Why the TimeSplitters revival didn’t happen: “Bigger forces were in play,” game’s co-creator says

When it comes to influential console first-person shooters, classics like GoldenEye 007, Perfect Dark, and Halo are usually the first that come to mind — but one often-overlooked gem from that same era is TimeSplitters. Considered by many to be the spiritual successor to GoldenEye and Perfect Dark, TimeSplitters took what those earlier games did so well and ran with it, adding a plethora of cleverly designed levels, fun weapons, and plenty of quirky enemies to blast through. And really, that shouldn’t come as a surprise, as the makers of TimeSplitters, Free Radical Design, was made up of several former Rare developers who helped create those classic shooters in the first place.

While TimeSplitters did go on to spawn two sequels — TimeSplitters 2 and TimeSplitters: Future Perfect — a fourth entry never made it to release. Rumored to be in development back in 2007, the project even had concept art and a prototype gameplay video surface in 2008, but it ultimately never saw the light of day.

Despite the disappointment surrounding the canceled sequel, TimeSplitters never completely faded from memory. Its loyal fanbase kept the series alive through fan projects and online buzz. In 2021, hopes were reignited when Deep Silver reformed Free Radical Design to revive the franchise, but after a few quiet years, the studio was shut down in 2024 — leaving fans once again wondering if TimeSplitters will ever make its long-awaited return.

Unfortunately, as time goes on, it’s looking less and less likely that a new TimeSplitters game will ever happen. David Doak, one of the former Rare veterans who co-founded Free Radical Design, recently explained that the revival fell through because “bigger forces were in play” beyond the control of himself and the rest of the team.

“I don’t think it was our fault it didn’t work out,” Doak said in a press release at EGX at MCM London Comic Con. “I can’t say much more than that. Bigger forces were in play.”

Those bigger forces refer to the major restructuring that went on in 2023 at Embracer Group, the Swedish holding group under which Free Radical Design had been reformed a few years prior for the TimeSplitters revival.

While Doak is proud of the place the TimeSplitters franchise holds in history, he’s not sure a game like it could exist in the modern gaming era.

“I think it’s really hard now… certainly the prospect of making some kind of even Double-A shooter now… I’m not up for it any more. It’s such an overworked scene, it’s so hard to innovate in it. Certainly our experience of trying to build something, even with off the shelf engines it takes forever to get anywhere. [When we made these games] you could think of something at night, in bed, come in in the morning and say ‘hey guys, we should do this’ and by lunchtime you’ve tried it, decided whether it’s worth doing and by the end of the day it was either in the game or not in the game. I love working like that.”

In a past interview with GamesIndustry.biz, TimeSplitters co-creator Steve Ellis expressed similar disappointment with regards to why the TimeSplitters revival didn’t happen.

“It’s probably the end of me being involved with TimeSplitters,” Ellis said. “I don’t know if Plaion or Embracer will do anything with it. I don’t know what it would take to get me to want to go through all that again. It was a big letdown.”

Are you upset on the reasons why the TimeSplitters revival didn’t happen? Were you a fan of the original TimeSplitters games that would want to see the franchise revived today? Let us know in the comments.