Latest news with #JosefFares
The National
17-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The National
Split Fiction and the best co-op games to play with a partner in 2025
These days, multiplayer gaming means connecting to the internet and playing with friends and strangers worldwide. However, that hasn't always been the case. Multiplayer gaming once meant being squeezed on a couch at your best friend's house, each with a controller in hand, likely for an unreasonable amount of time. The two types of multiplayer gaming have different names, with the "in real life" style being called co-op gaming, while the newer iteration is dubbed online multiplayer gaming. As more games have relied on online gaming, co-op gaming has been picked up once again by indie studios to create a fun, fulfilling experience. Last week, a new co-op game was released that has been scoring high with gamers and reviewers, with many saying it could be the best game of the year. Here, we look at that game and other co-op games worth picking up in 2025 to play with friends and loved ones. With its release, Swedish game design studio Hazelight has become the expert on co-op games. Under the guidance of Lebanese-Swedish director Josef Fares, the studio has produced some of the best experiences in the genre. Their latest game, Split Fiction, is about two writers – one penning a sci-fi and the second writing a fantasy – who both get sucked into virtually constructed versions of the stories they wrote. In Split Fiction, players take control of one of the two characters and attempt to survive as they are flung from one story to another. Each segment of the game is a homage to something from gaming, film or literature, which presents a wonderfully complete experience when brought together. Many who played the game have praised it, including pop star Abel Tesfaye (formerly known as The Weeknd) who posted on X: 'Split Fiction might be game of the year so far". The first of Hazelight's successes with co-op gaming was A Way Out, a game in which two inmates must work together to escape their prison sentence. The game requires a level of coordination and understanding between the players in order to traverse levels. The game also features several minigames such as Connect Four, darts, horseshoes, spearfishing, wheelchair wheelies and exercises such as chin-ups, dips, push-ups, sit-ups and bench presses. While Hazelight and Fares would perfect the formula with their later games, It Takes Two and Split Fiction, A Way Out shows all the many ways they experimented in making the experience as fun as it could be. Hazelight's second success in the genre was the winner of Game of the Year at the 2021 Game Awards. It Takes Two also won Best Family Game and Best Multiplayer Game at the same ceremony, showing just how well received it was. In the game, two people going through a divorce are transformed into two small beings that must navigate their barn and all the inanimate objects that have suddenly sprung to life, creating obstacles for them to overcome. It Takes Two was praised for its fantastic and fresh approach to co-op gaming, but more importantly, for its honest way of presenting the difficulties of communication in a relationship. The couple in the game love one another but have experienced issues that made them grow apart. During the game, they speak openly about why they grew apart, allowing insight into what it takes to keep a loving relationship healthy. Running a kitchen between two people is already an arduous task – who cooks, who cleans, who delivers the food to the counter? In Overcooked 2, these responsibilities must be shared and divided smartly. But it doesn't end there. The game doesn't just up the ante with more orders or more complex recipes, it also creates havoc with moving platforms, earthquakes and meteor showers. It can get messy, in more ways than one. Relationships are tested and stretched when playing Overcooked 2. All you need to imagine is the heated temperament of chef Gordon Ramsey, multiply that by two, and you'll get an idea of the experience playing this game. It's also extremely fun. Less stressful than running a kitchen is the process of moving out of a house ... right? In Moving Out 2, two players run a furniture moving company. Jobs are allotted not only in the local town but also across space and time. The concept might sound dreary; what's fun about moving furniture from inside the house to a truck? Well, the furniture could become unruly. The floors could start moving. A large item might need to be catapulted through the window. There are arguments to be had still, and methods of extracting an item will be ridiculed if not outright refused, but there will be a massive sense of accomplishment once all the furniture is moved out successfully.
