{"id":694893,"date":"2026-01-14T07:29:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T07:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/694893\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T07:29:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T07:29:12","slug":"hazelight-founder-josef-fares-on-ea-lets-be-honest-theres-not-a-publisher-in-the-world-that-hasnt-fd-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/694893\/","title":{"rendered":"Hazelight Founder Josef Fares On EA: &#8220;Let&#8217;s Be Honest, There&#8217;s Not A Publisher In The World That Hasn&#8217;t F****d Up&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"scanlines\" title=\"It Takes Two\" href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/d9aa83d04068b\/it-takes-two.large.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/it-takes-two.900x.jpg\" width=\"900\" height=\"563\" alt=\"It Takes Two\"\/><\/a> Image: EA, Hazelight Studios<\/p>\n<p>Electronic Arts has been in the headlines for all sorts of reasons over the years, but Hazelight Studios founder and director Josef Fares (<a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.purexbox.com\/news\/2021\/01\/josef_fares_blasts_xbox_series_naming_convention_as_a_total_fking_mess?utm_campaign=related-articles&amp;utm_medium=web&amp;utm_source=nintendolife.com&amp;utm_content=in-article\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">who is known for expressing his honest opinion<\/a>) can&#8217;t help but feel the third-party video game giant is still &#8220;getting more s**t&#8221; than it deserves.<\/p>\n<p>His team&#8217;s award-winning games (including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/it_takes_two\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">It Takes Two<\/a> and more recently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch-2\/split-fiction\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Split Fiction<\/a>) have been backed by EA and during the same <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2026\/01\/i-dont-see-ai-taking-over-split-fiction-director-josef-fares-on-the-rise-of-ai\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">CES 2026 interview<\/a> with <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thegamebusiness.com\/p\/split-fictions-josef-fares-i-would\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Christopher Dring at The Game Business<\/a>, Fares took a moment to defend the company &#8211; acknowledging how it&#8217;s actually been a &#8220;super good collaboration&#8221; between the two parties, even if it hasn&#8217;t been completely perfect at all times.<\/p>\n<p>He goes on to state how every publisher has its moments, while calling out Nintendo and the other two major players in the console industry:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><strong>Josef Fares:<\/strong> \u201cLet\u2019s be honest, there\u2019s not a publisher in the world that hasn\u2019t f*****d up now and then. Sometimes I feel that EA is getting more s**t than they deserve. I mean, come on, Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, everybody\u2019s done something that\u2019s not good. But for some reason, EA has become this bad guy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Despite EA being labelled a &#8220;bad guy&#8221;, Fares insists there are still &#8220;a lot of great people at EA&#8221; and they know how Hazelight operates and respects this. He adds how he&#8217;s &#8220;surrounded&#8221; by people at EA who &#8220;love games&#8221; and it doesn&#8217;t feel like he&#8217;s with a bunch of corporate suits. And if the situation does ever change, Fares says he&#8217;s got no worries because Hazelight will always do &#8220;what it wants&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to read more about the Hazelight founder&#8217;s thoughts, he&#8217;s also shared his opinion on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2026\/01\/i-dont-see-ai-taking-over-split-fiction-director-josef-fares-on-the-rise-of-ai\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the future of AI in games<\/a>. And as for his work, his studio&#8217;s latest release Split Fiction was one of the <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/nintendo-switch-2\/split-fiction\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Switch 2&#8217;s launch titles<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n<p>Would you say this is a fair take from Fares? How would you compare EA&#8217;s track record to certain other industry giants? Give us your thoughts in the comments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text source\">[source <a class=\"external\" title=\"External Link: https:\/\/www.thegamebusiness.com\/p\/split-fictions-josef-fares-i-would\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thegamebusiness.com\/p\/split-fictions-josef-fares-i-would\" target=\"_blank\">thegamebusiness.com<\/a>]<\/p>\n<dl>\n<dt>Related Games<\/dt>\n<dd class=\"first\">\n<\/dd>\n<dt>See Also<\/dt>\n<dd class=\"first\">\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<p class=\"avatar\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1753583769_175_avatar.jpg\" width=\"80\" height=\"80\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Liam Doolan\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Liam is a news writer and reviewer across Hookshot Media. He&#8217;s been writing about games for more than 15 years and is a lifelong fan of many iconic video game characters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Image: EA, Hazelight Studios Electronic Arts has been in the headlines for all sorts of reasons over the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7],"tags":[2244,806,128,123,270,53,16,15],"class_list":["post-694893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ea","tag-industry","tag-nintendo","tag-nintendo-switch","tag-nintendo-switch-2","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115892280763161506","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}