The Ringer-Verse - ‘Split Fiction’ Reactions and Our Top Five Couch Co-Op Games, Plus Josef Fares | Button Mash

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

Ben, Matt James, and Steve Ahlman step into their simulators and share their spoiler-free reviews of Hazelight's latest co-op opus, ‘Split Fiction.’ After discussing the highs and lows of the genre-bending adventure, they name their all-time favorite local co-op games (01:28). Finally, Ben talks to Hazelight founder and ‘Split Fiction’ director Josef Fares about the new game's development, the keys to co-op success, the future of gaming, and more (01:00:29). Host: Ben Lindbergh Guests: Josef Fares, Steve Ahlman, and Matt James Producer: Jessie Lopez Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, The Town, on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name's Matt Bellany. I'm founding partner at Puck and the writer of the What I'm Hearing newsletter. And with my show, The Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week, we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight, which

streamer is on the brink of collapse, and which executive is on the hot seat. Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who will never eat lunch in this town again? Follow the town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Trimphia, proper training is required.

Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramfaya today.

Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Tramphiatoradio.com. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need weather tech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner. Or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer.

You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Why read, watch a story when you can live it, touch it, feel it. My fellow writers, let me introduce the machine, my life's work, the heart of this company. You will all undergo a unique simulation of your story. And during the experience, we will record and store it all. And then package and publish. Welcome to the next chapter of storytelling.

And welcome into the ringerverse, your Nexus feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindberg, your humble host here at ButtonMash, joined by a couple of co-op partners. Pressing X to join is the ringers'es. deputy art lead Mr. Matt James. Hello, Matt. Hello, Ben. But like Eldon Ring Night Rain, this episode doesn't support two-player co-op. Only three-person play. And so, rounding out our trio is a Midnight boy and Junior Mint, ringer's senior audio producer. Steve Alman. Welcome, Steve. I am also available to play for free on a friend pass. Oh, excellent. Well, move over, Monster Hunter. Move over, Kingdom Come. We have a new

high score on the Metacritic rating leaderboard for 2025 in video games. Split fiction is out today on Windows PS5 and series S slash X, and it's gotten glowing reviews. On this episode, we'll tell you whether we agree with those reviews, and we'll also give you our respective all-time top five couch slash local co-op games, as in games that can be played cooperatively by people playing on the same screen. And then I will talk to Joseph Ferris, founder of split-fiction maker, Hayslight Studios, and director of the game. He is also the guy who went viral in 2017 for saying fuck the Oscars at the Game Awards. We won't get into the Oscars this time.

Don't know whether he watched, but we will discuss how Hayslight followed up on its previous hit games, the development process and inspiration for split fiction, the keys to co-op gameplay, the challenges facing the industry, Hayslite's plans for the future, and so much more. So stay tuned for that chat. But first, let's chat among ourselves. Split fiction, developed by Hayslight, published by Electronic Arts through its EA Originals label, is the follow-up to It Takes 2, the 2021 game of the year, also a co-op title about a husband and wife who are planning to get divorced, but then instead get transformed

into living dolls by their despondent daughter and go through various adventures as they try to return to their human forms, console their daughter, and repair their relationship. Ferris also directed Brothers, a tale of two sons, a favorite of mine, and the co-op predecessor to It Takes Two, A Way Out. Hazelight's latest game, which was announced at the Game Awards in December just a few months ago, features Zoe and Mio, two writers who were trapped inside a machine that immerses them in the worlds of their stories as a nefarious company called Raider, tries to raid and steal their ideas. The premise is really ringerverse coded because Mio likes sci-fi, Zoe likes fantasy. So with one player controlling each character via local or online split screen, the setting switches between sci-fi and fantasy worlds. With gameplay ranging from platforming to puzzle-solving, to shooting, to flying, to controlling teeth who fight a dentist, it gets strange sometimes. But also in a good way.

Matt, you and I started this game with our respective wives, but because we're nocturnal, ultimately teamed up with one another, our true better halves, in order to complete the campaign before we recorded this episode. So we partied up on PlayStation around 9 p.m. my time last night, and we partied all night long. Roughly halfway through the 14-ish hour game is where we started. and we finished split fiction at roughly 4 a.m. Eastern. Only one for you, but it was quite a marathon. Nothing for me. Now.

Just eating lunch at that time. So, you know. Steve was spectating for part of that time because Steve likes to watch. That's what everyone says. Okay. So why don't we give our overall verdicts? And then we can get into the specifics of what we did and didn't like. Matt, you have seen everything.

What do you make of split fiction? I have seen everything. Split fiction, let me start out by saying, I think it's a wonderful game. I think it's a can't miss gaming experience this year. I will also say that I think it has major narrative flaws. It has major character flaws. And I think that most of that can be overlooked

because of the level of creativity and ingenuity on display here. There are a few, I mean, the game tries to do a million things. Yes. And I would say it succeeds at about 90 to 95% of those things. There are a number of moments in this game that just make you go, wow, that is brilliant. I don't know how they thought of that. I don't know how they pulled that off.

I definitely recommend this game, but as we will get into later, I have a lot to say about the story of this game. Yes, it's a game about story, and I think most of our critiques apply to the story, ironically. Steve, you have not finished the game yet, and I will say this game is a grower. We liked it more and more as it went on, so you can keep that in mind. But based on your impressions so far, what do you think of split fiction? Boy, I love to watch and it's a grower. What does this game say about me? No, so I've always loved this studio's approach to co-op,

not only storytelling, but gameplay, because it seems to throw every single type of two-player experience and the kitchen sink along with it at the player. And I love the kind of ingenuity that they've brought, especially with it takes to, and always the God-tier brothers, which is basically a co-op game with yourself. the idea that comes through with split function,

I can see what they always try to go for here. And I think that execution when it comes to story, again, like Matt says, is a lot rougher than their previous entries. This actually might be the roughest of their narrative efforts. But I like to think that the gameplay that I've experienced so far, while fun is still seemingly growing on me. And while I was watching you and Matt play,

you were a bit of a ways further than me. I kind of experienced both of you guys taking a turn for the better in this latter half of the game. Not only with just the types of experiences that it's throwing at you puzzle-wise, but the amount of times that it tends to play with the camera plays with the idea that this is a split-screen game

that kind of warps and plays with the idea of how that screen is split. that's where the real creativity of this studio kind of comes into the forefront. And I just wish that it was a bit more on display earlier in my experience than it was probably later on for you guys. Because that really does color how well you think of this game later. Because all three of us in the beginning were like, I don't really know what all these people are talking about, given these reviews like a 9 or a 10 out of 10.

And then I get to see what you guys are playing later on in the game. And I'm like, okay, this is actually where we're starting to cook here. I'm curious what you kind of thought, how that opinion of yours grew, Ben, from the beginning to the end. Yeah, it definitely clicks about halfway through, right around the time that Matt and I started playing with each other. So who knows whether it is the game

or the fact that we ditched our romantic partners in life and teamed up with our true platonic loves each other. Maybe that's what we needed. But no, I think it's the game, not the partner. though certainly the partner you're playing with matters. There's just an ingenuity. Once you introduce all the mechanics and once you get used to everything, it feels like they just kind of level up as the game goes on in terms of the creativity

and the mold-breaking nature of what you're doing and the richness of some of the settings and the strangeness, the weirdness of some of the settings, gets really ramped up, which I think is a good thing. And there's truly a grand finale, which we won't spoil these specific. of here, I should say. We'll stay away from specific spoilers here because this game is just out today, but we'll talk in broad strokes. And there is just kind of a culmination of everything that you play as the game goes on in the final level, where it's truly a flex, truly a tour de force. And I almost wish there were more of that as the game went on. It's great that they saved the best

for last, but there's so many great ideas crammed into the end game that I almost wish more of had been sprinkled throughout the process. But I'm more or less with Matt. I think it's a really good game. If you're in the market for a co-op experience, then you can't really do better than Hayslite's games. But yes, when we saw the review scores come out as we were still playing this game, I definitely thought, huh, I'm not sure that I would have gotten quite that high as much fun as I'm having.

And I'm more in line with that now having finished the game. But there are some significant negatives. Why don't we start with the positives with what we liked? And we've all played previous Hayslike games. And Steve, you mentioned that. I mean, a way out is kind of a crime drama, and it's more grounded and real life, whereas It Takes 2 is much more fantastical and much more in the vein of split fiction. So if you enjoyed It Takes 2's gameplay, you will probably find a lot to like about split fiction,

because it is just frenetic. It is let us cram every genre that. exists into this single game with omages to many famous franchises that you will notice. And it's all pretty seamless. Not everything lands and you think, wow, this is a great segment. But when it really does click, like there is just brilliant game design going on here. Just so many set pieces and moments that are unlike anything that you've ever played in a co-op game, unless maybe it's a previous A's-like game. And I think those will be what will stick with me. the most, just some of those specific highlights, which I don't want to spoil, but some of them

just kind of make you laugh in appreciation and awe and just, wow, how did they do that? So that's the standout for me. Matt, what are some of the positives that you want to highlight here? Well, I think for me, a lot of the highest highs of this game were the sort of side stories that you get to do in this game. So the structure of it is you kind of bounce between the two main characters' fantasy world and sci-fi world. And in the process of being inside those worlds, there are throughout them side missions that you go on, that are sort of shorter little adventures

before you return back and finish what you're doing in the fantasy or sci-fi realm. And all of those side missions are much shorter. I'd say we'd probably get through those in about 20 minutes each, maybe. Yeah. And that is where this game's creativity really, soars before the later game

I think that they take the most risks in these side missions. I think that a lot of them are the moments that I will remember most in this game. Another benefit to them is that a lot of them take a complete detour from the art

style of the proper missions of this game. I think that seeing what the studio is capable of in a different art style that's maybe a little bit less realistic, that is more stylized, really made me hungry to see them do more of that. Ben, you and I were playing a section. I think Steve, you're watching that as well, where we said, hey, you know what this reminds me of is, like, psychonauts. Like, this has such a distinct feel in this particular

submission. It's an art style that has, like, a dark humor to it. And, and, and, it's a, you know, And I just really think that these side missions are really, you never know what you're going to get into. I was always excited to step into one of these side mission portals. And sometimes I was not too thrilled to step back out of them into the main missions. Yeah, the game's graphics are great. Like, it's a really good looking game, but it is kind of generic, almost on purpose.