BBC News
15-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Split Fiction: Josef Fares says studios should 'stick to vision'
Think of video games, and you'll probably think of something of the most popular titles in the world, such as Fortnite and Call of Duty, are focused on outgunning, outrunning or outclassing as Josef Fares and his studio Hazelight have shown, that's not the only thing gamers latest, Split Fiction, is a collaborative experience where two players work together to solve puzzles and beat adventure game has received rave reviews, sold one million copies in 48 hours and is currently among the most-watched titles on streaming platform not a one-off. His previous title, It Takes Two, featured similar "couch co-op" gameplay and sold 20 million copies and won a Game of the Year draws players to these friendlier experiences? A report from analytics company Midia Research found that couch co-op was especially popular among people aged 16 to surveyed 9,000 gamers worldwide, and said roughly 40% of respondents in the age range reported it was their preferred way to report said "social play is a key part of gaming for younger consumers," and suggested more developers could look to incorporate collaborative games are also big with streamers - watching players bicker as they try to conquer a new title is a great source of viral year Chained Together, where players work together to escape the depths of hell, was a hit thanks to huge names like Kai Cenat and IShowSpeed getting in on the Melissa and John, from Middlesbrough, have been uploading clips of themselves playing Split Fiction together to TikTok. The game centres around fantasy author Zoe and sci-fi writer Mio, who become trapped in simulated versions of their own a keen reader, says the plot appealed to her, but the chance to team up got her invested. "A lot of the time when you play video games you are isolated from other people and it's just nice to be together, spend that quality time together," Melissa tells says popular online games are often very competitive, which can be stressful."I don't want to have to come home tired and have to focus 100% to just be able to do ok at a game," he says. "Whereas this one, I can just sit back, relax and just enjoy the experience."What Hazelight does is unique, but other companies do implement co-op features into their Supermassive Games, which specialises in "interactive horror movies", made couch co-op a standard mode in its titles after publishing its breakout hit Until Dawn. They found players were going through the single-player title in groups, passing the pad between them as the narrative - which changes based on choices made in-game - social play is also popular. Some of the best-selling games on Nintendo's Switch system - Mario Kart 8 and the Mario Party series - are frequently played with mates around the TV. In recent years, developers have tried to replicate the success of games like Fortnite - so-called "live service" titles that constantly update and retain players for months, if not you get it right, the potential financial rewards are huge, but cutting through in a saturated market is as the video games industry continues to deal with mass layoffs, studio closures and decreased spending on premium games, not many publishers want to take a believes there may be too much focus on the bottom line."Publishers need to step up and really trust the developer," he says."But also developers, I think, need to have a clear vision and stick with what they believe in." He does admit, though, that not everyone has his studio's history, nor his personality."I am a - what do you say? - a different breed," says he was directing his first game, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, feedback from some early playtests was "super bad"."I'm like, they're wrong, they're wrong, because I know it's great," he spoken before about resisting pressure to put micro-transactions - in-game purchases - in his projects, and is uncompromising despite his studio's close relationship with EA, one of the world's biggest publishers."I don't expect everybody to be like me, but that's me with my extreme confidence," he says."What we do, I love it."We're sticking to the vision of what we believe in. Stick with the vision, go with it."And I think if you really love what you do people love it as well." Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.
New York Times
08-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Raised in a Civil War, He Makes Games to Bring People Together
Within a modern but nondescript building a few hundred feet from Stockholm's pretty Riddarfjarden Bay, a frosted glass wall in Josef Fares's office displays etched characters from It Takes Two, his video game studio's 'Toy Story'-esque cooperative adventure about an adult couple's broken relationship. Near his desk, in a lighted case, sits a pair of Muhammad Ali's boxing gloves. 'I can relate, you know, to someone who's speaking his mind,' Fares said. In an industry where executives have become mired in tech marketing-speak and can be as protected by publicists as Hollywood stars are, Fares stands out. Many gamers know the garrulous designer for his appearance at the glitzy Game Awards in 2017, when he twice dismissed the Oscars with a swear word before raising his middle finger to the camera. The sentiment could come as a shock from a person who began his artistic career as a moviemaker, including an autobiographical coming-of-age film set during the Lebanese civil war that was Sweden's entry for best international feature at the Oscars in 2006. But for the past dozen years, Fares's passion has been video games, especially cooperative experiences that can be played on the couch with a sibling, partner, child or friend. Fares enjoyed games from the moment he played Pong on an Atari 2600 while living in Beirut; he fell in love in 1988 when he experienced Super Mario Bros. in Stockholm. After working with a few students to make a game demo in 2009, Fares got excited. That very night he came up with the concept of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, about siblings working together in a time of crisis. His interest in movies dwindled. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Split Fiction Is More It Takes Two, But With An Unlikely Inspiration
