Before the likes of Halo, Call of Duty and Battlefield came in to dominate the console first-person shooter scene, there was Free Radical's TimeSplitters. It's not a military shooter, but instead, focused more on humor but it had the gaming chops that endeared it to fans.
While TimeSplitters 4 was announced back in 2007, it sadly went dark after Free Radical failed to entice any publisher to bite on it.
In an interview with GamesTM magazine (via NintendoEverything), former Free Radical staff Steve Ellis admits that the game was "in the very early stages of development," but that publishers weren't interested in signing it up.
TimeSplitters 4 was in the very early stages of development when Free Radical went into administration. A small playable demo was shown to several publishers, but it didn’t attract any publishing deals.
Unfortunately for Free Radical, their reputation took a hit with their much-maligned shooter, Haze. Former Free Radical staff, who's also Crytek UK's managing director Karl Hilton talked to about Haze and how it affected Timesplitters 4.
We pitched it to a lot of publishers, and from each of them we got the same two responses. Firstly, they would ask what happened with Haze. We were the company that made a series of high-rated shooters and then we had released Haze, which wasn’t as well received. This worried them.
Hilton also adds that the "unanimous opinion" among all publishers they pitched to was that they (the publishers) can't market a game that's based around a diverse set of characters and environments. Publishers needed a clear and easily communicable marketing message and the unfortunately, TimeSplitters didn't have one.
While Crytek bought out Free Radical and turned them into Crytek UK, TimeSplitters 4 still isn't a certainty. Even its CEO Cevat Yerli doesn't know how well fans will embrace the shooter.
Have you played TimeSpliiters before and do you want TmeSplitters 4? Or should the franchise remain dormant for now and just wait for next-gen where it can make a bigger impact?