It's just supposed to signal, this is sci-fi, this is fantasy. and it looks like what you would kind of conjure in your mind when you're thinking, sci-fi world, sci-fi setting, fantasy setting. And in these side stories, they are really free to explore the space. And it's just everything you can imagine. Like there's one where you play as pigs, and one of the pigs farts to fly, and the farts are rainbows. So that's kind of what we're talking about here.

Or some of them are like demos for much bigger games. Like there's basically an SSX style snowboarding game. just in one of the side stories or flying or racing. So many times what do you think? How much time? How many resources did it take to develop just this essentially vertical slice of a much bigger game that you play for 15 minutes? And then you move on. And it's so fully featured that you're like, gosh, I would play that game.

But it's just one tiny piece of this one. And that's kind of my ultimate frustration, especially with the early and midgame. of this. Again, I haven't finished it ultimately, but I know that that enjoyment is going to be coming a lot more. But the idea that all of these side missions and stories, which is a testament to the creativity of this studio, needed a sort of template to have all of these ideas be thrown at the player in a sort of visually consistent way while still working with the narrative conceit of the game that you're in this like AI-generated world that can have all of these possibilities yet is still breaking its seams.

So you have these weird and incredible departures from the main types of gameplay in the form of widely different art styles and widely different things that you can do with a co-op experience that don't really work with the game that you're playing, but still have the opportunity to be

in the game. I just kind of wish that that packaging was actually a bit more succinct or completely more devoid and separate. To me, this game studio feels like they could actually take on the concept of a like Wario Ware micro game compilation

quite well and they don't need to worry about narrative like structures really because there's chalk full of great ideas to make gameplay elements that are so well that everything else seems to fall by the wayside especially in split fiction

all of their creative like you know assemblies aside like the heart of this gameplay is really really good and we can never fault that. I just wish that this packaging was a lot better. Yeah, if anyone hasn't played a Hayslight game before,

it's different from your standard co-op in the sense that it's built from the ground up to be played cooperatively. There's no single-player mode. It's not just you're playing through the single-player campaign and then someone else joins. It is designed to be played cooperatively on split screen, whether you're playing locally or online.

And it is highly cooperative. if you have to really coordinate when it comes to button presses or manipulating the level to keep advancing. But there's also some freedom in that you're not bound to a single screen, and so you can run around as much as you like. And so that's great. No one else is quite doing it this way when it comes to co-op. And also, there's like AAA polish in these games. They just work really, really well. Hazlite's not a huge studio.

Obviously, they publish through EA. but I think about 80 people worked on this game, and it runs just so smoothly. There wasn't a single instance of slowdown for me playing with another person, either locally or online. No bugs, no significant jank. It just works really, really, really well.

And yes, all of those indelible moments, like there's one little sub-level where it's kind of a hand-drawn graphical style. It's, you know, someone doodling in their notebook, and you're playing along, those are the best moments where it evoked something like Super Mario Brothers Wonder or Astrobat,

where it's just pure fun and just going through ideas willy-nilly, like ideas that could be the basis of a full game, and it's just kind of tossed off here, and they're just like, let's try everything.

Let's put absolutely everything into this game. So I admire that quality of it, where it's like, let's not be bound by any particular thing. But then, yes, there is that overarching framework. of the story, which we should discuss. Matt, how would you summarize the story and how it's presented in this game?

Well, Ben, this is a game about books, allegedly. It doesn't... Okay, so the two protagonists are aspiring... They are writers who aspire to be published, right? Yes. They are unpublished writers. and the game just doesn't really convince me that there is much of an interest

in the world of literature or publishing so much as video games. I think that this whole framework of the corporate machine wants to steal ideas for books could have worked better if it was just this company wants to steal ideas for video games because there are a lot more references to video games in this game than there are references to books.

So that is one sort of awkward thing about this game. But I think ultimately what we want to talk about here, I think is that the characters, at least at the very beginning and through a good chunk of the game, are kind of hard to be around. one of them is very cynical and rude, and the other one is sort of overly optimistic and overly forgiving, and they just don't feel like real people.

They feel sort of underwritten in a lot of ways that there's a scene very early on in the very intro of the game, where the two main characters are meeting in an elevator on the way up to meet with the head of this company. And the overly optimistic one, what's your name again? Zoe. Zoe.

So Zoe is introducing yourself to Mio, the cynical sci-fi person, and Zoe just kind of cuts her off and says, I don't really do small talk. And you're just sitting there like, oh my God, that's so, like, is this, does one of us have to play as her? I don't want to be in this elevator with her even.

Right? Speak for yourself. I found that very relatable. My wife looked at me and she's like, so you're meo then. I understand the sentiment of it. But I think, like, for example, perhaps instead of her just being like,

I don't do small talk, maybe a better way of doing that is just giving short replies that don't lead to further conversation, right? Leaving the performance to fill in those gaps of, oh, she really doesn't want to talk to her. Right? and she's not going to say, I don't do small talk,

but she's going to try to dead the conversation in subtle ways that we, as the players, would be able to pick up on easily, right? And so I think that a lot of the dialogue and the character interactions are very unsubtle in that way, and unrealistically so,

which really hampers my enjoyment of the game, especially at the beginning. I think once the characters start connecting, more with each other later in the game. You start having some more believable interactions. But there were, Steve, you heard me on the strand last night. I was, there are some groans. I was groan.

There's some real struggles. And I think that it's more of the fact that, like, yes, we can easily see the type of narrative arc that, like, opposites attract type of story cliches that would happen here, that we can, like, kind of surmise. Like, one's a little grumpy. One's a bit too precocious. And the other one is just, you know,

And they're going to find a way to make it work at the end of the day. And that's fine. Like, we all love that. All of it is just very stiff and very, like, forced to kind of just hear what characters say just for the sake of saying it. Like, you would defeat a dragon and you're just going to say, for honor. And like, I'm like, huh? Like, do we have, have you instilled a sense of what you find honorable? It's not like, it doesn't have to be that deep, but it certainly is very on the nose and something that absolutely did not connect with me for most of it.

And I'm guessing that eventually it will come around, but for the most part, a lot of this dialogue is not great. But ultimately, the dialogue that you have, again, with your cooperative partner through gameplay, is really the connective tissue here. And every time that those characters interact with each other after something is either solved or if something is resolved, like you beat a boss battle or you solve a puzzle, it's kind of undercut with the actual eureka moment that you have with your cooperative player partner. And that's kind of the real bummer of it all. And the fact that the CEO's last name is his first name. That sucks. The CEO, it's this megalomaniacal kind of almost cartoonish villain, which I think is to some extent intentional, but it's this guy who is just drunk on his own power and wants to steal

everyone's stories. And it seems very much like a commentary on AI and large language models. And I'll talk to Joseph a little bit about how much that was intended, but that's certainly how a lot of people are reading it. And so Raider is just kind of constantly ranting about about my machine, and I've been working on this for 20 years, and how dare you? And so there's a lot of that. There's not really a lot of nuance to his character. Like, what are his motivations here? Why does he want to steal everyone's stories?

Is that he's unable to tell stories himself, and he's bothered by his lack of creativity. Like, is this the kernel of why he is so driven to steal all the stories? We don't really know. We don't really get much insight into Raider. As for the protagonists, they're very earnest. There's a lot of pluck. And I think what you're highlighting here is that there's just a lot of telling and not showing that happens in this game, where the gameplay is great. But it doesn't so much illustrate the themes for me in a way that, say, a game like Psychonauts does, where as you're playing through the levels, they tell you what is going on psychologically in this very clever way.

and they mirror the themes of the game. And in this game, that is less true, I would say, where you'll play through a great level and you'll have a lot of fun. And then there will be a cutscene where some emotional trauma is revealed that isn't really a twist because you can kind of see it coming, although the characters for some reason can't. And then they'll just explain, oh, this element of that level must have symbolized this trauma

that is going on in my life. And it's not necessarily something that you would know while you're playing or that would be just conveyed by the gameplay and the level design. It's more so, well, this is in the script and we know that another emotional conversation is coming after each sequence. So that's why the friendship didn't fully land for me. I'm not sure that I buy that these two would get together, even though they've been through so much over the course of this game. and ultimately they do find a way to get along and cooperate, but aspects of that just feel a bit forced, or as you're saying, unsubtle to me.