When I played Hazelight's last game, It Takes Two, back in 2021, it was with an ex who'd had different ideas about where our relationship should go than I did. This made playing as a squabbling, estranged couple in a co-op platformer more fitting for that moment in my life than I could have anticipated. So it's funny that Hazelight's upcoming co-op game, Split Fiction, also feels timely, this one due to its obvious disdain for corporate slop and art theft at a time when nearly every creative field, including the one I work in now, is dealing with the fallout of AI. That was my read on it, at least. A story about two unlikely friends falling victim to a corporate scheme designed to extract writers' story ideas from their brains for the company's own use feels like a pretty direct commentary on the ways in which image-generating AI is being trained on real artists' work. When I asked director Josef Fares about how Split Fiction seems to be in conversation with how corporate know-nothings are using technology like AI to scrape art for their own use, however, he acknowledged it was an inspiration, but also said he doesn't consider it the core theme of the game. 'Oh yeah, there's definitely inspiration and a hint to AI and stuff, but I have to say again, the core of it is the friendship story,' Fares told Kotaku. 'That's what the core of the story is about. What [the protagonists'] relationship is, how they evolve, what happens, and how they go forward. But it's definitely there.' In an interview with VGC, Fares talked more on the subject of AI and its use in video games, and gave an answer that surprised me given Split Fiction's obvious and admitted inspirations. 'We need to adapt to it,' Fares told VGC. 'If it's part of the industry we should see how to implement it to see how we get better games. I can understand the fact that some people could lose their jobs but that goes for every new technology. 'Bad stuff and good stuff will come out of it,' he continued. 'You can't just close your eyes. I believe AI will have a bigger impact on the world than the internet had, eventually. It's a long time until you can use it in an actual development, at least not at our place, maybe others can do it.' I would have preferred a more robust rejection of AI from Fares, and this quote does make me wonder just how boldly Split Fiction will make pro-art declarations when the full game launches. Ultimately, though, the game will succeed or fail on its own merits, and the three hours I played were quite promising. If you played It Takes Two, you probably have a good idea of what you're getting into with Split Fiction. You and a co-op partner hop back and forth between different fantasy and science fiction worlds, each with their own bespoke mechanics. In one level we fought through a cyberpunk city in which I—as sci-fi writer Mio—could manipulate gravity while my partner— playing as fantasy author Zoe—could use an energy whip to grab objects in the air and toss them at enemies and obstacles. Later, we both rode dragons through one of Zoe's fantasy stories and flew through ruins searching for a way forward. Split Fiction riffs on fantasy and sci-fi tropes in each level, and even the most frustrating segments are whip-smart and delightfully intuitive. I played several levels without having to say a word to my co-op partner because the clarity of Split Fiction's level design mitigates the potential disorientation that can occur when a game changes up your mechanics at a moment's notice. Hazelight has always excelled at designing multiplayer games that require constant adaptation and cooperation. As I sped from one level to the next to the next, none of the segments felt the same, even as they oscillated between the fantasy and science fiction genres of both heroes' stories. Some made use of the same basic aesthetics, but that's where the similarities ended. Not every level is a grand adventure, as Split Fiction delves into the absurd just as much as the epic. One level had me and my partner playing as pigs, and here I had the ability to launch myself forward with rainbow-colored farts. Eventually, we ended up as sentient hot dogs that had to cover ourselves in condiments and get inside a bun. Split Fiction is often silly, joyful, and too creative to stick with one idea for long. I was only able to play about three hours of what Fares says is a 12-14 hour experience. Even if it doesn't end up having a scathing commentary about the state of AI, I hope it is at least inventive enough to remind us that we don't need AI to make something magical when it launches on March the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
The Guardian
18-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘No micro transactions, no bullshit': Josef Fares on Split Fiction and the joy of co-op video games
