Here’s a problem nobody talks about enough: convincing your friends to drop $40 on a game they’ve never played is hard. You love this new co-op game and want to share it, but your buddy isn’t sold on spending money for something they might not even enjoy. So you play alone, or you settle for games everyone already owns. It’s frustrating, wasteful, and it kills word-of-mouth for great co-op titles. But games like Split Fiction, It Takes Two, and A Way Out figured out a solution that’s so obvious you’ll wonder why every multiplayer game doesn’t do it.
It’s called the Friend Pass, and it’s simple: one person buys the game, and their friend downloads a free version that lets them play the entire experience together. No trial limits. No restricted content. The full game, completely free for the second player. Split Fiction took this concept and made it even better by adding crossplay support, meaning your friend can be on PlayStation while you’re on PC, and neither of you pays twice.
How the Friend Pass Actually Works
The mechanics are straightforward. You buy Split Fiction on your platform of choice for the standard $39.99 price. Your friend goes to their platform’s store, whether that’s Steam, PlayStation Store, Microsoft Store, or EA App, and downloads the Friend Pass version for free. You invite them from the main menu, and you’re both playing together within minutes.
The genius part is what happens after. If you’re both enjoying the game but you need to log off, your friend can’t continue playing alone without buying their own copy. But here’s where the psychology works in the developer’s favor. If the game is good enough that your friend wants to keep playing when you’re not available, they’re probably going to buy it. And when they do, they can use the Friend Pass to invite someone else, creating a viral loop of new players discovering the game.
Split Fiction’s crossplay implementation makes this even more powerful. Previous Hazelight games like It Takes Two and A Way Out had Friend Pass features, but you were locked to the same platform. If you owned it on PlayStation, your friend needed to download the PlayStation version. Split Fiction removes that restriction entirely. Own it on PC? Your friend can download the Xbox Friend Pass and play with you anyway. That’s huge for friend groups spread across different ecosystems.
Why This Isn’t Just Charity
At first glance, letting people play your $40 game for free sounds like throwing money away. But Hazelight Studios and publisher EA aren’t running a charity. The Friend Pass is a calculated business decision that increases sales rather than cannibalizing them.
Consider the alternative. Without the Friend Pass, both players need to buy the game before they can try it together. That’s an $80 barrier to entry for experiencing a co-op title. Many potential customers hit that barrier and walk away, choosing free-to-play games or titles they already own instead. The Friend Pass reduces that barrier to $40 while actually increasing the likelihood that both players eventually purchase.
Research shows that word-of-mouth recommendations from friends are the most effective marketing tool in gaming. When someone plays Split Fiction using the Friend Pass and loves it, they tell other friends. They might buy their own copy to play with a different friend. They post about it on social media. The Friend Pass essentially turns every satisfied customer into a sales ambassador who can physically demonstrate the product to potential buyers.
EA’s data from It Takes Two supports this. The game sold over 16 million copies despite being exclusively co-op and having the Friend Pass available from launch. Clearly, giving away half the player slots didn’t hurt sales. If anything, it probably accelerated them by removing the biggest friction point for co-op games: coordinating purchases.
Split Fiction Takes It Further
Split Fiction launched on March 6, 2025, and Hazelight made its Friend Pass even more generous than before. The new trial feature lets two people who both have the Friend Pass play the opening section together without anyone owning the full game. It’s a try-before-you-buy system that benefits both players.
Imagine this scenario: you and a friend both download the free Friend Pass. Neither of you has purchased Split Fiction yet. You can still play together through the first chapter, experiencing the gameplay, story setup, and unique mechanics that define the experience. If you love it, one of you buys the full game and you continue where you left off. If you don’t, neither of you wasted money on something you didn’t enjoy.
That’s consumer-friendly game distribution that respects player time and budgets while still protecting the developer’s revenue. You’re not being asked to pay for something sight unseen. You’re not being limited to a 30-minute demo that barely scratches the surface. You get enough content to make an informed decision, and progression carries over when you purchase.
Other Games Adopting Similar Models
While Hazelight popularized the Friend Pass concept with A Way Out in 2018, other developers are starting to recognize its potential. Steam added official Friend Pass support to its platform features, making it easier for developers to implement similar systems without building custom solutions.
Games like Operation Tango, We Were Here Together, and Tick Tock: A Tale for Two have all embraced variations on the concept. Some offer asymmetric designs where both players have fundamentally different experiences, making the Friend Pass even more appealing since buying two copies wouldn’t change what each player sees anyway.
Even massive free-to-play games are adopting adjacent strategies. World of Warships and similar titles offer generous free tiers that let new players experience substantial content before spending money. While not technically Friend Passes, the philosophy is similar: reduce barriers to entry, let people try before they buy, and trust that quality content will convert free users into paying customers.
