One of the great console FPS games
Gather round children, and let us tell you about a time before Fortnite. Before PUBG. Before Overwatch and Destiny.
Back in our day, if you wanted to play a multiplayer death match first person shooting game on your consoles, you didn’t go online. You had to get three people around, and huddle around one TV, while the screen was split into four.
Goldeneye on the N64 was the undoubtable king of the genre, and the game that really made FPS games on a console viable. Developers Rare went on to follow up that classic with the spiritual, non-007, sequel Perfect Dark. However, after that game, a group of ex-Rare employees who worked on those games formed Free Radical Design.
And as you might think, the FPS they made was a classic. TimeSplitters came out on the Playsation 2 in 2000, and offered a great time-travelling world to play around in, and excellent multiplayer. 2002’s follow-up TimeSplitters 2 was even better, with tons of hilarious characters, and killer four-player death matches.
A third game, TimeSplitters: Future Perfect followed in 2005. A fourth game was announced, but never materialised.
But now, there has been some movement on the franchise. The IP and rights to the game have been purchased by Koch Media, and fuelled speculation that they could be producing a new entry in the series.
Koch CEO Klemens Kundratitz said in a statement: “We are hugely excited to have acquired Timesplitters. The original games gave fans a massive content offer and provided a pure and genuinely fun arcade shooter experience.
“We have many fans of the Timesplitters series among our own staff who are passionate about creating a product that will thrill today’s gaming audience.”
They didn’t add anything about any games being planned, but that final line definitely suggests that there is something on the cards. Let’s hope so.