There aren't many video game developers as outspoken as Hazelight's Josef Fares. Infamous for his expletive-laden viral rants at livestreamed awards shows, Fares is a refreshingly firy and unpredictable voice in an all too corporate industry. As he puts it, 'It doesn't matter where I work or what I do, I will always say what I want. People say to me that that's refreshing – but isn't it weird that you cannot say what you think in interviews? Do we live in a fucking communist country? Obviously, you have got to respect certain boundaries, but to not even be able to express what you think personally about stuff? People are too afraid!' Yet while gamers know him as a grinning chaos merchant and passionate ambassador of co-op gameplay, in Fares' adopted homeland of Sweden, he is best known as an award-winning film director. His goofy 2000 comedy Jalla! Jalla! was a domestic box office success, while his 2005 drama Zozo was a more introspective work about his childhood experience of fleeing the Lebanese civil war. Twenty years, five feature films and three video games later, Zozo was just one of many cathartic endeavours for Fares. 'I've always been a storyteller,' he says. 'When I was young, I'd draw my own comics. The first time I got a camera I borrowed it from a friend's father, and that was that.' With no formal training, he learned by doing. 'I started to make my own movies in the early 90s … and I just kept creating. I made 50 short movies until I did my first feature. So there was a lot of trial and error – just doing, doing, doing, doing until I got it right.' It's this DIY, inquisitive approach that guided Fares towards game-making, his pivot into interactive entertainment born from that same unflappable curiosity. 'I've always been a huge gamer,' Fares says. ' I was lucky. I had the first [console] in Lebanon, an Atari. I played Pong and I was like, wow! I was just utterly fascinated with it. Games have always been my first love.' Once Fares finished work on his fifth feature film, a friend encouraged him to pursue his love of games, and convinced him to participate in a student-led game jam. 'I was so excited! I came up with the concept of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons the same night' Fares says. ' I couldn't sleep that night because I was like, I want to do this! I came up with how you control the two brothers, how it feels to play, everything. All in that same night.' He soon took his evolving prototype to a respected game studio in Stockholm – Starbreeze. 'They were like, 'Well, maybe you can do this as a kind of test project.' But I'm like, fuck a test, I'm going to do the whole thing!' That passion fuelled a year and a half of intense work, with Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons being released in 2013. The co-op adventure about siblings embarking on a dangerous journey to find a cure for their sick father has now sold over 10m copies. Despite its success, many in Sweden were baffled by his artistic pivot, a transition for Fares that felt natural. 'With movies, I came to a point where I felt that the passion really wasn't there. Passion lead me to video games. It was very challenging being new in the industry and coming in with a different approach – wanting to create new mechanics. Today it's different because [people] listen to me, but it was very hard in the beginning.' After Brothers' success, Fares started his own gaming studio, Hazelight – a team focused on making story-driven co-op games, a surprisingly rare proposition in our online age. 'Hazelight started because me and a friend tried – and failed – to find a game where it's not just drop-in, drop-out [co-op] but something that you can play together and share a story experience. We couldn't believe that no one was doing this. It's why we don't just make games with a split-screen element at Hazelight – all our games are designed and written right from the beginning to be co-op.' Much like Hideo Kojima, Fares can't code, but instead assumes the role of writer and director on his games, laying out the vision for the story and gameplay mechanics, entrusting his talented team to bring his vision to life. Fast forward 12 years, and a new Hazelight game is now a massive event. Fares' most recent release was the colourful co-op platformer It Takes Two, about two parents who find themselves magically miniaturised and must fight through their home to reach their young daughter. Highly acclaimed by critics, it won game of the year at the 2021 Game Awards. Now Fares is previewing his latest co-op extravaganza, Split Fiction. Much like Hazelight's previous work, it's a thrill ride of exhilarating successive set pieces. As dual protagonists Mio and Zoe battle their way across hostile re-creations of their own sci-fi and fantasy novels, each level throws new ideas at the player with Nintendo-esque abandon. 'Variation and pacing – how things shift all the time, I think that comes from my movie background,' Fares says. 'Other people say, 'If you have this crazy scene, why do you only use it for 10 minutes?' Because if you have a cool scene in a movie, you don't repeat it just because it's cool and costs a lot of money!' Despite his undeniable talent for storytelling, Fares says he finds interactive narratives far more difficult to construct than their Hollywood counterparts. 'It's way harder to make games, because games are interactive and movies are passive. Movies spend much longer in production, writing, everything too – they just have more time for you to figure it all out. I always joke that if I want to go on vacation, I'm going to make a movie.' 'I believe that we're still figuring out how to actually tell a story in games,' he continues. 'But that's the fun part! Even the movie industry is now realising that great shit is happening in video games.' What Fares finds less fun, however, is the direction in which the games industry has been heading in recent years. 'I don't like live service games – I think that they're bad for the industry,' he says. 'I understand that money is important, and that we live in a capitalist society, but creativity and money have to meet somewhere in the middle. It can't be either too much creativity or too much money. We should focus on pushing our medium forward: no micro transactions, no bullshit, just pure gaming love – because, ultimately, great games will do well.' Split Fiction is released on PC, PS5 and Xbox on 6 March