The Accessibility Angle
Beyond the financial accessibility, Friend Pass systems address another barrier: matchmaking anxiety. Many players hesitate to jump into online multiplayer games alone, worried about toxic communities, skill gaps, or simply not having fun without friends.
The Friend Pass guarantees you’re playing with someone you already know and trust. There’s no risk of getting matched with strangers who might ruin the experience. You can coordinate schedules, communicate freely, and progress through content at whatever pace suits your partnership. That psychological comfort removes barriers that keep people from trying new multiplayer experiences.
Split Fiction also includes accessibility features like customizable difficulty, reduced enemy damage options, and the ability to swap quick-time events from button mashing to holding. These features complement the Friend Pass by ensuring more players can actually enjoy the game once they’ve accessed it.
What This Means for the Industry
The Friend Pass model demonstrates that developers can reduce piracy, increase sales, and improve player satisfaction simultaneously by being more flexible with how they distribute content. It’s not a solution for every game, single-player experiences wouldn’t benefit from it, but for co-op titles specifically designed for two players, it’s borderline perfect.
The model works because it aligns incentives correctly. Players want to try games without financial risk. Developers want word-of-mouth marketing and viral growth. The Friend Pass delivers both by letting satisfied customers introduce friends to the game at zero additional cost while maintaining revenue from purchases.
As game prices increase and budgets tighten, expect more developers to explore similar approaches. Subscription services like Game Pass already let people access large libraries for monthly fees. Friend Passes take a different angle, focusing on specific titles while eliminating the subscription entirely for the second player.
The Counterarguments
Critics argue that Friend Passes potentially reduce sales since some people will exclusively play using their friend’s copy without ever purchasing. This is technically true, but it ignores market realities. Those players weren’t going to buy the game anyway. The $40 barrier already eliminated them as potential customers.
By allowing them to play through Friend Pass, developers accomplish several things. They increase the active player base, creating more opportunities for word-of-mouth marketing. They potentially convert future customers who might buy DLC or sequels even if they never purchased the base game. And they build goodwill with consumers who remember which developers respected their budgets.
The data supports this perspective. It Takes Two sold 16 million copies with Friend Pass available from day one. A Way Out moved over 10 million units. These aren’t small indie titles scraping by despite generous distribution. They’re massive commercial successes that arguably achieved their scale because of the Friend Pass rather than in spite of it.
FAQs
How does the Split Fiction Friend Pass work?
One person buys Split Fiction for $39.99. Their friend downloads the free Friend Pass from any platform’s store. The owner invites the Friend Pass user, and both can play the entire game together online with full crossplay support across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Can both players get achievements with Friend Pass?
In local co-op, both players earn achievements. In online co-op, only the player who owns the full game receives achievements. The Friend Pass user must purchase the game to earn achievements during online sessions.
What happens if neither player owns the game?
Split Fiction allows both players to download the Friend Pass and play through the opening section together as a trial. If one player purchases the full game, all progress carries over and they can continue playing together.
Does the Friend Pass have time limits?
No, the Friend Pass has no time restrictions. As long as one player owns the full game, they can invite friends indefinitely and play through the entire experience together.
What other games have Friend Pass features?
It Takes Two, A Way Out, Operation Tango, We Were Here Together, and Tick Tock: A Tale for Two all offer similar Friend Pass or free co-op partner features. Steam has also implemented official Friend Pass support for developers.
Why don’t more games use Friend Pass systems?
Friend Pass works best for co-op games specifically designed for two players. Competitive multiplayer, single-player campaigns, and games with more than two players face different design and business challenges that make Friend Pass less effective.
Can I change which friend uses my Friend Pass?
Yes, the game owner can invite different friends for each playthrough. You’re not locked to one specific Friend Pass user and can share the experience with multiple people over time.
Conclusion
The Friend Pass isn’t revolutionary technology. It’s just smart business wrapped in consumer-friendly packaging. By acknowledging that asking two people to pay $40 each before they can even try a co-op game together is unreasonable, developers like Hazelight have found a solution that increases sales while making gaming more accessible.
Split Fiction’s addition of full crossplay Friend Pass support represents the next evolution of this concept. Platform barriers that previously limited who could play together are gone. Financial barriers that prevented friends from trying games together are reduced by half. The only remaining barrier is whether the game is actually good enough to justify the purchase, which is exactly how it should be.
As games get more expensive and players get more selective about purchases, expect the Friend Pass model to spread beyond Hazelight’s titles. It’s too effective at converting skeptical players into paying customers to remain a niche feature. Whether other developers can execute it as successfully remains to be seen, but Split Fiction proves the concept works when implemented thoughtfully.
If you’ve been on the fence about Split Fiction or any other Friend Pass game, just grab a friend and try it. The worst-case scenario is you both wasted a few hours on something free. The best-case scenario is you found your next favorite co-op experience and one of you happily pays the asking price. That’s not a bad deal for anyone involved.