Yeah, and another issue that I think you and I both were experiencing is that the worlds themselves that they're traveling through, as authors, you would think, you know, okay, so they're here to craft stories, to tell stories, right? In every world that we get into that is supposedly, you know, one of their ideas, we don't get, to really see any of the characters, any of these stories within these stories. They're all environmental settings that we're going through, right? There's no, there rarely are circumstances

where they are playing roles within their stories as characters who might have competing interests or anything, right? Like, they're just a little bit more hollow because they seem empty of people and world building. It doesn't really feel like a lived-in world that you're crossing through, which would certainly help. Yeah, there are villains, there are monsters, there are many, many bosses, but there are no other characters, really. There are no NPCs, which I think is mainly because the focus is supposed to be fully

on the friendship, but even so, these worlds do feel a little hollow. And they'll describe them as stories, and they'll say, oh, what a great story, but it's really just a premise. It's a setting. Here's a world and here's what you do in that world, but there's no, you know, we love a character on an arc. And other than these two main characters, there aren't really any other characters or arcs for the most part. So they are more game designers. I'll bring this up with Joseph, but they are more game designers than they are novelists. It seems they've crafted these great places to play around in, these excellent sandboxes, but the actual stories do feel like something that you could have crafted with

AI. It's so odd because, again, knowing that I hate to harken this back to It Takes 2, but I know that they're very capable of making a very charming and poignant little story because they had something that was genuinely great in It Takes 2. And to think that they couldn't quite capitalize or capture that magic this time, is disappointing, but to know that this gameplay is clearly evolved

since last time is really where it counts. I think that as muddled as this game's perceived message is, it might not be that deep for the people that made it because they really just want to have this excellent

narrative conceit to bring all of these cooperative ideas to the forefront, which are executed very well. For that, I tip my hat to them. Yeah, they are brilliant. And I also will say that there are, I did personally find some of the moments towards the end, somewhat affecting in ways that I didn't at all at the beginning of the game.

So it's not like it's completely devoid of heart and doesn't connect at all. There definitely are some of those moments. But I think that playing this game and seeing, and I feel like we've been talking a lot about the negative. of this game for sure. But I also don't want to undersell the positives, like, the brilliant design of some of

these levels. Yes. The ingenious game design only serves to strike a more stark contrast when the narrative and the characters fall short. It's like,

it's a very, and you're, you know, thrown into those cutscenes after you've just played some level where you're like, I don't even know how technically they could have even thought that they could do that. And then you're hit with dialogue that I'm groaning

at the dialogue, like two seconds later. So there's a bit of whiplash with like how well-conceived these two elements are for me. Did you find that too, Ben? Yeah, and as we were playing, so many times we were just kind of chuckling in appreciation at like,

oh, look, they did it again. Like, they did something that we didn't see coming. this is so clever, and I would hear you kind of under your breath saying, like, this is great, this is awesome, like, this is fun, you know? So there were so many times where they did fully put it together. Because at first, it feels like, okay, if you played, it takes two, this feels like more of the same.

It's very fun, but fairly forgettable on a moment-to-moment basis. You were just kind of going through level after level, and it's seamless, and there's not a lot of friction. But then later on in the game, especially, and some early sequences. It's just like, yeah, I've never really seen anything like this before. So I would recommend that anyone who has someone to play with, check this out. And if you haven't tried it takes two, it's the same sort of deal where if you get the game,

someone else can play with you without owning the game, which is great. You can just give them a friend pass. And cross platform. And crossplay this time, yes. So you can play any platform that this game is out for. It supports crossplay. And so you can team up with anyone. And because of the nature of these games,

I think a lot of people who don't typically play games or wouldn't consider this as a hardcore gamer, they will play. Be warned that this game does get challenging at times. Just in terms of the mechanics, the actual difficulty of executing certain sequences, it's fairly forgiving when it comes to checkpointing and boss fights. And so even if you're kind of banging your head against the wall at times,

you're not going to have to go way back and replay long segments for the most part. So you can just kind of brute force it and just get through by attrition, essentially. And you can also always hand over the controller to someone to get past the tough point or something. Plus, there are a lot of accessibility options that you can use where if you're really stuck on something, for instance, you can just skip to the next checkpoint if you get desperate. So they make it fairly accessible for people. But yeah, be warned, it's not the easiest. moment to moment. This isn't probably something you're going to play easily with a little kid,

for instance, who has no experience with video games. And also, Mio and Zoe are very different personalities, but also pretty different in terms of gameplay, where Zoe is almost in more of a support role often, and Mio is more of the aggressive one, which mirrors their personalities, but at least in my mind, Mio gets to do a lot of the cool stuff, the shooting, the action, whereas... We kept joking, like, we have... have a new, we enter a new area in the game and it's like, Ben's like, I can fly. And my character is like, oh, I get to, I can roll on the ground. I can roll and that's it. Ben's like, oh, I got a gun. And like, I can push things. I can roll. This is the gaming equivalent

of the peanuts. I got a rock meme. Yes, exactly. Like, we have a dragon level. I can fly as the dragon and you can roll. And I vomit up green stuff. Traditional dragon activity. Yes, but that actually did work well with me and my wife, because she is kind of a Zoe, and I am kind of a meo. And also, I am more of an action game type player, and she is more of a deliberate puzzle-solving type player. So that actually worked quite well for us. Any closing thoughts?

Any other things that we want to say about split fiction before we get to a few other co-op highlights? This is still a recommend. Despite anything that we might have said that's like less than glowing, the experience is still very, very good. And I recommend this to almost anybody. Yeah, I agree. Even if, you know, even if I couldn't stop thinking about how the villain just felt like a Scooby-Doo villain,

and I expected them to pull the mask off. I wish he was a Scooby-Doo villain. He wouldn't have worn a horrible turtleneck like that. I mean, these kids are very meddling, you know, so. It's true. Yeah, no, what you said, Steve, it's still a strong recommend. I still strongly recommend that anyone who likes video games give this a shot. And that fact that you only have to buy one copy and you can play it with someone on a different system,

that is really cool. That is really cool that they had enough sway to get EA to continue to do that. Money-hungry EA. I think that really speaks to a lot of the heart that is present in this game's design. and you can feel how much this game about books loves video games. And that system of buying it and giving it to a friend, it really speaks to that as well. So, yeah, strong recommend.

Same for me. I think we're reacting, if anything, to the just absolute rave reviews that are out there, which, I mean, I'm happy that people are enjoying it. I want Hayslight to continue to get to make whatever games they want to make and fulfill their creative visions. And I'm certainly not here to... Yeah, I'm not here to rein on anyone's parade.

So if it's a nine or ten for you, I'm thrilled. But, yeah, if this game we're getting sevens or eights or something, I think maybe we would be stressing the positives even more. But as it is, we're maybe pumping the brakes just a bit, while also saying... Yeah, while also saying that we enjoyed it very much and that it fully succeeds with flying colors in its main objective, which is to provide a substantial...

an incredibly compelling co-op experience. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 US-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business.

So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. restrictions apply, services not available in all areas. So, speaking of compelling co-op experiences, before I talk to Joseph, let's shout out some highlights of the form. This is something we like to do when we talk about a game in a certain genre. Just talk about some of our touchstone, some of the highlights, the foundational games. They may not be everyone's favorites, but our personal favorites, at least, and do our top five couch co-op games or local co-op games, not necessarily split-screen. although they will be in many cases,

but games that you can sit next to someone as this game is really designed to be played in that way, and you can just fully enjoy that interpersonal experience as well as the gameplay. So maybe we can just go around the room here, and we can start, I don't know whether you ranked or whether you just have a top five jumbled together, but give me one, Matt, why don't you start off,

and then Steve can go. Portal 2. Yeah, same it. I don't sound like to, I just skip straight to the formal draft, God damn it. The number one for everyone. I was like, let's start with number five. No, Portal 2 is, I mean, it's the best, right?

It is the, it's the standard setter. I think Ferris has actually shouted that out as a game that he looks up to. No doubt. Yeah, it's the greatest. It's innovative. It's humorous. It's, yeah, I could see it being a direct inspiration very easily. It's an all-timer of a game.

And that is a game that really succeeds in, in advancing a narrative of reasonable. It's not overly optimistic. It doesn't try to cram a huge amount of story in, but it crams enough in, and there's a lot of personality to that. And that works very seamlessly with the gameplay. And that game, just from start to finish,

just finds new ways, new ways to engage you and teach you more about the systems. It's just a flawless video game in my mind. Yeah, that game just, breaks your brain. It's also great because it's highly cooperative, but also you can kind of fuck with your co-op partner, which is, I think, a hallmark of the best co-op games where, yeah, you're pulling together, but also sometimes you're not. So that's something Portal does really well. Well, now that Matt has stolen our thunder with the universal best consensus co-op game

of all time, Steve, what's on your list? What's on my list is probably the game that got me to make friends in college. That's rock band too. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Beatles are rock band on my list. Oh, and I also love Beatles Rock band, but I'm more so talking about Rock Band too because I think I think I might have bought every single possible piece of DLC for that as it came out, when it came out. Don't ask me how much money that is in real life, but

like that was like, that was just an era of addicting games that were both able to be played by friends and yourself that it's just so easy to bring somebody into that activity, regardless of what they want to do, play guitars, sing, play drums. It's genius. And it really, like, outside of harkening back to a time of video games being a certain thing and a certain level of accessibility with both being online and in person, that was just like truly a pinnacle of time in video gaming. I'll shout out maybe the first co-op game I ever played going way back, and that's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, the arcade game.

