Split Fiction’s Depiction Of Grief Is Its Greatest Strength

I’m a sucker for emotional narratives, especially ones that focus specifically on traumas I myself have experienced. It’s like free therapy, but instead of helping to piece together the pieces of my fragmented mental health, I get a couple hundred gamerscore.

So, when Split Fiction’s dual heroines Mio and Zoe started venting about their dead siblings and dying parents, I felt right at home with their plight. In fact, I’m better than both because I’ve got both of those intensely emotional traumas in the bag. Suck it. So seeing Hazelight’s latest co-op adventure explore such hard yet relatable issues with this level of depth warmed my heart, and reminded me that I’m far from alone.

Split Fiction Is A Reminder That Nobody Goes Through Grief Alone

Much like Zoe, I lost one of my siblings long before I was ready to say goodbye. In fact, I never had a chance to say it before he was unfairly ripped away from me. He had been living with cancer for a number of years, but at every turn he seemed to bounce back and promise us again and again he was going to beat this disease, be there to watch his children grow up, and settle into old age with a family who cared deeply for him. But life is unfair, and that’s not what happened.

In fact, the morning I planned to drive over to his house to say goodbye was when I got the phone call that he’d passed away during the night. I held my crying mother in my arms while coming to terms with the fact that a brother I’d known my entire life wasn’t there anymore. It left me with a pit of irrational guilt in my stomach, and as Zoe vented to Mio about the harsh recollection of watching her sister drown, it all came rushing back to me.

There should have been something I could have done to help instead of watching him fade away, powerless to make him feel better, help my family, or mend the rifts that would form in his absence. But I have tried again and again to find that solution, and even now it feels impossible.

Split Fiction also comes with fragments of hope in spite of its hokey melancholy. Zoe is sat paralysed in place after delving to the bottom of her subconscious later in the game as she finds it impossible to confront a representation of her late sister. She is frozen, wracked with so much guilt that she perhaps played a role in her death, and in doing so tore her family apart before spending the next decade living with an insurmountable feeling of shame.

But her loved ones all wanted her to reach out, to try and replace this guilt with a feeling of pride that her late sister would no doubt want her to grasp with both hands. As I further my career and try to chase a goal that at times feels distant, I can’t help being reminded of my brother, too.

And Nothing Can Prepare You For The Loss Of A Loved One

Zoe losing her sibling, in my case at the very least, is built upon by Mio’s hardship, who has struggled for years trying to fund treatments for her father’s illness despite knowing there is little chance of him ever getting better. The world is a harsh place, with healthcare and insurance companies willing to charge innocent people millions for the privilege of trying to stay alive.

In no way is this ethical or even human, and Split Fiction explores the disgusting idea of corporations sucking life from people simply trying to help themselves through a variety of striking visual and mechanical ideas. The end of one level has you freeing a huge octopus creature from the top of a facility who is having its life force drained for nothing but corporate gain. It’s still suffering when you free it, but now it can die on its own terms.

Throughout Split Fiction, it seems like Mio is aware that her father isn’t going to make it. Perhaps he has already passed away and she is dealing with the ramifications of shutting herself off from the world because, during her darkest moments, nobody bothered to help her. They only wanted to take and take and take until her view of the world was defined by hate and distrust. There are times throughout the narrative where it feels like this grief will prove too much, and there isn’t a way for these characters to make it out the other end.

But they do, and much like reality, grief can either destroy and consume, or become something that defines and helps you grow. When my brother passed, I took two weeks off work to be there for my family and myself, before returning to a job which I felt unfulfilled in and left shortly thereafter. Fast-forward a few weeks and I was starting here at TheGamer, and in the years since, I’ve spoken to heroes of mine, wrote about so many of the things I love, and made friends I’ll stand by for the rest of my life.

All of this was possible because of the loss of my brother. I refused to let his passing hold me back, that’s the last thing he’d want. So I used it as a catalyst to grow, change, and try to be the person he wanted me to be. Like Mio and Zoe, I came to terms with my grief, coming out of the other end as the person I owe myself to be.

Action

Adventure

Sci-Fi

Fantasy

Released

March 6, 2025

ESRB

T For Teen // Blood and Gore, Crude Humor, Language, Violence