The gaming community is still buzzing about Split Fiction, the new action-adventure game from the Swedish studio Hazelight Studios. In its first week after release, Split Fiction drew the attention of popular Twitch streamers and climbed to the top of the platform’s most-watched games. The game set multiple viewership records and even outperformed the legendary It Takes Two in terms of unique channels.
Split Fiction follows the story of two female writers who craft novels in the sci-fi and fantasy genres. They become subjects of a scientific experiment and end up trapped in their own stories. To escape, they must learn to collaborate, solve puzzles, tackle challenging obstacles, and defeat tricky bosses. The gameplay of Split Fiction is designed for two players and bears a striking resemblance to It Takes Two, which was released in 2021 and won "Game of the Year" at both The Game Awards and D.I.C.E. Awards.
Split Fiction was released on March 6 for Windows, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. The game earned a 92/100 on Metacritic, 98% on OpenCritic, and received outstanding reviews from gaming publications like IGN, GameSpot, Eurogamer, and more.
In the first week after its release, Split Fiction streams accumulated over 8,700,000 Hours Watched across all streaming platforms. Nearly 66% of that total came from Twitch broadcasts. Steam and YouTube also ranked among the top three platforms for viewership — a significant part of Steam's activity is tied to the 24/7 marathon on the official EA channel.
The most popular channel for Split Fiction streams was eastreamingonsteam on Steam — this is the official EA Games channel on Steam, This is the official EA Games channel on Steam, featuring 24/7 broadcasts of Split Fiction from various streamers (mostly re-broadcasts from Twitch and YouTube). Over seven days, it racked up nearly 1,300,000 HW, with a peak viewership of 47,480. The eastreamingonsteam channel is mostly filled with streams from VTubers, which is why the Steam chat is packed with viewers from Asia.
On other platforms, the Twitch streamer with the largest Split Fiction following was Erik ‘’GRONKH’’ Range, a popular content creator from Germany. He played in Split Fiction together with Max ''PhunkRoyal''. On YouTube, the top streamer was Windah Basudara from Indonesia, known for playing through popular story-driven titles on his streams. He played the game with his friend.
In the week following its release, Split Fiction was streamed by popular content creators like Félix ‘’xQc’’ Lengyel, Rachell ‘’Valkyrae’’ Hofstetter (duo with Miyoung ‘’kkatamina’’ Kim), Rafael ‘’Cellbit’’ Lange, Lucas ‘’Squeezie’’ Hauchard (duo with Locklear), ironmouse (duo with Connor ‘’CDawgVA’’ Colquhoun), and others. Notably, female streamers made up a significant portion of the viewership — accounting for around 41% of all Twitch channels broadcasting the game.
Comparing Split Fiction and It Takes Two
After its announcement, Split Fiction was quickly compared to It Takes Two, as both games were developed by the same studio and share similar gameplay.
According to Streams Charts, Split Fiction generated 12% more watch hours in its first week after release than It Takes Two. The peak viewership for Split Fiction was 25% higher, and in terms of the number of unique channels streaming the game, it outpaced It Takes Two twice.
Split Fiction records
Split Fiction ranked seventh in total watch hours during its first week among all titles published by EA Games during 2020 - 2025. If you exclude sports simulators (FIFA / EA Sports FC) from this ranking, the game would take second place, just behind Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.
Other notable achievements include Split Fiction becoming the most popular title on Steam in terms of peak viewership during the March 6-12.