The arcade game, but the NES version of the arcade game. That's the one that I was playing at home. And this is the one that I was playing in that story that I have related maybe multiple times about the tragic death of my Nintendo Entertainment System when it was yanked by my cousin, and I was console deprived for years after that. The game that we were playing was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, the arcade game. which that looms large in Lindbergh lore and really just added to the devastation of that moment

because we were having such a great time playing this game. It's great in the arcades too, but maybe even better, better balanced on the home version, which I guess in the arcade you could play with more people, but the NES version had more levels and a more deliberate pace, and it was just great. And also it didn't cost you any quarters and you could just play it indefinitely.

And it was quite challenging, but also very satisfying when you made your way through it. it, which you could do conceivably in a single setting. So, Teenish Mutant Digital Turtles 2, the arcade game going all the way back. Matt, give me another one. Well, I just want to say the side-scrolling beat him up is like one of the first wildly successful co-op genres. Yeah, that had to be represented here somehow.

So many titles over the years. Like back in the day, X-Men, Simpsons, like streets of rate, just so many. Whether it's the brawler or more of a bullet hell shooter type. Or more recently, like Castle Crashers a few years back. Yeah, right. So many. There's some of that in split fiction, too, by the way, just because every genre is in this game,

there's a little bit of that, too. My next game I'm going to list is the overcooked series. Oh, yeah. That is some intense co-op. Do you want to lose friends? Because this is one of those genres. That's not a game that's going to bring you together. It is if you're good at it.

Okay. This is where you've got to say yes, chef, to Matt, whenever he's barking your orders on the line. not true. Here's the thing that people don't get about overcooked. Most of the game happens in your communication verbally with your partner. If you don't get that part. Now, show of hands with our significant others say that we are good communicators. Yeah. We're getting, look, my wife and I have four-starred like a tremendous number of overcooked levels. And she had some struggles playing sections of split fiction

because the 3D platforming thing is pretty difficult for her as not a regular gamer, but Overcooked is not such a 3D platformer, and she's excellent at

the managing of systems in that game. And I think when we talk about co-op games, a lot of what we do in a co-op game is sort of this non-verbal feeling out with each other. And I think with overcooked, it is a really unique experience because so much of that game is verbal. It is communication off screen. That's, yeah, and it's brilliant. And it's certainly

a thing to get people in arguments if that goes awry. Yeah, really. It's a marriage tester. Yes. Sure, sure. Can you get through this? And your marriage test survived and thrives. It's trips abroad and overcooked. That's what it is. Red Eye flights and overcooked. Oh, oh. Okay. All right. Yeah. That's oddly specific.

Okay, we'll ask about that later. My next one. It takes two style fraying of your relationship, I think. But I'm glad that it's worked out for you, too. All right. What do you got, Steve? I'll probably have, like, my first forre into, like, epic storytelling when I was a kid that came from split screen co-op, and that'll be Halo 2.

Yeah. That was just an incredible trip. my best friend had an Xbox and he's like, wait a minute, I can be Master Chief and you could be Keith David. That's cinema. And I don't think that it's ever been as high. Say what you will about the story or whatever of Halo 2.

You can't say that shit wasn't fun. And playing that with a buddy next to you, I don't know if it gets any better than that. It was some incredible stuff. Yeah, I think Halo 2 did for co-op shooters, what Gold and I did for competitive shooters in some ways. Actually, you could say the same for both in terms of Halo. It's online presence with the ascent of Xbox Live.

It was kind of capitalized on thoroughly, probably you would say, in Halo 3, but it was there in two and perfectly executed for co-op in its story mode. Yeah. Speaking of perfect execution, I was thinking of mentioning Perfect Dark, the successor to Golden Eye, which was also a great co-op. although the frame rate was like three. Yeah.

It's best in our memories, Golden Eye. It's better in our memory. Had to have that expansion pack. I was also considering a Halo, and it was kind of on the bubble for me. So you claimed it. I'll let you have Halo. But I was going to go with Halo 3, actually.

That's fair. That's entirely fair. You can't go wrong really with any Halo. But Halo 3 was more designed from the ground up to be co-op, I think, whereas Halo 2 was more, oh, this is cool that we can do this at all. Yeah, exactly. It's more like tales of writing. behind Sonic and Sonic 2.

Hey man, respect the Arbiter. We had fun. I will go with a 2000 shooter, 2, modernizing from my 1990 NES game, and I'll take Left for Dead 2, which came out in 2009. Left for Dead, classic co-op series. I appreciated the co-op

even more because I'm a coward when it comes to video games, and so having another human with me while playing Left for Dead was essential to my experience. But you have the AI director who's messing with you and making it entertaining. And then you also have a human who is there with you. There's a lot of strategy. There are a lot of jump scares and just moments that you will remember forever from certain runs

through a left or dead level. So, yeah, two, I think, really ramped up the co-op even more than the original. So I'm going to go with that one. Back to you, Matt. Yeah, I have a pretty recent one. It's called Path of Exile 2. I guess isn't out in 1.0 yet. It's only an early access. But man, when that game like comes out, comes out with a full campaign, my God, that co-op is incredible. I feel like I've been hearing about this game for like seven years. And it's been an early access for about two. It's incredible.

Once it comes out, you're going to have a lot more people talking about it even louder again. The co-op in it is just tremendous. The single player is tremendous. Everything about that game's great. Yeah, I can't wait for the whole thing to face. finish and come out. Game's not even done and it's on my all-time list. Damn.

Steve? Another one that I experienced with a friend when I was in an early age. This is basically my immersion into, like, Gen 1 Xbox gameplay. And that's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory. Oh, wow. When I got to play that in co-op split screen, it was probably some of the most fun I might have ever had because it's twofold. One, you get to bit, you have like separate,

individual co-op missions as not Sam Fisher, but this team of other spies that operate in tandem with what he's doing in the story of the game. And you had the multiplayer versus modes of Merks versus spies, where that turned into, like, one person plays a first-person shooter type of, like, assault character, and the other one plays a Splinter Cell-esque character with their own type of kit to like basically see who's the better player. It was kind of the most fun that I had ever played with a stealth game with somebody else.

It was brilliant. And please for the love of God, bring back some of us. Holy shit. Bring back to her money. Get that money. God damn it, you be soft. Where have you gone? You'll make skull and bones for 10 years, but you won't fucking,

oh, okay, I'm going to get mad. All right, I'm going to go with, Baldersgate Dark Alliance. Oh, not three. Dark Alliance. No, kind of a cult classic for 2001, PS2 Xbox era, subsequently ported to just about everything.

But this is sort of a Baldur's Gate spin-off. It's more of a dungeon crawler, hack and slash, not a turn-based epic RPG. This is same screen, not split-screen, so you're just going through a dungeon, you're hacking and slashing skeletons and such. And this is also great.

It looked really good for the time, and it was collaborative, but it also had that competitive element where I think when you killed an enemy, like the person who struck the fatal blow got 60% of the experience points, and then the other person got 40%. So there was some incentive to being the one who got to kill. But then also, whoever got the gold got to keep the gold, the gold wasn't shared. So you'd constantly be. Okay, that's kind of broken, but also like, it was That's toxically competitive. Exactly. It was like, you know, we're best of friends.

And then there's a loot drop and suddenly we're enemies and we're competitors. So that was awesome. And I hope that the success of Baldersgate 3 just somehow leads to a comeback for Baldur's Gate. We need a Baldersgate Dark Alliance 3 with local co-op because that was great. Matt, to pack around to you. I'm going to go with Stardue Valley. Oh, yeah. Yeah, this is, I have not played Stardu Co-op.

And so I couldn't speak to it from personal experience, but I mean, the greatness of Stardu combined with co-op, easy case to make. I just, I haven't had. Really, really, really well. I've put a ton of hours into the co-op of this. It is a really great experience.

And you can drop in and out, like when, you know, and it is just like you're building stuff together, you're sharing resources, is you're, you know, one person's off doing one thing while the other one's doing another thing on a totally different part of the map. And then you come back to go, you know, fix the farm together, work on the layout. And it's just, it's a really relaxing split screen co-ops that is kind of a lost experience in the modern gaming era, I think. Yeah.

