Split Fiction's Josef Fares Has "Already Started" Next Game, Clarifies Relationship With EA

Hazelight just released Split Fiction, and the game is getting rave reviews and has sold more than 2 million copies so far. Everyone always wants to know what's next, and now director Josef Fares has confirmed Hazelight is already at work on its next project. Fares also discussed Hazelight's partnership with EA, saying the company is a good, respectful partner.

"Split Fiction is the best-received game we have done, everybody is super happy, but I'm so fully focused and excited on the next thing," he said on the Friends Per Second podcast (via Culture Crave). "We've already started." He also confirmed work began about a month ago.

Fares didn't share any concrete information on Hazelight's next project--which is "quite early" in development--but he said the mood at the studio right now is very positive and staffers are amped for what's coming next. He said the team is feeling like they can do "way better" with the next game, whatever it turns out to be.

"It's not like we're feeling now, 'Oh, shit, how will we top [Split Fiction] or do better than this?' We just feel like... just wait until [you see] what we do next. I know it's cocky. But that's how confident we feel in what we're doing," he said.

Fares has directed four games so far, including Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (for Starbreeze), A Way Out, It Takes Two, and Split Fiction. It Takes Two has been the biggest success of the bunch, selling 23 million copies. Split Fiction had almost double the budget and has sold 2 million copies in its first week.

GameSpot's Split Fiction review scored the game a 10/10. The game is published by EA through its EA Originals program; it's the first EA-published game to reach 90 or above on Metacritic since 2012's Mass Effect 2.

All of Hazelight's games so far have been co-op titles (Brothers was a single-player game with a unique co-op element). Fares said co-op will always be part of Hazelight's DNA, but he didn't rule out the possibility of the studio changing things up. "You never know what happens in the future. It's not impossible we look into single-player as well. But it would be done in a Hazelight way, with a Hazelight twist. It's not going to be your typical single-player game."

Also in the interview, Fares shed some light on Hazelight's relationship with EA. He confirmed that Hazelight does not pitch to EA. Instead, Hazelight says to EA, "We're going to do this," Fares said. "That's it. They have zero to say about what we are doing next."

Fares said it might be true that EA is "f**king up" its partnerships with other companies, but not Hazelight. They respect us. They respect what we do. I am very clear with them that they cannot interfere with what we do."