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Sci-fi/fantasy video game mashup “Split Fiction” has quickly become a hit with gamers, surpassing two million units sold since its March 6 release.
The co-op adventure game from Hazelight Studios and EA has broken the Guinness World Records. for most played local co-op video game on Steam, most sold co-op video game within 48 hours, and most sold local co-op video game within one week of release. And a bidding war has already begun for the rights to adapt the game into a feature film.
Needless to say, “Split Fiction” creator and Hazelight Studios chief Josef Fares is very pleased and proud of the game’s success within the industry. But he’s keeping a level head about where it’s going in Hollywood, as the studio’s previous hit game, “It Takes Two,” has been in the development phase as a movie at Amazon since April 2022.
“You know what I say? I believe it when I see it, because nothing has happened yet,” Fares told Variety. “Look, here’s the thing, it would be nice if it happened, but again, I believe it when I see it. Sometimes there’s a lot of talks, but nothing happens. So we will see.”
If the “Split Fiction” movie does come to fruition though, Fares says he would be “quite open” to making changes from the game, which centers on authors Mio and Zoe as they get literally immersed into their own stories and have to team up to navigate each other’s worlds together.
“We have to understand that games are an interactive medium, and movies are passive. So you have to do a lot of changes,” Fares said. “I think you have to change the story because obviously, in our games, we focus a lot on interactivity, the mechanics and everything, but in the movies it’s a different kind of focus. So the writers that are going to start — I mean, obviously we’re going to read the scripts and everything — are gonna have to change quite a lot, but still keep the idea, the characters, the world of jumping between the sci-fi and fantasy. I think it could become a really cool movie, if you write it the right way, actually.”
As Fares is still promoting “Split Fiction” and enjoying the sustained hype around the release, he’s already shifted his creative focus to the fourth title from Hazelight Studios. While he won’t reveal any specifics about the next game, he’s happy to relentlessly tease fans with a scrap of information.
“There is always a word connected to every game. ‘Split Fiction’ was friendship and ‘It Takes Two’ was collaboration and ‘A Way Out’ was trust. And yes, we have a word for the next one as well, but if I say it, I might actually spoil something. But there’s definitely a word that is for the next game as well. But when we talk next time, hopefully in three to four years, I’m gonna tell you exactly what it is. Let’s remember this moment.”
For those who have played 2018’s “A Way Out” and 2021’s “It Takes Two,” “Split Fiction” includes a few Easter eggs and callbacks to those previous Hazelight Studios games, as well as new scenes featuring their trademark quirky, dark humor.
“We have so much stuff in there, we just put in all this crazy stuff,” Fares said. “I don’t have a favorite one, because there’s so many small ones that are so nice. And it’s always nice to see the reaction where people get to the pig level, or where they get to the dentist. Most fun is also when they get to the final, final level. That’s where they really like, ‘Whoa,’ because I’ve been going out and saying, ‘Look, you’re gonna see something that hasn’t been seen in a video game before.’ And people think, ‘Oh, he is cocky,’ and so on. But then when they play, you see the reaction, they go, like, ‘What the fuck? He actually was right.’ Because it hasn’t really been done like this before.”