And that's another thing. That's why I appreciate what Hayslight does in the existence of a game like split fiction, because there's just, not a lot out there. They've kind of cornered the market and they've done it better than anyone else, but I'd like to see someone else try to do it just because it'd be nice to have a game like this to play more often than every three or four years

when Hazelight releases something. Steve, what's up for you? All right, yeah, my final pick that I have, I promise that I don't host that many parties, but if I ever do, I will throw on Jackbox. Oh, okay. Which, again, you can't technically call this the most traditionalist

type of video game, but I promise you that you will have a good time with friends because they're on their phones anyway, and if you throw on quip flash, you will have a good time. Throw on quip flash

maybe like three hours into the night so that you have all of the inside jokes and stories that you have so that you can make fun little jabs about people in the evening. That's my take. And I bet you, everybody here has played jackbox

at somebody else's house. probably yes i know i have all right i would also have portal two on my list as i assume you would steve too so that was going to be in my top five we just didn't do a five because matt stole one that we were all going to take but we probably have some some smuggles i'll give you though one that i probably put on my top five and that is cuphead

come from 2017 yeah that game is really difficult notoriously difficult Exactly, right. It's not necessarily that it's easier in co-op play because the game just gets harder accordingly, but it is nice to suffer with someone instead of suffering by yourself. It helps you not rage quit when you're both getting angry and you can kind of commiserate. Now, I guess if your co-op partner screws you over and is the weak link of the team, then you might direct your rage at them. But it is really nice just to tackle the challenges of that game. The cartoony aesthetic, with the just absolutely punishing difficulty level of that game. It's best experience together, I think. What other games do you two want to shout out? I got a few to shout out real quick. Should I just do them in succession?

I want to shout out, this is not a couch co-op game, unless you bring your couch to the arcade, but the Time Crisis series is a co-op game. Oh, sorry, you don't pay for two guns and play like this? No. Well, you know, in the arcade, having the two different screens and the pedals

and the... It's just really a great co-op experience of playing through those time crisis levels and having slightly diverging paths and covering for each other at times. That's a great co-op arcade game, which is kind of a rarity,

I suppose. I also wanted to shout out the Gears of War series. That's some great co-op. Gears Co-op is great. Marvel Ultimate Alliance series, has some fun co-op, Gauntlet Legends from back in the day. N64 days of Gauntlet Legends, that's a fun one. Ben, are you going to shout up Pickman?

Well, the thing about Pickman is that it will ruin your relationship, at least in my experience. Oh, I see, I see. So a lot of the cutesy Nintendo games that I've played with my wife, I think it's maybe partly because there's like a tug-of-war aspect to it that you don't get in the Hayslite games where you are free to roam and you can do your own thing.

If you're on the same screen, like if it's a new Super Mario Brothers situation or Pickman, yeah, where there's a lot of strategy and go here, go there, and it just leads to some bitterness, some bad blood, you know? My wife and I, we don't fight much,

but in video games, when we played co-op and they're not Hayslite games, just always go great. So that's been my experience in Pickman, much as I love that franchise. I had Resident Evil 5, which people don't like that game. But it is a co-op game.

It might be a soft pass on that one. It is way better as a co-op game than it is as a single player experience. I mean, yeah, because the AI is more or less nonsensical if you don't have somebody else playing with you. I think the only other thing that I had that was missing off of this list that everybody said

was Rayman Legends. Rayman's probably one of my favorite series, or well, Origins and Legends has probably been like some my best favorite like Metroidvania side-scrolling platformers that have ever

come out in recent memory. And playing that with another person is very easy and very, very fun. It's just like, that's an era of like a mid-scale Ubisoft,

like art-driven, fun platformers that just don't exist anymore. And I always come back to that every once in a while when I'm like, man, Rayman Legends was like fantastic. And I'm pretty sure

I like, them that like twice. It's so, so good. I will also mention some shooters, I guess, time splitters. You mentioned time crisis, but time splitters, time splitters too. Great. Yeah, Earth Defense Force I very much enjoy. Just kind of a, yeah, low budget, arcady, just blasting giant monsters. Anyone play Army of Two? Remember Army of Two? Oh my God, Army of Two. Yeah. Just fully co-op experience. Also, the Lego games, just like all of them, any of them. Those are great and kind of easily accessible, low difficulty level, very fun for non-regular gamers. And little big planet, I would say, also.

There's some little big planet and it takes two, for instance, and the Hayslight games. And those are very fun to play together too. Also, I enjoy bridge simulators just as a genre. If you can get a bunch of friends together for an extremely nerdy experience, but specifically Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator, which is a game. I'm sorry, I've never heard of as cool as it sounds. What kind of bridge are we talking?

Like in a ship? Yes, a spaceship bridge. Okay. I was like, oh, okay, I thought you meant like poly bridge or something. Like you've got to build a bridge. No.

Artemis can be played with like three to eight people. It's best if you can fill out the full bridge crew. Oh, this is some nerd shit. Oh, my God. And there's, you know, Star Trek, there's a Star Trek version of this, like Star Trek bridge crew, which is VR. Right, right, right.

Artemis preceded this. And so, you know, everyone's at their station, right? Like, everyone's, you know, controlling the shields and the torpedoes and the engineering and the helm and everything. And you're, it's like, land. So you're all together in the same room and you're, like, shouting out orders and someone's the captain. It's the best. It's awesome. Has anybody played the mobile game space team?

No. No. Okay. So this is essentially what you're talking about, but it's in, like, the most basic form where, like, everybody has their phone and everybody has a different sort of console on their phone. Oh, I have played this. on their phone. And one person has orders that the other person

in the room has to hear where it's like, okay, turn the fribulator up to seven and then somebody else has to hear that. But it's just like 80 different people shouting at you for different orders. It's like, everybody shake your screen now. We got an asteroid field,

all of these things. I love chaos games like that because it's basically how well can you coordinate until you eventually fuck up. And that's always fun. Yeah. Ben, that pick of the bridge simulator reminded me of another great co-op game called Lovers.

What was it? Lovers in Space Time. Sorry. In Spacetime. Lovers in Space Time. Yeah. Yeah. Where you're like people on this two-dimensional ship and you have to run to each of the different platforms within the ship to do different things on the ship.

It's a really fun little indie game. In a dangerous space time. In a dangerous space time. There are so many more. So let us know what we omitted. I know a lot of people. like Deep Rock Galactic, and that's been a popular one lately. So, yeah, so many, right?

So we know what's coming up next on this episode. I will be talking to Joseph Ferris of Hazelight Studios. Let's quickly take a look at what is coming up elsewhere on the feed. On Wednesday, the Midnight Boys, we'll react to episode three of Daredevil Born Again. More like the 6 p.m. Pacific voice at this point, Steve. That's when Daredevil comes out. We get it out early, you know?

It's midnight somewhere. Yeah, you're not burning the midday. Midnight oil like me and Matt playing split fiction until all hours. On Friday, Mint Edition, we'll weigh in on the Invincible finale. Stephen Jomey. We'll have you covered there. And then next Thursday and Friday, respectively, House of R, will have their Daredevil Deep Dive and their pod on Yellow Jackets,

episodes 5 and 6. The week after that, Buttmash will be back as Jess and Arjuna joined me for an episode on Assassin's Creed Shadows. Will the game be good? Will it save Ubisoft? We will find out soon. Also coming up soon on ButtMash will be coverage of the upcoming Switch 2 Nintendo Direct, the Minecraft movies south of midnight, and of course the Last of Us season two.

You can contact us about anything and everything at ringerverse gaming at gmail.com. Matt, Steve, thank you for the team up. Thank you for your service. Always a pleasure to play and podcast with you. Thanks, Ben. Thanks for having me. This episode is brought to by Nass Energy, introducing new Nass Energy, Grand Prix Guava.

For those that want to be fueled up and fired up with a hundred-bound hour tropical tasting power, ignite your taste, start your engine, shift your flavor to high gear with new Nass Energy Grand Prix Guava. Hit the street, grab a can, and get after it. This episode is brought to you by Borris Head. What if we told you the taste of deep-fried turkey

is now available at your local deli? Well, Borishead just did that. Bursting with flavor, perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste that usually means planning your whole day around it, presenting the friars turkey breast only from Borshead. The backyard tradition now available behind the counter. Visit your local deli today,

discover the craftsmanship behind every bite. Bor's Head committed to craft since 1905. Then without further ado, activate the suits. This is so cool. Please step onto your assigned platforms to begin your journey. Welcome. Please step on your assigned platform. It's time to unleash your full creative potential.

Go. Well, I'm joined by Joseph Ferris, head of Hayslight Studios, makers of split fiction. And normally when you set up interviews, you have to plead for time. It's a negotiation. They offer 15 minutes. You come back with 30.

You meet in the middle. This is one of the rare instances when the PR person said, why don't we double that amount of time? Joseph likes to chat. And we like to chat with him. Hey, Joseph. Hello, hello, how are you?

Doing well. Why would you not want to chat when your game is as well-received as split fiction has been? And thus far, you haven't made a bad one. So I'm not surprised that you enjoy doing interviews. Well, I mean, I'll be doing a lot. So, yeah, I'm kind of tired of I'm doing it a lot,

but sure, let's go, man. You had a huge hit in It Takes 2. Not that your previous games didn't also do well, but that was a new level. It sold super well. critical acclaim, Game of the Year at the Game Awards and the Dice Awards. How does that change expectations, both expectations of you, your own expectations, your ambitions, the resources available to you?

Did that open up anything new for you as you were approaching the development of split fiction? I mean, obviously, we had a bigger budget. We had a more mature team. We've done this before. It just felt like split fiction was the right move for us. It was kind of the next step for Hayslite. Just felt very natural. And I mean, you can obviously see it when you play the game and the reception.

