TimeSplitters fan remake - its last hope after Free Radical’s demise - struggles amid "incredibly challenging" industry
"Unless we have changes to our team composition, representation from TimeSplitters 2 and Future Perfect may be quite limited”
TimeSplitters Rewind, a fan-made remake of the zany shooters’ multiplayer in a single game, might well represent the last gasp of the beloved first-person shooter franchise following the closure of resurrected original developers Free Radical - who were working on their own TimeSplitters reboot - at the end of last year. With over a decade of work already invested in the fan project, however, the team have now released a call for help to overcome development hurdles caused by the ongoing troubled state of the games industry.
TimeSplitters Rewind has been cooking away since 2012, when the team were given the blessing of then-IP owners Crytek to bring back maps, modes and characters from TimeSplitters, TimeSplitters 2 and Future Perfect in a free multiplayer-only collection with support for networked play.
In the 10-plus years since, the game has shifted its underlying engine from CryEngine to Unreal, with its latest developer video - the first in over a year - showing off a modernised but faithful recreation of familiar maps, weapons and characters from the early noughties titles. (Thanks, Eurogamer.)
While the latest look at the game shows a polished and promising tribute to TimeSplitters - made that bit more meaningful after the demise of Free Radical under Embracer’s restructuring in December - the team said that a lot of work remains to be done, from finishing up a number of currently “functional” maps to adding animations for aspects such as weapons and the character select screen.
That work has been significantly slowed by the “incredibly challenging” state of the games industry over the last year, “whether that's dealing with potential layoffs, an increasingly difficult job market or, in the case of TimeSplitters, some changes to the landscape of the IP”, which has resulted in Rewind’s team of volunteer developers struggling to commit as much time and energy to the project alongside their day jobs.
As such, lead writer Jake Parr’s ‘candid discussion’ about the state of the game makes a plea for help from interested artists, designers and animators to provide the “help and a more refined focus” that the project currently needs “to make this first release the best one possible”.
While TimeSplitters Rewind is still yet to have a potential release date assigned, Parr said that without additional development aid the fan-made tribute would have to cut back on some of its ambitions, proposing that “unless we have changes to our team composition, representation from TimeSplitters 2 and Future Perfect may be quite limited”.