Quietly sneaking under the launch radar a little bit is one of 2025’s best games so far, Split Fiction.

With Cyberpunk 2077, Mario Kart World and the likes of Street Fighter 6 and even Fast Fusion getting all the headlines, EA have also got a horse in the race and it’s a damn good one.

What’s more, outside of first party software, it’s actually the newest, latest game of the launch lineup considering the game only released in March. And there’s two very interesting points to make about the game.

First, it runs smooth as butter and looks great. Not quite as great as other formats, admittedly, there’s definitely some roughness there when docked on the split screen, but it’s very solid all the same.

Secondly, this version of the game has offerings the others don’t and for me personally, it’s the best example I’ve seen so far of just how good Switch 2’s GameShare is. A feature that might just be game-changing, in fact.

As we talked at length in our review, Split Fiction doesn’t allow for solo, it’s designed to be a co-operative experience, whether that’s locally or online. With the amazing FriendPass system, that makes it easy for anyone to dive in, though, as you can essentially ‘gift’ the game to a friend and get them right into the action.

But Switch 2 goes a step further still by offering the GameShare service which basically lets a host effectively stream the game on a friend’s console. That’s exactly how I played with my buddy with him sat on the sofa, playing handheld and me on the TV. And yes, this even works if you stream to Switch 1 even though the game can’t be natively downloaded or played there.

At first, he cited that it looked a little corrupted and janky when the game was starting up. It also looked super dark, like almost pitch black to the point he couldn’t see what he was doing or where he was supposed to go, so used the TV to help. But the quality of the image did get better overtime, even if some sections – like the murky underwater parts, for instance – were a bit hard to see. And on Switch 1 it’s even worse.

But for the most part it was just seamless and even on Switch 1 it works just fine! Now the way Split Fiction is set up, it does make this process a little unnecessary in that the FriendPass is there to allow you to just directly hook up, regardless of which platform you’re on. But if Switch 2 can already handle doing GameShare on a release just a few months old, and it essentially makes the game playable on Switch 1 when it wasn’t already, that’s a super cool feature and I’m very excited to see what it’ll do on other games.

Equally, with GameChat you can play together with voice and even use the camera to watch other players live, experiencing the game’s thrills and high points, which is a nice way of recreating the vibe locally but over the internet.

Split Fiction does do some things weirdly, though. For instance, you can’t actually use 1 JoyCon to play the game locally as it treats both JoyCons as one controller. This works just fine on just about every other game on Switch, so forcing it into the grip here is just utterly bizarre, especially with all the other multiplayer options available to you on this game.

With GameShare and Friend Pass, of course, it’s not a deal breaker, but if you did want to play the game locally, be aware you’ll at least need another set of JoyCons, Pro Controller or possibly using GameShare as we mentioned.

This is also one of the few games on Switch 2 that’s actually making use of HDR out of the box too. There’s a surprisingly low number of third party games doing it, so full credit to EA and Hazel Light for really trying to push the system early. Though, as mentioned, it does run at 30 FPS and some of the detail in characters and environments isn’t as great as it is on other formats.

And as we said a few months back, this game is a treasure and maybe the finest co-op game ever made. The story is a blast, the co-op is seamless and this a game bursting with creativity and style. Getting this day one on Switch 2 is a treat and a great game to share with a friend with so many options for friends to play together.

It’s full of amazing effects, action, story-telling, strong world building and character development. And despite the aesthetics not being quite up to the same level as other formats, this might just be the best place to play Split Fiction as it just gives the game even more options to play together and that’s ultimately where the game is at its best.

Verdict

Split Fiction on Switch 2 is a little behind other formats in terms of aesthetics and the lack of using two JoyCons for split screen is an odd choice, but despite all of that this might be the best place to play one of the best co-op games ever made. Between the awesome functionality of GameShare and the fact this format opens up even more options for your friends to play the game with you, there’s even more reasons for people to play this incredible game. 

Pros

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Split Fiction is out now on Switch 2, PC, PS,  and Xbox

Played on Switch 2

Code Kindly Provided by EA for review purposes