If Split Fiction‘s premise was true, it probably wouldn’t have sold two million copies in its first week. The latest co-op game from It Takes Two creator Hazelight Studios derives much of its interpersonal conflict from the idea that sci-fi and fantasy have entirely different fan bases who not only have a genre preference, but actively dislike the other.
Sci-Fi Versus Fantasy
The game begins with Zoe and Mio, two aspiring authors, arriving at the headquarters of Rader Publishing, a company that has promised to publish their work. In order to do that, they have to use a machine to place the authors they’ve recruited into realistic simulations based on their stories. Mio backs out at the last minute and, in the resulting struggle, falls into Zoe’s simulation. As the game progresses, the levels swap back and forth between Zoe’s fantasy ideas and Mio’s sci-fi concepts.
Early on in the game, Zoe, complains that she doesn’t “understand how one can enjoy sci-fi. It’s just so depressing.” Mio retorts, “Like I’m a fan of fantasy. It is by far the most overrated and pretentious genre.” That interaction lays the groundwork for the generic (literally) conflict the two engage in as the game gets underway.
But it rings weirdly false. Of course, there are people who love fantasy and hate sci-fi, and sci-fi devotees who wouldn’t be caught dead with a Tolkien book. My wife reads a lot of fantasy, but much less sci-fi, and I have another friend who reads sci-fi, but doesn’t read much fantasy. Preferences are normal. But having a strong affinity for one, and a strong antipathy toward the other, strikes me as unusual — especially at a time when there’s less distance than ever between the genres.
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I love BookTube, and most of the channels I watch cover both fantasy and sci-fi. They’re shelved together at the library. Authors like Brandon Sanderson (one of the biggest authors in the speculative fiction space) write both, and his fantasy megaseries the Cosmere increasingly includes sci-fi elements. Star Wars, the most popular series that a general audience thinks of when they hear ‘sci-fi’, includes an equal portion of fantasy. Sure it has spaceships, interplanetary travel, and blasters. But it also has the Jedi who practice magic using the mystical Force. It’s sci-fi and fantasy, blended together.
The lines just aren’t as clear (and people don’t care about them as much) as Split Fiction suggests. There are absolutely hardliners out there, but the ascent of the MCU in the 2010s did a lot to destroy the boundaries. Marvel’s movie series contains spy stories and space travel, wizards and scientists, all within the same universe. The genre might change from movie to movie, but Thor (a god of legend), Bruce Banner (a man of science/science experiment gone wrong), and Doctor Strange (a sorcerer) have to coexist. The MCU’s success, the dominance of The Force Awakens, and the massive popularity of Game of Thrones, made ‘nerd culture’ the defining pop cultural force.
Split Fiction uses a preference for sci-fi or fantasy as a kind of personality test. Zoe, the fantasy author, is easygoing, has a sunny personality, and likes the country. Mio, the sci-fi author, is more serious, cynical, and prefers the city. The game makes genre interest more indicative of a person’s broader personality than it actually is.
I haven’t finished Split Fiction yet, but in the first few hours, its presentation of this genre divide seems wrongheaded. Especially now that the game, which was sold on interweaving sci-fi and fantasy stories, is a big success. The game’s big tent real-world audience is disproving its thesis. People do like sci-fi and fantasy. They wouldn’t be buying a sci-fi/fantasy game if they didn’t.
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