7 Video Game Developers KILLED After Corporate Takeovers

Whilst shooting games today are wholly designed for online multiplayer and e-sports and end up being almost carbon copies of each other in various shades of brown, the genre was once far more innovative.

Timesplitters was released as a launch title for the PS2 by Free Radical, a Nottingham-based studio founded by members of Rare, who had created the incredible Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64. Leaving the gritty seriousness expected of a shooting game at the door, they focused on fun, creating a game that was overstuffed with enjoyable modes and ludicrous characters.

Timesplitters 2 and Timesplitters: Future Perfect completed a trilogy over the next four years, with each bringing improvements to the table. Even today, playing rounds of Virus in a Chinese restaurant with Gingerbread Men hasn’t lost its charm.

Hired to develop Star Wars Battlefront III and a new IP for the PS3, Haze, Free Radical put Timesplitters on ice. It was to be their undoing, as the cancellation of the former and poor reception to the latter necessitated a buyout by Crytek, the creators of the Crysis franchise.

Rather than put the team to work on recreating their masterpiece for a new generation, however, Crytek did very little with their new UK studio. Horror stories about withheld wages and mass HR grievances came out of the woodwork as they pulled the plug in 2014, seemingly ending all hopes of a Timesplitters that could join the online revolution and provide a refreshing Call of Duty alternative.