One week ago, Embracer shut down Free Radical and cancelled TimeSplitters 4. It was devastating news—the game we had anticipated for so long was lost to us once again … or so we thought.
Yesterday, footage of the game, titled TimeSplitters Next, leaked online. What the footage shows is both depressing and eminently predictable.
(Check the bottom of the page for more updates. Major leaks have been happening since this article was published!)
The game looks more like Fortnite than TimeSplitters. In fact, it looks exactly like Fortnite. The footage showcases Fortnite animations, Fornite UI, 100-player battle royale maps, loot drops, third-person combat, lots of jumping, floating damage numbers, an art style too colourful for TimeSplitters, and an online store for cosmetic items.
Even if many of the assets and mechanics are placeholders, it is clear that ‘TimeSplitters Next’ was intended to be a Fortnite clone—and a pretty blatant rip-off of it too.
TimeSplitters fans’ most pessimistic assumptions have been confirmed. Embracer never intended to revive the spirit of a beloved series but to exploit popular contemporary gaming trends.
I speculated about this possibility in my TS4 articles. I assumed they would implement a cosmetic store and ill-fitting modern shooter mechanics. Even so, I underestimated how cynically designed this game would be.
I thought whatever they were working on would at least resemble its predecessors, even if it were forced to adapt to the modern gaining environment. What the footage shows, however, is nothing like TimeSplitters at all. The soul of the series is gone … and it’s probably never coming back.
I am glad TimeSplitters Next was cancelled. Seeing such a cash grab added to the TimeSplitters canon would have hurt more than the cancellation ever did.
Previously, I worried TimeSplitters 4’s arcadey gameplay would not appeal to modern gamers. But now it’s clear that even if TS4 does get made, the games industry is too cynical and risk-averse to allow it to be anything other than a clone of something else—TimeSplitters 4 in name only.
Update: Someone did an interview with an anonymous developer. He shares some interesting behind-the-scenes details about what it was like working at the newly reestablished Free Radical. The director apparently intended the game to pivot from Fortnite clone to a proper TimeSplitters game later. They threw together a story level based on Siberia from TimeSplitters 2 as proof of concept, but a clueless publisher, poor leadership, and unhappy devs damned any chance of that.
Update 2: Stuff is leaking like crazy now. Someone posted TimeSplitters 4 prototype footage (the cancelled game from 2008) on YouTube. It features a small castle level with bots, original music, and Future Perfect placeholder mechanics and effects. After all these years, seeing TimeSplitters 4 gameplay feels like closure. I thought I’d never get to see it. Unlike the Fortnite footage, I’m glad I did.
Update 3: Another channel has been uploading TimeSplitters 4 music and cut content from TimeSplitters: Future Perfect. Well worth a watch for any TimeSplitters fan.