Grave Gamer News & Views — crytek uk

Timesplitters 4 Not Happening Until Met with Higher Demand

“I love Timesplitters, I’m a huge Timesplitters fan particularly of the multiplayer part. I love the idea, I love the brand, I love everything – but the publishers don’t.  That’s reality.  And I don’t want to spend our own money on the project in a retail business.”

- Cevat Yerli, founder and president of Crytek, speaking with VG24/7.

While public demand for a Timesplitters 4 is moderately high, Yerli doesn’t believe it’s past the threshold of putting the sequel into motion.  What does Crytek have to do with Timesplitters, a franchise headed by English developer Free Radical, you ask?

Well, after LucasArts fucked Free Radical three different ways to Sunday during the troubled production of the aborted Star Wars: Battlefront III, the very nearly bankrupt development house (operating on a skeleton crew just to keep the lights on) was taken under Crytek’s wing and rebranded Crytek UK.  Now, with Timesplitters being Crytek UK’s baby, and taking into account their parent company’s tendency to almost exclusively dish out first-person shooters, we’re closer than ever to seeing the once magnificent franchise resuscitated…

Except being out of the FPS scene for a whole console cycle sort of muddies your IP’s brand recognition.  Consequently, no publisher in town cares about the property.  Again, while demand hasn’t been enough to strong arm Crytek into fast-tracking a new installment, fans may take comfort in the fact that the company is at least thinking about the future of Timesplitters.

Fan feedback “did indeed trigger a deeper evaluation of what we do with Timesplitters,” says Yerli, “And I can only say this for now: we might have some surprises coming soon."  There hasn’t been an entry into the series since 2005.  For a lot of fans’ sakes, hopefully "soon” is soon enough.