A pair of Split Fiction players will be heading to Sweden to check out the next game from developer Hazelight Studios after becoming the first to prove that they'd completed a secret in-game challenge that's so difficult, some members of the development team can "barely" beat it.
As explained by GamesRadar, figuring out the existence of the challenge, known evocatively as "Laser Hell," was, well, a challenge in itself: You have to first enter a hidden code into an elevator's floor pad trigger in order to get where you need to be. But that's the easy bit: What follows is a level filled with lasers moving and spinning every which-way, requiring spot-on precision and timing to get through—from both players.
What waits at the end, though, is a genuine surprise: An in-game video of Hazelight Studios founder Josef Fares congratulating the players on their achievement, and making a pretty big promise.
"Wow! Amazing," Fares says. "You have to understand, this challenge, there are barely people on our team that can make it. It took us a lot of time to finish it, and I'll tell you, this is a crazy, crazy achievement you have done."
After urging people who are watching the clip on YouTube to take a shot at the challenge themselves, Fares continues, "To those of you that are actually in the game seeing this video, I'm super amazed. I'm going to tell you one thing, if you see me in real life somewhere and you can prove to me that you actually did this challenge, I can promise you the first one who does that, I'm going to fly you to Sweden and show you early footage of our next game.
"I promise you that—and then show you some other surprises as well. I guarantee you that. Just grab me wherever, wherever, and just prove it to me, and I promise you I will take you to Sweden and you will have the adventure of your life."
Fares is pretty well known for shooting from the hip and even this in-game video has a certain "grab a camera and let's do it" quality, but he's also true to his word. A few people have shared videos of the challenge on YouTube, including streamer ItzByte who shared the video embedded above, but credit for the world first goes to Chinese speedrunners sharkOvO and E1uM4y.
"VERY impressive!" Fares wrote on X. "I will keep my promise and invite you both to Sweden for an early look of our next game. We'll be in touch!"
And, for the record, yes, Hazelight is in fact working on something new, even though Split Fiction only rolled out a couple weeks ago: Fares said in a recent interview with the Friends Per Second podcast that early work on its next game has already begun.
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