The TimeSplitters franchise is one of the most fondly remembered first-person shooter franchises from the PlayStation 2 era, with its wacky but engaging gameplay often being likened to that of GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark. Despite the intensely positive critical reception that the titles received upon their releases, there has not been another installment to the franchise in over 17 years. Due to this, long-term fans of the series rejoiced when Deep Silver announced in 2021 that a new TimeSplitters game was starting development.
While updates regarding this new addition have stalled in more recent months, fans are still engaging in discourse surrounding the title. Many TimeSpitter fans are predictably voicing their desire for the franchise's iconic split-screen, bot-populated multiplayer to make a deserved return.
The New TimeSplitters Title
Austrian publishing company Deep Silver is known for its involvement in franchise's such as Metro, Dead Island, and even Saints Row. The company acquired the TimeSplitters IP in 2019, long after the franchise stopped getting new games in the wake of TimeSplitter 4's unfortunate cancelation.
Much to the surprise of fans, Deep Silver confirmed that this new TimeSplitters title will be developed by Free Radical Design, the same developer of the original trilogy of TimeSplitters games. With the company essentially reforming for the sole purpose of developing this new installment, many fans are delighted at the passion and experience that is resultantly expected from this new title.
Despite this excitement next-to-no additional updates or developments regarding the game have been revealed to fans since its initial 2021 announcement. While the characters or rough story of the title are currently completely unknown to fans, many will assume that the game will feature the same zany time-bending premise that the franchise has maintained up until this point, and perhaps even the return of the fan-favorite character Sergeant Cortez. Outside of these assumptions, many fans have expressed their hopes that Free Radical Design will bring back the same style of bot-filled split-screen multiplayer that the TimeSplitters franchise has historically seen.
The Split-Screen Multiplayer of TimeSplitters
As was the norm with first-person shooters of the time, the TimeSplitters franchise is remembered fondly for its uniquely wacky brand of split-screen multiplayer. TimeSplitters multiplayer made extensive use of AI enemies, whose appearance and level of difficulty can be customized to an impressive degree for the time in which the titles released. The first TimeSplitters game from 2000 had this form of multiplayer, and it would be met and arguably exceeded in both TimeSplitters 2 and TimeSplitters Future Perfect.
Boasting up to four-player split-screen multiplayer in well-layered maps with an impressive arsenal of older and futuristic weapons, the multiplayer of any TimeSplitters title became one of the key selling points, with the compelling AI dynamic only aiding the experience. In the modern climate of gaming, split-screen multiplayer has sadly become a thing of the past, but although many developers have left split-screen behind, many fans still hope to see it make a comeback.
Given TimeSplitters' limitation to the PS2 era of consoles, a lot of the attention that is being generated by the upcoming game is painted by nostalgia and a desire to relive the older gameplay experiences of the franchise through modern hardware with more graphical fidelity. When considering this, it seems imperative that the new TimeSplitters title maintains the traditional presence of bot-saturated split-screen multiplayer, given just how synonymous it has become with the TimeSplitters franchise as a whole.
A new entry in the TimeSplitters series is currently in pre-development.