Cut up Fiction, the brand new sport from It Takes Two developer Hazelight Studios, doesn’t do something notably new. The sport is a simple co-op journey that strings collectively disparate sci-fi and fantasy video games like hyperlinks on a sequence. For those who bundled collectively the sci-fi and fantasy sections as separate entities, they wouldn’t kind a cohesive expertise in both gameplay or story. And the overarching narrative that connects all of them is a fairly heavy-handed (although obligatory, in immediately’s local weather) parable concerning the rapaciousness of generative AI instruments and the inventive chapter of the executives that develop them.
However, there’s an ironic genius in Cut up Fiction exactly as a result of it takes so many little gameplay parts that I’ve seen and completed earlier than and executes them with a brilliance and polish I’ve not.
In Cut up Fiction, you and a accomplice play as Zoe and Mio, two individuals who have come to the curiously named Rader Company underneath the auspices of getting their tales revealed. However — gasp! — as an alternative of getting paid, they get trapped in a machine designed to extract folks’s inventive concepts. After mishaps and shenanigans, Zoe and Mio are compelled to work their means by means of digital simulations of one another’s tales in hopes of stopping Rader’s plan to “personal” all tales to take advantage of for revenue eternally. It’s about as delicate as a brick to the face, however what do you anticipate from the studio run by the man who mentioned, “Fuck the Oscars”?
Cut up Fiction is an obligate co-op sport. For this overview, my husband Travis and I hopped between Mio’s futuristic cities and Zoe’s fantastical kingdoms like strolling by means of the vehicles of a passenger practice. In every part, we received a brand new set of powers designed to work solely in that specific world.
For one degree themed round shapeshifting, I had the ability to show right into a magical ape and an otter, whereas Travis may rework right into a fairy or a Groot-like tree creature. We had to make use of our totally different varieties with their totally different skills in tandem to navigate the world. My ape kind smashed obstacles that impeded our path, whereas Travis’ Groot kind manipulated the surroundings to create new paths ahead.
In one of many sci-fi sections, I… wait, I truly don’t bear in mind. Let me go look.
Oh, yeah. I received a sword that slashed enemies and in addition functioned as a sort of private gravity manipulator whereas Travis toyed round with a whip that pulled enemies and different objects towards him. In that reminiscence lapse lies my one grievance with the sport: the moment-to-moment gameplay dissolves in your thoughts like a lot cotton sweet.
Mario’s powers in Tremendous Mario Bros. Marvel, just like the elephant power-up or the drill hat, had been so distinct and distinctive that they carved out their very own place in my reminiscence of the sport. There’s a purpose folks can recall Titanfall 2’s Impact and Trigger or Halo 2’s Gravemind ranges by identify. Cut up Fiction has none of that. Sure, it’s enjoyable within the second and is an immensely pleasant expertise total, however the stuff you do in it and the story it tells are so generic they’re instantly forgettable. Travis and I completed Cut up Fiction in 12 hours stretched throughout day by day play classes over the past week. And although we rolled credit simply yesterday, neither of us may recall with any certainty any of the powers we had within the first 5 hours of the sport.
However, actually, that’s okay as a result of it’s not the gameplay itself that makes Cut up Fiction as pleasant as it’s; it’s the co-op expertise. Most co-op video games we’ve performed aren’t true cooperative experiences, and we wind up taking part in a sport individually collectively. However Cut up Fiction is strict as hell, requiring exact communication and execution whereas being forgiving sufficient that gamers at totally different ability ranges (say, father or mother and youngster) can nonetheless play collectively.
Our favourite second in the entire sport was the place he and I basically performed two-player pinball. We navigated the extent — I managed the paddles and launcher, he managed the ball — whereas a boss chased us. We needed to give one another instructions about what paddle I needed to flick or exactly when he needed to bounce whereas outrunning a murderous robotic, the place one mistake or missed timing would end in dying. There’s one thing so good about speaking together with your accomplice by means of a high-stakes activity. Cliche because it sounds, it felt like our minds and our bodies had melded collectively just like the Jaeger pilots in Pacific Rim. It was actually kinda horny.
It was additionally actually enjoyable how our character decisions mapped precisely to our personalities. I selected Mio, the sci-fi author, whereas Travis was Zoe, the fantasy woman. Like Zoe, my husband doesn’t look after sci-fi, however his lockscreen and desktop background are an ever-rotating gallery of old-school high-fantasy artwork. In the meantime I, like Mio, get aggravated with my husband and Zoe’s indefatigable cheerfulness and may watch Interstellar, Sunshine, and Occasion Horizon on repeat. It was actually cute.
Whereas Cut up Fiction’s story is essentially forgettable, we each loved its telling. The sport is suffering from references to so many different video games, and it was enjoyable pointing them out. I’m a giant sap, so I loved seeing my husband get excited a few reference he caught. I received such a kick when he acknowledged the legally distinct Halo 2 part or began fortunately shouting, “It’s Battletoads!” throughout a boss struggle. I’ll additionally say the sport’s ultimate boss struggle had the innovation I had hoped to see extra of all through the sport itself. I gained’t spoil the specifics as a result of it’s a pleasant little parting present to gamers, but it surely was a trippy, thrilling sequence that performed hell on our visible notion.
Since we performed It Takes Two collectively, we had been trying ahead to Cut up Fiction additionally having little minigame breaks in the course of the narrative. Cut up Fiction’s model of that had been aspect tales the place Zoe and Mio would come out of the primary story to have a brief journey in one other world. Travis’ favourite was a creepy-cute Fall Mans-inspired degree the place we performed as anthropomorphic tooth, whereas mine concerned sketches of characters progressing by means of a narrative the place all of the motion was being drawn in actual time by a large pencil.
We cherished Cut up Fiction as a result of, together with its predecessor It Takes Two, it’s the one fashionable sport my husband and I can play collectively that doesn’t depart us eager to kill one another. The gameplay was easy however required a degree of cooperation that was deeply satisfying to tug off. It’s a cotton-candy ass sport, and I gained’t be capable to let you know a particular factor about it in per week aside from it’s enjoyable, however that’s fantastic. We like cotton sweet as a result of it tastes good, not as a result of consuming it’s a notably memorable expertise.
Cut up Fiction launches March sixth on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC.