In video games, there are licenses that tend to disappear from the radar for many years or even decades. By miraculous or misrepresenting the news, the publisher could decide that it was time to get that license out of their boxes. As is the case with Deep Silver which surprises us with the announcement of a new TimeSplitters.
Image credit: Coach Media
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It was a good game
In fact, the TimeSplitters license belongs to Koch Media, which bought the rights from Crytek in 2014, after Crytek UK closed. A studio that started as Free Radical Design in 2000, joined Crytek in 2009. We owe them to the TimeSplitters series. Aside from Second Sight and the very forgotten fog of 2008 on Playstation 3, these are the only games the studio has produced.
A first-person shooter with a background of science fiction and time travel. The first game will attract a lot of curiosity, as previous RARE developers worked on the project, which you clearly feel when you play it. This is what has earned TimeSplitters a solid reputation, which will rank among the best console FPS games of the Playstation 2 generation.
However, the license has fallen into near oblivion since its third game in 2005, after the studio went bankrupt in 2009. Video game media talk from time to time about TimeSplitters depending on the news, but the comeback of the series always remained among the hype of the hallway. So far, since Deep Silver just announced the return of Free Radical, with the original members of the company returning at the time of developing new TimeSplitters. Names like Steve Ellis and David Doak, former RARE employees, are mentioned in passing.
However, except that Free Radical Design has been fixed and will be located in the Nottingham area of Great Britain, we will have to be patient for further details. Since, according to Steve Ellis, the project’s development manager, it’s still too early to reveal more:
To finally be able to confirm that the studio is formed and that we have plans to work on the next TimeSplitters game is amazing. Although we cannot talk more about this at the moment, we look forward to sharing the information with you in the future.