ratcheted up progressively by means of the sport. The humor of the pig aspect quest was gross in an enthralling approach — Mio flies round with atomic-powered farts, whereas Zoe climbs by . I at all times favored how each battle concerned Mio doing one factor and Zoe doing one other — and victory solely coming by means of cooperation in preventing the enemies.
As you would possibly know, split-screen video games are very laborious to day. It’s like utilizing one sport console to show two completely different video games directly on the identical display screen. That pushes the computing assets to the restrict, and the developer has to ratchet down the standard of the graphics to maintain the twin body charges up. Happily, with the animated fashion of the sport, the standard appears to be like 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 Approach Out (about two prisoners in a jailbreak) in 2018. In 2021, Hazelight received Sport of the 12 months for the split-screen sport It Takes Two, a few couple on the verge of divorce. I’ve performed every sport, however have but to get to the top of It Takes Two. Alongside the best way, Hazelight saved working with EA Originals, they usually have the components down and a uncommon capacity to inform a narrative that’s each transferring, humorous and stuffed with gameplay originality.
Break 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. And so they should work their approach by means of the luxurious fantasy areas and sci-fi skylines.
It’s a must to do issues like remodel your self with a button push right into a fish to swim by means of a fantasy stream. Zoe has to make use of a magnetic arm to fetch bins 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 by means of 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 indirectly alongside their journey. And so they should study extra about one another as they go alongside — and defeat issues collectively.
I requested Fares when you would ever be capable of play as a human participant, paired with an AI character. Fares stated that will simply be a standard 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 fix it,” he stated.
Is that this sport going to be value $50? For positive. It’s a 15-hour sport that up to now 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.
