Summary
Split Fictionrecently reached the highest-ever peak concurrent player count of any Hazelight Studios game on Steam, after having over 197,000 users playing simultaneously at one point. The spiritual successor to 2021’sIt Takes Two,Split Fictionis yet another two-player co-op adventure from the Swedish developer, which came out on Jul 30, 2025.
Thanks to widespread acclaim,Split Fictionhas emerged as a consecutive critical hit for the EA-backed Hazelight Studios. In doing so, it has joined an illustrious list, which includes the developer’s two other award-winning titles, namelyA Way OutandIt Takes Two. Apparently, on the engagement side as well, the Josef Fares-directed action-adventure game got off to a solid start at launch and is doing fairly well right now. In particular,Split Fiction’s co-op offeringsattracted a significantly high number of players and unlocked a certain distinction that sets it apart from the Swedish studio’s past works.
On the back of numerous highly positive reviews,Split Fictionmanaged to deliver a record-setting 197,434 peak concurrent Steam users within 24 hours of launch, perSteamDBdata. Besides being the best-performing Hazelight Studios release to date in this particular aspect, it also became the first game from the company to cross the 100K mark. Drawing comparisons betweenSplit Fictionand Hazelight’s previous title, theGame of the Year recipientIt Takes Two, it becomes clear that the new game’s numbers are nearly three times as many as those achieved by the predecessor, which peaked at 71,039 concurrent users in December 2024.
Split Fiction Reaches Record-Setting Peak Concurrent Player Count
On top of these impressive engagement figures,Split Fictionalso enjoyed a series of impressive critic ratingsthat took its MetaCritic overall score to a jaw-dropping 91 based on 86 reviews. With that, the sci-fi fantasy title ended a 13-year-long drought for EA in which none of its games released between 2012’sMass Effect 3and 2025’sSplit Fictionregistered a MetaCritic score of 90 or above. The co-op game also commands a strong average score of 90 on OpenCritic.
While it may still be early, fans have already started to talk aboutHazelight’s next project afterSplit Fiction. Interestingly, back in February 2025, Founder Fares said that the studio’s future isn’t going to be limited to the co-op genre, suggesting that it may not be far-fetched to expect a different kind of game from the highly decorated studio in the future.
