It’s undeniable that the amount of effort poured into creating Split Fiction is massive. The game constantly introduces fresh mechanics every quarter hour, while also letting go of older ones. Yet, it successfully avoids making each innovative idea feel incomplete or rushed.
“Take, for instance, the section where you ride dragons in Split Fiction,” one of the developers explains. “Just creating a single dragon took about eight months. Early in my career, many team members questioned why we would invest so much time on something only played for around 10 minutes.”
However, here’s the point. In movies, just because a scene is expensive doesn’t mean you keep reusing it because of the cost. Unique moments often lose their spark if repeated too often. The gaming industry sometimes falls into the trap of reusing costly elements, but that can dilute the excitement of the initial encounter.
Split Fiction embraces this philosophy fully, offering expansive sections of optional content. Unlike It Takes Two, which incorporated several mini-games, Split Fiction’s optional content—unlocked through portals you stumble upon—goes much deeper.
“We’ve created entire self-contained worlds with unique mechanics, sometimes even featuring bosses and new visual environments. It feels like discovering a different game hidden within the main one.”