I mean, I can't wait until people started playing it. It's such a clear next step for Hayslite's evolution. And when I talked to you about Takes 2 years ago, I think you had already conceived of split fiction. So you've been working on this game for quite some time. Tell me about the decision to keep it under wraps until December and then do the grand reveal, not just of the game's existence,

but also, hey, it's a few months from being in your hands. I mean, it's always nice to, you know, announce something and release it quite close on. We just felt like why talk about it before, you know? It's better to get people excited and tell them it's coming in three months. We're not, I mean, at least till now,

haven't released something earlier than that. We kind of like want to do our thing and then release it to the world when it's kind of ready. It's also, I mean, to be honest, like you asked me, I would say a game should not be announced in less than a year than it's released, you know? Otherwise, you get kind of like, oh, where is it?

And you almost forget about it, you know what I mean? Right. Expectations get too high, maybe, and people start saying, what's wrong? We haven't heard anything new. Exactly, exactly. And I guess also you're in a financially secure enough position, public publishing wise. You know, you weren't doing early access or something like that where you have to drum up interest or funding by putting something out there. So you had the security to wait until it was

just about ready to drop. Yeah, I mean, we don't do early access. Obviously, we're a narrative game. We do a linear campaign that you play early access would be really bad for us, obviously. We make sure to finish the game, polish it, make it really nice, and then release it to the world for them to have fun. And it sure is a polished game, let me tell you. I would agree with that. So you mentioned the bigger budget. Where did that go? What was that devoted to? I think it's quite obvious when you see the game. I mean, obviously, you're jumping between sci-fi and fantasy worlds here.

Not only are you jumping between two worlds, you're jumping between several, several worlds. Not only that, we have side content that we call side-story. There are even worlds in the world. And building all this with new assets, animation, you know, sometimes new character, bosses, that is huge cost. And all these different mechanics, that is a huge cost. So all this is very time-consuming and also money-consuming, obviously. So that's where the money got.

But I think it's quite clear. You truly see, again, like I said, the next evolution of a Hayslight game when you see at this. One thing you told me about It Takes 2 that people might not realize is just the extra demand in processing power and rendering with a co-op game where you have to have split screen at all times. And you made that work with It Takes 2, and it ran well, but I wonder what it was like

not to have to develop for last-gen systems for the first time. This is the first game where you're focusing on just PS5, Series SX, PC. Did that take a load off? Did that make it any easier? Well, yes, I know, because obviously we're amping everything up.

I mean, I'm not going to go into details technically because I don't know them exactly, but we have some amazing technical guys here. And just recently I found out that Digital Foundry has just released their review or from a technical perspective. And what I've heard is that they're super, super impressed. I mean, and you should be impressed because when you look at it, like we run 60 on all

consoles, it looks and feels amazing. So take a look at the digital founder. I mean, they're very good that breaking down what's going on and whatnot, and they seem to be super impressed. So I'm really proud of my team for that. I think I said this to you the last time we talked, but it's still true. My wife and I have played all of your games together. and our relationship has survived that,

which has not been the case when we have played many other co-op games. It often ends in frustration. Even though our relationship is strong, it's been tested by some other co-op games, and there's something about your games, maybe because they're designed from the ground up to be played cooperatively,

that does not frustrate us, even though we have differing skill levels, and I will not specify which of us has the higher skill level, out of love and respect for my partner in life. However, sometimes that could be frustrating, and in your games, it is not. So how do you do that? How do you make it cooperative without being frustrating?

That's part of the design. Because we're doing narrative games, we make sure that we find mechanics that feels nice to play and they complement each other very good. And we don't want to make it too challenging because we're a narrative game. However, split fiction is a little bit more narrative.

So I often say that the game tells us where it wants to go from a, from a, you know, level of like how hard it is. It's not like we're trying to adapt it for everybody to be playing with their spouse or everybody to be playing with some non-gamer. So it's more like we did it this way and just, obviously make sure that the mechanics feel nice and fun and polished and make sure that you can communicate with each other. And then the world finds, you know, how they want to play the game pretty much.

It's not like we're adapting to it, you know what I mean. How do you find the balance between the cooperative aspects of the game, the time when you really have to coordinate and talk and say, I'm pressing this button, you press that button, versus the times when you are, to some extent, letting each person play independently? You know, you're not confined to a single screen. You can run around. You can explore a little bit. So how do you calibrate that, just the amount of close coordination required versus letting each person go off on their own? Well, I mean, it depends what's seen. This is more of a technical discussion on exactly how we design.

I mean, obviously we need mechanics that feel, like I said, nice and, you know, feels, I mean, fresh. But the most important thing, I think that, you know, that you can create, because I complement each other good. And then they will require you to communicate with the other player. There's a lot of trials in Android that are testing, what's working, what's not working. Can we solve, you know, can we do some great puzzles with it? or can we do some combat with it or whatever that mechanic. But also the most important thing is also like can we make sure it's an interesting

and nice boss design with it. So there's like an element of a lot of stuff. But also you don't want to be too dependent of your partner. You want to feel like you're actually controlling your own character as well. So there's kind of like a fine line there, like how much you need to communicate, how much you have to communicate and where you have to wait for each other, how long can be from each other. So there's a lot going on behind, you know, the current. it does. How do you playtest that, whether internally or with testers, do you outsource that to

when you've played the game, you've been spending so much time developing it that it's hard even to tell whether it's good anymore? You know, you kind of lose a sense of that. Do you have people you trust to say, hey, give this a go? Yeah, normally we have, we start by letting actually friends play it, like close friends, and we're not asking them, are you liking this or not? It's more like, are they understanding what we're trying to do? So it's more kind of like a feel like, okay, what's going on here? Are you understanding what to do? How is the control of those feeling?

Blah, blah, blah. So early, we're just taking like just close friends. And then after that, we start doing what we call like the UXR, where the user experience, where we're taking total random people and let them play, let them play. And here's the key part thing. Like we don't adapt our vision to them. We make sure they understand what we're doing. So if they write something like, oh, I mean, a bad example could be, I don't want to drive

bike, I want a car. We're not just, oh, let them drive a car. No, we make sure that they understand why it's cool to drive a bike. So we use that a lot to see, are they getting what we are trying to do, if you know what I mean? Yeah, and there is such an incredible variety of play styles and genres represented in this game, much like it takes to. And is that a quality of the studio as a whole or of you personally, just that sort of restlessness? I don't want to be tied down to one particular way to play.

I want to test the boundaries experiment? Well, I think it's a combination. You know, always when I played video games when I didn't work with it, I just felt that sometimes games could be repetitive. And also I think because my background as a filmmaker, I think pacing is something that I brought into game development. So when I started directing brothers,

there was a lot of pushback from people saying, like, oh, you can't do this, you have to reuse the mechanic. You know, when you hear like you use a mechanic, you teach the player, then you reward them, blah, blah. like, yeah, well, why can you do this? You know? And the beginning was very hard because I got a lot of pushback.

But now I have my own studio. I can do whatever the fuck I want. So it's very nice. And that is something that has become the core of Hazlite, obviously, because it's my studio. So everybody here knows that's how we do games. And every designer starts, every developer that's here knows that's how we approach it.

And that's been that has become our thing. And the reason for that is because I think, I mean, we're also a narrative game. You want the pace and to feel nice. You don't want to be replaying a lot of stuff. You don't want to be redoing a lot of stuff. And sometimes when you hear like, why are we doing this stuff that is so expensive and only playing it for 10 minutes? And then my answer is, well, if you look at a movie, if you have a really cool scene,

you're not replaying that scene just because it's cool, you know? You take away the awe moment, the greatness of it, the uniqueness of it, the special thing of it if you reuse it too much, so I guess it helps also to have the resume that you've built up at this point so you can say, hey, check the scoreboard, check the sales, check the hardware. It's easier and easier now, but in the beginning, let me tell you, it wasn't always easy, you know, but it doesn't really matter because I'm quite persuasive. Like, no, let's do this. I think it's going to be great. And so how do you assign those sections of the game? So you have all these side stories that are just completely separate from the main narrative and have their own

hook, their own gimmick, their own setting. Does that come out because someone on your team, just says, hey, I have this random idea. This would be cool. And then they get assigned to build that thing themselves, or is it all collaborative? Or is it sort of split into, I'm doing this and I'm doing that? No, we test a lot of things. You know, the good thing is about Hezla is very flat structure.

So everyone's idea is welcome. So the thing is only me and the team. So if we want anything in the game, we just add it in. So it's a very creative process. So we just talk to each other. You do this. I do that. Okay, boom.

And if there's anything, I mean, I'm in every day. We're talking every day. So that's why it's very iterative and it's quite fast-paced how we do it. Obviously, we have learned also how to do it fast away because we have created great tools around this. We are a more mature team. So there's a lot of aspects of it. But it's different ways on how to do it.

But we become way better at it. And do you decide when you're going into development, hey, here's a list of the genres we want represented in this game. Or even when you have more specific homages to certain franchises that you can kind of tell there's a little bit of a love letter to some other game, perhaps that people might recognize.

Is that something that you organically decide as you go, hey, here's a place where we could stick this in? Or is it more when you're putting on a whiteboard as you're just starting development, hey, it'd be cool if we could sneak in a reference to this or that. We always have reference in our games.

That's kind of our thing. We kind of love to do it. It's almost like a love letter to video games. and they just organically get in, you know, they just like a, we find something like, okay, let's do that's cool. That, okay, let's do that's cool. You know, it's kind of like a natural process of a haze lighting pretty much. Yeah.

