In 2021, Josef Fares made a characteristically bold claim: Hazelight Studios' next game would be even better than It Takes Two. In 2026, that promise no longer hangs in the air. The project Fares teased eventually arrived as Split Fiction, launched in March 2025, and the conversation around Hazelight has only grown louder. Yet the old quote still matters, because it captures the studio's operating philosophy: build co-op games around shared responsibility, emotional discomfort, and the kind of story beats players cannot simply opt out of.
A Director Who Speaks Before the Evidence Arrives
Fares has never been a cautious marketing voice. He was confident about A Way Out, confident about It Takes Two, and confident about the unnamed project that followed. That confidence is not incidental. It is part of Hazelight's identity. The studio's director comes from film, and he has repeatedly described how that background shaped his approach to games, including the creation of what he framed as the industry's first romantic comedy video game.
Can a director really promise a sequel-beating masterpiece before the title is even announced? In most studios, that would sound like hype. With Fares, it sounds like a design thesis. He has said he plans to spend many sleepless nights making another great game, and Hazelight's track record gives the boast a foundation. A Way Out proved mandatory two-player co-op could carry a full narrative. It Takes Two pushed that idea into a wildly varied romantic comedy adventure and became a top seller on Steam and the PlayStation Store. By 2025, Split Fiction had extended the streak.
The Scenes That Upset Players Are the Point
Fares has explained that certain story beats in Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and A Way Out were designed to make players uncomfortable. He was not talking about violence for its own sake. He was talking about moments that upset people, choices that feel forced, and endings that linger because the player could not simply choose a cleaner path. The ending of A Way Out still produces reactions from players asking why they could not choose not to do it. Fares' answer is blunt: that is the whole point.
It is the same logic that runs through It Takes Two. The game wraps its story in bright colors, playful mechanics, and a co-op structure that demands communication, but it also asks players to sit with uncomfortable emotional beats. That combination is unusual. Many games promise player agency; Hazelight often narrows agency in order to create a shared memory. Is that manipulation, or is it authorship? For Fares, the rewarding experience comes from finishing the story and seeing it through, even when the path feels wrong.
From The Game Awards Tease to Split Fiction
Fares has a history of announcing games at The Game Awards, so when he talked up Hazelight's next project in 2021, the speculation was natural. That pattern held. Split Fiction arrived as the studio's post-It Takes Two co-op title, and it carried the same core promise: a game built for two players, not a single-player experience with a co-op mode bolted on. The title's release in 2025 gave Fares' old boast a concrete target. Whether it truly surpassed It Takes Two is a matter of taste, but it kept Hazelight in the conversation as one of the few studios whose announcements carry a specific emotional contract.
| Title | Year | Co-op identity | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons | 2013 | Fares-directed, pre-Hazelight; two-character control | Early example of forcing players through painful choices |
| A Way Out | 2018 | Mandatory two-player prison break | Its ending still provokes strong reactions from players |
| It Takes Two | 2021 | Mandatory two-player romantic comedy adventure | Widely praised and a top seller; set the bar for what came next |
| Split Fiction | 2025 | Mandatory two-player fantasy and sci-fi writer adventure | The teased post-It Takes Two project, launched in 2025 |
What Comes After Split Fiction?
As of 2026, the more interesting question is not whether Fares was right in 2021. It is what Hazelight does next. The studio has now delivered multiple co-op games with strong identities, and each one raises the bar for the next. If Fares says a future project will be even better than It Takes Two, he is also saying it must compete with Split Fiction, with A Way Out, and with the memory of those forced, uncomfortable story beats that players still argue about years later.
That is a difficult promise to keep. It is also exactly the kind of promise Hazelight seems to enjoy making. The studio's games are not designed to be frictionless. They are designed to be shared, debated, and sometimes resisted. For players, the takeaway is simple: Hazelight remains one of the few teams whose next announcement feels less like a product reveal and more like a challenge. 🎮",
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