It’s tragic to think we may never see TimeSplitters again – the zany, over-the-top first-person shooter series from the now deceased British studio Free Radical Design.
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It’s painful to think its been roughly 13 years since the last game in the series, TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, which hit back in 2005 following 2002’s TimeSplitters 2 and 2000’s TimeSplitters.
Widely beloved and critically acclaimed, the series was a beacon of originality in a first-person shooter genre that is riddled with tired formulas and concepts. And since 2005, there has been a TimeSplitters-sized hole in the industry.
The future prospects of TimeSplitters didn’t always look this morbid though. A fourth game in the series was once in development, first with Radical Design in 2007, and then Crytek UK following a studio rebranding. But development of the fourth title never went anywhere. Like the series as a whole, TimeSplitters 4 just vanished.
Details on the project will likely forever remain a mystery, however, earlier this week a huge collection of character concept art surfaced, offering a glimpse into the game that never was.
As you would assume with anything TimeSplitters-related, the concept art shows a variety of unconventional characters, many of which look straight out of the mind of a madman. There’s a nun packing heat, pirates, grotesque monsters, cyberpunk-ish robots, and much more.
According to Eurogamer, the cache of concept art – which you can see for yourself HERE – ranges from work between 2007 to 2009 when the game was in pre-production.
As for why TimeSplitters 4 never emerged from the secretive depths of development, there’s a variety of reasons. Chiefly, the game couldn’t find a publisher, which is mind-bobbling to think would be the case, but was nonetheless. There was also the negative reaction of the developer’s most recent game at the time, Haze, which left the studio cautious about making another shooter immediately after. Further, according to Crytek – it isn’t an easy game or series to market.
TimeSplitters 4 is probably dead forever, along with the series. So in the meanwhile of eternity, all we have is this rad concept art and years of begging Crytek to revive the series ahead of us.
In you case you glanced over the link above to the concept art, here’s another.