So, Mio and Zoe, do you see them as good writers? This is something that I was trying to decide as I'm going through the story here, because it seems like, you know, their creativity is obviously emphasized, but there are times where, I mean, they're unpublished, right? They've been struggling. Are they canonically good at this? Or is that sort of in the eye of the beholder? Yeah, it's in the eye of the beholder.

I think the idea is that, I mean, I wouldn't argue that they're great writers because that's also part of the story that they kind of nitpick on each other's story. They're like young, and they have a lot of hopes, a lot of ideas, but they might need a little more, you know, training on how to, you know, do it a couple of times.

But again, that is part of the story, but the whole story is essentially about the friendship. about them. And it's also not what stories they have written. It's why they have written them. I mean, I don't know if you play it through the game. Have you played it to the end? Yes.

You know, like we will learn more about them, who they are, what their trauma is are. So there's a reason behind this, you know. And one of the reason we didn't focus too much on their stories because that would take away the attention from the true story of the friendship of them, you know, how that would start and end pretty much. It feels to me like they're made to be game designers, maybe more so than novelists.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you look at it from that perspective, yes, sure. But I think the concept is that it's written stories. It's not actually video games. But yeah, if you look at it from that, yeah. So you mentioned the theme of friendship, which you emphasize in the game. You've emphasized in interviews, the friendship between Mio and Zoe, the friendship hopefully between people who are playing the game and not getting angry at each other.

a lot of reviewers have also really responded to what seems to be a commentary on the use of AI, large language models, etc., which you've kind of downplayed in previous interviews, it seems like. So is that something that was intentional, was explicit that you want people to have this takeaway? Hey, this is kind of a critique of the way that things are going? It's just a nice reference of what's going on today. I mean, it's not a big critique or any kind. Look, I think AI in many ways, like, it's hard to say where it's going to go.

Like, if you ask me in five years, then I will give you a more accurate answer. Right now, we don't use it in our games. I think it's hard to use an accurate way in game development for now. You can probably generate some pictures here and there, but not that I know of, maybe in the future. And who knows? I mean, in a sense, we've been using AI in games before.

I mean, we've been generating worlds. we've been creating like AI enemies, AI co-partners, so on and so forth. So we can't, and for me, I see them as tools. So if AI become great tools to make better games, then I would say, sure, why not? Because at the end of the day, we all want to play great games. So in a sense, AI is both fascinating and terrifying. Depends on how you look at it. But either way, it's going to be very exciting to follow, see where it goes.

Yeah, and no one wants anyone to lose their jobs. plenty of people have lost their jobs as it is. And there are hopefully ways that it can be additive, that it could just do away with some busy work, that it could free up people to do more creative work. But I wonder whether there's also an aspect of, you know, even if you're coming up with a generic story or setting, I mean, some of Mio and Zoe's stories are kind of generic, right? I mean, it's, you know, this is fantasy, this is a trope of this genre. But if it comes out of their, life experience as opposed to being spit out by a machine, then there's something more meaningful about that, right? If it's human generated, if this is something that you labored over, that you

struggled over, as opposed to just entering a prompt and then out it came, you know, and it was just kind of an amalgamation of many other stories that people have told. That seems like it's a message that you're sending in this game, just in emphasizing how much of the life experiences of these writers is put into their work. Yeah, but there's definitely something in there. But again, the focus ends the friendship. I mean, that's kind of like a way to make it more. That's reflecting what time we're in now, kind of, you know.

So you didn't sit down to say, hey, here's the machine, here's Raider, this is chat GPT, this is Sam Altman, this is. No, I mean, I would argue we just, we didn't, like, it was actually we didn't focus too much on a villain, we just made him kind of like a normal villain

because the focus again was with them too. So he was like a kind of a villain with like this big machine, big corporates. In a sense,

it's quite like your normal villain just in a video game, you know? Yeah. Well, I would say it hasn't hurt the response to the game

because writers like to be flattered. We like to be told how special and creative we are. And so if the sentiment of your game is that that's true and that we can't be replaced by

robots. I think people they're eating that up, I think. We're happy to hear that. I'm happy it goes that way. So there's definitely some truth to it for sure, but it's just that it wasn't that our focus. I mean, we definitely talked about it, but that wasn't our main focus with the story,

so to speak. But yes, it is the bad guy, the machine is stealing ideas. So there's definitely a very, very clear thing here. Right. And I guess that doesn't necessarily need to be AI LLMs. It could be any kind of corporate recycling of IP or creativity of writers that has gone on forever in some degree. But I wanted to ask about designing the personalities of Mew and Zoe and then also the playstiles, because they are separate. And Zoe's almost sort of a support class character at times.

There's kind of a different way that you're making your way through these levels. And one thing that I found when I was playing with my wife and that I've read other reviewers say is that people tend to strongly identify with, oh, I'm a meo or I'm a Zoe. Like you kind of, I'm a meo, for sure. So I wonder whether as you were designing that, you found that that was the case,

that people would identify strongly with one or the other? Or did some people say, I don't really see myself in either of these characters? Or did you design it in such a way that it's almost like a horoscope where you read your horoscope and you're like, yeah, that sounds like me, that sounds right. I mean, did you want people to be able to identify with one or the other very strongly? Yeah, it's kind of like you always want characters that are opposites.

You can relate. I mean, obviously, I've heard people relate to Mio or relate to Zoe, something that they're not into Zoe and vice versa. They're not into Mio, depending on what kind of personality you are. I mean, but design-wise, it wasn't really like affected that way. I mean, obviously, Mio is a sci-fi, you know, characters, so hers are more actiony, more like a... So that obviously affected her character, how she was.

And Zoe was fantasy, more cozy, more... So that definitely, like, affected the way those designs. So there were stuff that we couldn't do in Zoe's levels that you could do in Mios level. For instance, if it was something very violent, it was actually in... I mean, if you're seeing that Miyo story has way more violent story, like explosions, a lot of...

while Zoe's more like, you know, fluffy and so on and so forth. But on the other hand, we learn later with Zoe was asked for him too much that she's hiding something way darker that we understand more later. Yeah, which has kind of been a theme of your games to this point, I guess, that there is an underlying darkness. I mean, in a way out, maybe it's not underlying, it's sort of on the surface. But in Brothers, in it takes to there's pain, there's trauma, right, even though these are kind of colorful, friendly-looking worlds. and characters and there's lots of light and there's lots of fun. There is always some deeper grounding to all of this. So I don't know whether that's something that you've taken from your own life

or whether you just think that it's more memorable. It resonates more if there is some suffering, some pain that the fun is coming out of. Well, there's always, I mean, depending on what story you're doing, but there's always something dramatic and interesting from a, story perspective to have something happened to you, obviously. So that comes, I think, naturally from the story. And also, of course, I'm inspired from my own life and how I react to stuff and what I do and so on. I think the inspiration comes from everything.

It's a combination of the urge of wanting to make a great story, but also that you actually are inspired from your life. And also I have to say, you also get inspired from the actors that are making the parts, like how they are, we tend to like adapt a little bit to them how they are. So kind of like color the character as well, you know. And when I talk to you about it takes two, I think you said that you weren't really thinking about replayability. Because we know from the numbers that people don't finish games the first time very often. And I know that's a big target for you, that you just want people to finish your game, that that's a lofty goal.

This time, though, it does seem as if, you know, there were times where my wife, was playing as Zoe, I was playing as Mio, and I was thinking I would actually like to have played through that period as Zoe. That seems like it was a significantly different experience. So was that in the back of your mind that, hey, we want this to be sufficiently different that people might want to switch it up and go back through it again. I mean, I'm not going to complain if people we play.

I'm just, the only thing I mean that before, they don't talk about as much like now, but before there was a lot of talks, especially for publishers, because some people say, how is they replay it? They even talked about a lot in the reviews. And I often said to the reviews, like, journalists, stop talking about this. No one is even finishing our games.

But you hear it very rarely today that the replayability, blah, blah, blah, you know, depending on. There are some games that are like if it's a rogulyte game, for instance. That's obviously part of the game that you play it. But generally, you don't talk about that way. And I think, again, like I said last time, we have a big issue that people are not finishing our games. I think we have over 50% of play through,

which is like a huge number considering us, But I still think it's weird comparing. Like if you would have a cinema, you go to half the audience walks out, that would be really sad. But, I mean, again, if people are going to replay, I think actually, and Hayslight game is the best way, because if you replay the Switch character, you will actually enjoy different mechanics that feel different to play. So in a way, you're kind of playing a different game because you're getting different, you know, abilities. It's also seemingly increasingly difficult to get people even to try a new game,

let alone to finish it, just if it's not in an established franchise, if it is not based on some famous IP, and of course, people are playing the same games year in and year out. They're playing Fortnite. They're playing Vowarent. They're playing Apex.

They're playing Grand Theft Auto, Roblox, Minecraft. Those are just the perennial leaders, right? And so you are not making sequels. You're creating your own IP. And so I wonder whether you feel that pressure to compete with these established Titans. Not really. I mean, look, we do what we love to do. And I think the other day, people will feel the passion and find it. I mean, Owayat has sold 11 million. It takes 2, 23 million.

