Free Radical is a name that many gamers have come to know over the past 10 years as a studio that developed AAA fps titles on consoles. Their Timesplitters series is still one of my favorite mulitplayer shooters ever due to the unique humor, weapons, gameplay and of course, level editor.
When Free Radical went under they lost a good majority of their staff and started selling their properties to the highest bidder. This caused people to get worried that they would never see the new Timesplitters 4 game that has been hinted at in the past. In comes German developer, Crytek. They buy out Free Radical and rename the studio Crytek UK. In the purchase of the studio they also pick up the license to Timesplitters.
All seems well for the Timesplitters fan, no? Crytek has all powerful engine technology combined with masturful editor tools to back it up for creative content. Free Radical is one of the pioneers of fps level editing on a console. A match made in heaven? We will see. They have a new shooter property up their sleeves and they want it to be big. The studio manager at Crytek UK, Karl Hilton told Develop "We are currently concepting up an original IP that we hope will become a defining game series for the UK studio," he said. "However, in reality, the opportunity to make any kind of original FPS genre game where we get to focus on the quality of both the multiplayer and single player experience is what drives people at the studio. We have a strong history of creativity here, and we want to take that forward with Crytek and the CryENGINE 3."
So there you have it. Timesplitters has unofficially been put on the backburner for this new IP using CryEngine 3. I myself am super excited to see what they are cooking up but I am also sad to not see a next-gen Timesplitters come out any time soon.
