There hasn’t been a new TimeSplitters game since 2005’s TimeSplitters: Future Perfect on the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Gamecube.
However, this could be about to change as a long-awaited sequel seems to be on the horizon – finally.
Despite its cult following, the TimeSplitters series became one of those franchises stuck in a perpetual state of gaming limbo – maybe purgatory is a better term of phrase?
TimeSplitters 4 had been in development but was soon cancelled after publishers Crytek – who bought the studio Free Radical – went bust. Yet the rights have now been bought by THQ Nordic, and thus, giving fans the hope of a long-awaited sequel.
The first three games were released between 2000 and 2005. The first two were published by Eidos and the latest was published by Electronic Arts.
Developers Free Radical were developing a fourth TimeSplitters, but following the failure of Haze on the PlayStation 3, no other publisher was interested in financing the game.
THQ Nordic (best known for Alan Wake and the criminally underrated Darksiders series) have also acquired the rights to Second Sight, Free Radical’s third-person stealth-shooter, which was released back in 2004. They also have plans to release other Second Sight ‘products’ through developers Deep Silver, according to Polygon.
For you gaming aficionados out there, Deep Silver is the studio behind the Saints Row series, and they’re currently developing the highly anticipated Shenmue III.
In an official statement released to the press, Klemens Kundratitz, CEO of THQ Nordic’s Koch Media, said:
We are hugely excited to have acquired TimeSplitters. The original games gave fans a massive content offer and provided a pure and genuinely fun arcade shooter experience.
We have many fans of the TimeSplitters series among our own staff who are passionate about creating a product that will thrill today’s gaming audience.
Back in April 2012, a spokesperson for Crytek stated TimeSplitters 4 was ‘not in development’. The following month it was confirmed by Crytek’s Cevat Yeril.
At the time Yeril said:
Look, I wish we were working on it. The thing with TimeSplitters is, if we made a sequel to TimeSplitters, nobody would accept this apart from some fans, and we don’t know how big the fan community is unfortunately.
A year later in July, TechRadar brought up the subject of a TimeSplitters sequel, again, this time with series developer, Steve Ellis.
When asked about the possibility of it being released on eight generation consoles he openly admitted:
I don’t think there’s any chance that’s going to happen, you always got to the point where the marketing person in the room would say ‘I don’t know how to sell this’ because they want a character that they can put on the front of the box.
Every marketing person and every publisher we spoke to [said] ‘You can’t have that as your selling point’ and maybe the sales figures of previous games backed that up.
His statement at the time effectively buried any hope of a potential TimeSplitters sequel in the foreseeable future.
But with THQ Nordic’s acquisition, the much-loved first-person shooter game has been given a lifeline, meaning gamers can live in hope once again.
Come on THQ Nordic, make it happen… please.
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