10 Video Games That Were Cancelled (But Not Why You Think)
6. The Failure Of Haze & The Difficulty Of Marketing It - TimeSplitters 4
Why You Thought It Was Cancelled
The TimeSplitters franchise was never a major seller, but it had enough devoted fans for three games to be released.
TimeSplitters 4 was first whispered about in 2007, but once developer Free Radical went into administration and was bought out by Crytek in 2009, it became clear the game had been quietly cancelled.
It was easy to assume that the cancellation was either due to the third TimeSplitters, Future Perfect, not selling enough, or Crytek wanting Free Radical - subsequently rebranded as "Crytek UK" until 2014 - to work largely on its Crysis games instead.
Why It Was Actually Cancelled
There are two major reasons. Firstly, Free Radical's 2008 FPS Haze was a massive critical and commercial disappointment after being hyped as a "Halo killer," shaking confidence in the team's ability to deliver.
It was also felt that the TimeSplitters series was simply too difficult to market to a wider audience without a clear protagonist. Co-creator Steve Ellis said:
"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.'"
Though the series' lukewarm sales surely didn't help matters, it's clear that there simply wasn't faith in Free Radical to deliver a fourth game that could generate gangbusters sales figures.
With Free Radical being relaunched earlier this year, however, a fourth TimeSplitters game is once again in active development with several original founders onboard (including Ellis), while Deep Silver will handle publishing duties.