Summary
Split Fiction is a bona-fide commercial and critical hit for Hazelight Studios. It sold over one million copies in just 48 hours and established a new concurrent record on Steam for an EA-published game.
While some studios might bask in their success before moving on, Hazelight’s development team is already gearing up for its next game.
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Hazelight Boss Jose Fares Confirms Studio Already Working On Next Game
Hazelight founder Jose Fares was a guest on the Friends Per Second podcast (via Culture Crave) where he said, “Split Fiction is the best-received game we have done, everybody is super happy, but I’m so fully focused and excited on the next thing.”
As one might expect, Fares didn’t offer anything specific regarding Hazelight’s next project. While Split Fiction is a massive success, the studio isn’t feeling the pressure for its next game. On the contrary, it thinks it can do even better.
Fares shared, “It’s not like we’re feeling now, ‘Oh, shit, how will we top [Split Fiction] or do better than this?’ We just feel like… just wait until [you see] what we do next. I know it’s cocky. But that’s how confident we feel in what we’re doing.”
In the same chat, Fares revealed that Hazelight does not pitch the studio’s game to publisher Electronic Arts (EA). In case you didn’t know, EA has been the publisher of all of Hazelight’s games. Instead, they tell EA what they’re doing. Fares explains, “That’s it. They have zero to say about what we are doing next.”
Additionally, Fares acknowledges that EA might be “fu**ng up its partnerships with other companies, but not Hazelight. “They respect us. They respect what we do. I am very clear with them that they cannot interfere with what we do,” Fares noted.
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Whatever Hazelight’s next project is, don’t expect it out anytime soon. The studio usually takes 3-4 years to develop a game. A Way Out started development in 2014 and was released in 2018. It Takes Two was released in 2021, and Split Fiction was released this year. By that estimate, don’t expect Hazelight’s latest game to be available no sooner than 2028 or 2029, which means there’s a very big possibility that the studio’s next game might be a title for the PS6 and the next Xbox console.
If you haven’t played Split Fiction, you might want to change that, as the game really is that good. Our review even mentions how “Split Fiction has proven that Hazelight is simply the best modern studio in the co-op business.” Just remember that Split Fiction, much like Hazelight’s past games, is purely a co-op experience, You cannot play it solo or with a bot. If you have another friend who has a capable PC or a PS5 or Xbox Series X|S, you can share the game via the “Friend’s Pass” system.
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Leaving in the middle of the session doesn’t feel so awkward now.
Action
Adventure
Sci-Fi
Fantasy
Released March 6, 2025
Publisher(s) Electronic Arts
Multiplayer Online Co-Op, Local Co-Op
Engine Unreal Engine 5
ESRB T For Teen // Blood and Gore, Crude Humor, Language, Violence
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