Split Fiction, the latest co-op game developed by Josef Fares and Hazelight Studios, made a significant impact upon its release on March 6, reaching an impressive milestone over its opening weekend.
The game saw a peak of 259,003 concurrent players on Steam on Sunday, March 9. This places Split Fiction as the second most-played game published by EA on Steam, with only Apex Legends surpassing it in terms of concurrent players. These statistics were reported by SteamDB and highlighted by Twisted Voxel.
- Apex Legends – 624,473
- Split Fiction – 259,003
- Battlefield V – 116,104
- EA Sports FIFA 23 – 110,878
- EA Sports FC 25 – 110,026
It is worth noting that EA chose to move away from Steam for a period, opting to release its games exclusively on its own PC platform before returning to the Steam platform in 2019.
Hazelight’s previous release, It Takes Two, peaked at 71,039 players, making Split Fiction a considerable success in comparison. Not only has Split Fiction enjoyed immense popularity, but it has also received glowing reviews. GameSpot’s review awarded the game a perfect 10/10 rating. Additionally, on Metacritic, Split Fiction holds an impressive score of 91, making it EA’s first game in over a decade to achieve an aggregate rating above 90, with Mass Effect 3 being the last game to accomplish this feat in 2012.
While not all players participating in Split Fiction have purchased the game due to its Friend’s Pass system, which allows one person to buy a copy for multiple users, it is essential to acknowledge that the game is also available on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. The Steam player numbers represent only a portion of the game’s total player base and popularity.
Sony and Microsoft have not disclosed their concurrent player numbers, and there is currently no official data from EA or Hazelight regarding player counts or sales figures for Split Fiction.
With It Takes Two selling an impressive 23 million copies, Split Fiction faces high expectations. Fares mentioned that the development budget for Split Fiction was nearly double that of It Takes Two.
Following the success of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons with Starbreeze, Josef Fares founded Hazelight Studios, known for its focus on co-op-only games. To date, the studio has released three games: A Way Out, It Takes Two, and Split Fiction, all under the EA Original label. Hazelight remains an independent studio.
Fares has been vocal about his opposition to microtransactions and live-service elements, which are prominent in EA’s business model. As Split Fiction has just been released, it remains to be seen what future projects Hazelight may undertake and whether they will continue their partnership with EA.
Outside of gaming, Hazelight has collaborated with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson on an upcoming movie adaptation of It Takes Two for Prime Video. The studio continues to explore new opportunities beyond the realm of video games.