I don't know what split fiction will do, but I'm guessing it's going to do well. So there's obviously, like, I truly believe if you follow your passion and do what you believe in, people will play it and love it. So I think focus on that, instead of trying to find the market, what's going on in the market. I think that's a wrong approach. It's better than create the market, because that's what's pretty much the pageless has done. Do you see any lessons in the success of your studio weathering these challenging times in the industry, as so many others have had to lay people off and downsize, and even people have made great games, have had their studios shut down, and you seem to have managed to thrive

at this point. So is that serendipitous? Is it luck? Is it, hey, here's how you can replicate that? I think it's a combination of a lot of things. I would really love to know what goes on behind the curtain because I don't know exactly what's going on. But I don't think it's as simple as, you know,

publishers always shuts things down. I would love to know what goes on in the background. I mean, to be honest, I think it's a combination of both sides. I think both creativity and finance needs to meet. And what I mean by that is that some students, I think, need to push more and what they actually want to do, like have a more maybe clear vision.

Some publishers need to understand that let's not focus on money and actually respect what the developers wants to do. And a great collaboration, let's say Nottid Dog, for instance. You have Sony and Nottid Dog. They can put out these amazing games and still have like huge financial success. So that's a great combination.

So I would argue that would be really nice. I would really love to know what's going on behind all this shutdown. I really hope it's not only a financial thing. I guess it is at most but what I'm saying is that if we know what's going on behind the curtains, I think we learn more

how to avoid it. Right now we're just hearing about it. I would love people to go out and talk about it, like what is actually going on? Because we don't know, we're just guessing, they shut down this, they shut down, who knows what's going on? You never know. It might be that, I don't know, half the studio

left started something else, it might be that developers didn't have any clear vision what to do or didn't want to do, or didn't want to do it. It might be that the published just don't want to make money. They didn't allow them to do anything. What I'm trying to say here is like, we can either see the world in a black and white way

and see it like a very simplistically, or we can try to see that this is a very complex question and to understand it, we need to know what's going on here to understand it. And it's all for us to make better games in the future because that's what we all want. We don't want anybody to lose their job or nothing like that. No, we want all to make better games,

understand what it takes to make a great game. You see what I mean? And we need to understand that it's a combination of creativity and finance. If one is too much, that's not going to work as well. If you give people just millions and millions and hundreds of million dollars and go on and go on and go on, I mean, we have examples where nothing has come out yet, you know what I mean?

But if you give also the finance people too much power, then it's going to be, oh, it's going to only be life service or so on and so so there needs to be bounds between them. Like I truly believe that. And we need to be, I would hope that we could be more open of what's going on so we could learn of the mistakes, whoever makes them, if you know what I mean? A lot of your games, including split fiction,

have had a big finish, whether it's a last level or a specific moment at the end where everything kind of culminates. All of the cooperative play comes to a head and reaches some new level and hopefully some satisfying emotional payoff. And I don't want to spoil any of the endings. Maybe it's safe to spoil brothers or a way out at this point.

It's been around for a while. But there are specific moments where the co-op play, you find a new wrinkle. You turn it on its head and you feel like, oh, it was all building up to this. And split fiction has sort of a similar culmination where you feel like, oh, this is really coming to fruition. I've spent a dozen hours with this and now I see the vision. You can talk in as much detail as you want to about the ending of split fiction and how you conceived of that. final level, but I wonder how you decided, okay, how are we going to top what we had done up to that point? What's going to be the special manifestation of the cooperative play that we

will top everything off with? Well, obviously, we won't be able to talk about this because that would exploit and destroy and spoil the feeling. You just have to play it to understand. I mean, you've played it, and I can say it too, and you can agree with me. It hasn't been done like this in a video game before. I mean, wouldn't you agree with that to have played it? have you seen it done like this before? Not exactly, no. Exactly. So when I say these people, they think I sound cocky,

but I'm just saying, we are doing something that is truly unique that I think a lot of people will be in awe of. I mean, I think a lot of people would be amazed and it's a perfect haze-light twist ending. But it doesn't happen. I mean, I don't want to be the M-night Shalaman kind of like a over like a six-sense ending,

but to be honest, like both brothers and a way out. And in a sense, it takes two heads as well, but it didn't really work out. But there's something sometimes with the ending that's it. But it doesn't have to be old. It's not like, oh, we have to have it to make it. But when you get it to work, then it's

really amazing. But I really want people to play it through to see what I mean. Yeah, and I guess it's tough when you have that epiphany. Here's what we're going to do to wait until the end to save it. As opposed to using it earlier when it won't have the same impact. So, whenever there's a big success, you get a

game of the year, inevitably, there are copycats, they're imitators, there are people who say, this rogue-like was successful, now let's all make that, let's make a soul's like, and you get a wave of games that are very reminiscent of some success. Have you seen that happen with your games, with It Takes 2? Have you seen other people come along and say they're doing something along these lines, or do you still see yourself as sort of an outlier? It's kind of, it's still an outline. I wonder why. I think there are games developed right now. haze light games like the split screen co-op only but and I think I don't think anyone expected them to be so huge successfully you said I definitely believe that there's a

developer out there I know that their developers out there pitching this kind of game so hopefully we will see that soon because I think I would love to play one and I would say like we kind of create our own sub-genre it's kind of like the Dark Souls games that we kind of created our own like co-op genre a little bit and the thing is Like, even if you don't do it as good as we do it at Hayslight, it's still going to be, people are still going to want to play it, you know what I mean? So it's like the Dark Souls copy games, you know what I mean? Like I hope more of it comes out.

I really don't want to play this type of game. And this is your brand that's well established at this point, that you're the co-op kings and you've kind of carved out this corner for yourself. Do you find that at all confining, restrictive? Again, the games, there's so much variety in them that it's 50 different games within one game. But is there a part of you that says, I've mastered that, what's the next challenge? Or maybe I want to do a game that doesn't just throw a bunch of stuff at the wall, but it focuses on one thing, or it's not a co-op game. Yeah. I mean, look, co-op will always be part of a DNA. Variety will

be always part of a DNA because that's something that I truly, like I said before, falls me from my background as a filmmaker. However, the first game brothers was a single player experience. But that said, that means that it's not totally impossible that Hazelah does a single-player game as well. But it's going to be done in a hazelight way, for sure. It's not going to be your typical single-play game. So who knows in the future? But again, co-op will always be part of our DNA

because we love it and there's so much cool stuff to do. You've mentioned that you were a filmmaker. Is it hard for you to sit on the sidelines as your games potentially get adapted and maybe the progress has been slow with it takes to? I don't know whether there's already been in an adaptation of split fiction, but is there part of you that says,

I want to do this myself? If I had the time, maybe, but to be honest, there's a lot of talk in Hollywood. Who knows if it's going to happen or not happen? To be honest, I don't really care, because I don't have the time right now. It happens, it happens if it doesn't. It would be fun if it happened,

but that's totally not my focus right now. Finally, do you prefer fantasy or sci-fi? depending what mood I'm in. Right now, I'm quite tired because I've got to go pick up my kids soon. It's been a hard day at work. I think I prefer fantasy when I'm cool, calm. But normally I have a very high energy,

and then I prefer a cyber. So it depends what mood I'm in. All right. I don't expect you to reveal anything, but do you know what you're working on next? We're already working on it right now. So this is pretty much like one of the last interview I'm doing. Then it's all, I mean, we've already started.

So it's all my focus is on the next. I mean, split for me is gone now. That's it. Out of the fact. Old news. Yeah, that's old news. So we've already started. All right.

Well, this interview is over, so it's time for you to turn the page and get going on the next one. I look forward to finding out about it. Thank you, Joseph. Thank you. Have a good one. Nice talking to you, man. All right. Thanks to Joseph.

Thanks to Matt and Steve. And thanks to Jesse Lopez for producing this podcast. Thanks to Jesse, too, for reminding us of an incredible co-op classic that we forgot to mention, the Lord of the Rings, the Return of the King. As soon as he said it, we all said, yes, of course, the return of the king. Thanks also to our podcast, King, Arjuna Ramgapal, for his senior management of the Ringiverse. Stay tuned to the Ringiverse and Hasabar for coverage of Daredevil, invincible yellow jackets and more. But Mash will be back in a couple weeks to cover Assassin's Creed.

In the meantime, you can contact us at Ringiverse Gaming at gmail.com. And as always, we thank you, the listener, for being the perfect co-op partner for our podcasting. Couldn't do it without you. Or maybe we could, but no one would pay us, which is also pretty pretty. important. Talk to you soon. Lindbergh out. Once more, hope of spring has returned to the underlands and everyone can live happily ever after. You've got to admit, feels kind of good, doesn't it? What does? Saving the world. It had its moments. You can do better than that. All right, the monkey part didn't completely suck. I knew you'd come around.

Finally. I'm going to miss this place. Let's get out of here. Feels like every product claims real protein these days. But real doesn't start on a label. It starts at the source. Like real California milk from California farm families, it's real dairy delivering high-quality, complete protein.

With all nine essential amino acids to help build muscle, give you energy, and keep you safe. satisfied longer. So keep it real. Look for the seal. Real California milk. Summer is here, and Ralph's is your destination for hot savings. Find unique items at low prices with a wide assortment of products from our exclusive brands. Fire up the grill with cookout classics like burgers and brats, and don't forget, delicious produce like fresh melons, or beat the heat with frozen treats while chilling poolside. Whatever your summer plans, Ralphs makes it easy to enjoy high-quality, fresh food at affordable prices.

Ralph's, serving SoCal for over 150 years.