Split Fiction Review

The studio's whole method is refusal to repeat, and this is the purest expression of it yet. Every chapter hands the two players a different pair of abilities, uses them for one great idea, and then discards them permanently, so an hour in you have already been a pair of gravity manipulating cyborgs, a dragon and its rider, and two halves of a shapeshifting mechanic that only works if you talk. The side stories tucked off the main path are frequently better than the critical path, including one about a pig farm that is the funniest thing in the game.

It requires two people and the design assumes constant communication, which is the point. The writing is the weak part: Mio and Zoe's arc about a predatory publisher hits its beats exactly when you expect, the villain is a corporate cartoon, and the emotional resolution is signposted hours out. Also, if your partner is not engaged you will both have a bad time. Mechanically it is close to flawless.