Hazelight’s Split Fiction Could Go From Game to Film

Less than a month after its launch, Hazelight Studios’ newest video game Split Fiction may be the next video game adapted for film.

Per Variety, “multiple top studios” are currently in a bidding war for the game’s rights. Story Kitchen, which has helped with recent adaptations of Tomb Raider and the Sonic movies, is assembling a cast, writer, and director to make it more enticing to prospective buyers. At time of writing, neither Story Kitchen or Hazelight—specifically, its very public founder/creative director Josef Fares—have commented.

Still, an adaptation seems likely. Hollywood’s grabbing any game it can to bring to film or TV, and Split Fiction has been pretty successful. The game, which is played entirely in co-op, stars aspiring writers Mio and Zoe. During a meeting with a literary agent, a machine made to steal ideas traps them in each other’s stories—so Mio is in Zoe’s fantasy story, and Zoe in Mio’s sci-fi adventure—and they have to work together to get out. Based off that premise, you can imagine how it’d make for a fun film, should it actually get adapted.

It also helps that Split Fiction has been pretty popular: it opened to strong reviews and sold over 1 million copies just days after launch, which grew to 2 million copies within a week. For publisher EA, this is its latest play at bringing its games to film and TV; a Mass Effect show is coming to Prime Video, and Hazelight’s 2021 co-op hit It Takes Two is also being adapted in the near future.

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