THQ Nordic Acquires "Timesplitters" Franchise

[Mattis]

In an announcement today, THQ Nordic (THQ Nordic’s fully owned subsidiary Koch Media, who own Deep Silver), have acquired the rights to the TimeSplitters franchise and Second Sight.

Announcement in full

Timesplitters was largely considered as one of the most influential console games of the early 2000’s. The three game series earned a large and passionate fan base thanks to its unique humour, art style and pop culture references while encouraging customization and modification to give each person their own individual experience. Timesplitters was originally created by the development studio Free Radical Design that later become Deep Silver Dambuster, part of the THQ Nordic group.

In addition to Timesplitters, the IP and the rights to science fiction action-adventure game Second Sight were acquired. Both acquisitions were made through THQ Nordic’s fully owned subsidiary Koch Media GmbH.

For anyone not familiar, TimeSplitters was a FPS series developed by Free Radical Design, who were in turn formed by former Rare developers who worked on famed shooter Goldeneye.

They were working on a TimeSplitters 4, but because of an a series of unfortunate events related to their deal with Lucas Arts on developing Star Wars Battlefront III, the studio went bust. They were later bought by Crytek, again a series of very unfortunate events and shady happenings happend (Crytek UK (Former Free Radical Design) were not paid and shut out of their offices by Crytek.

They were later sold to Deep Silver (Shenmue III publisher) and renamed to Dambusters Studios. Crytek - until now - retained the rights to the TimeSplitters franchise and stated that they would not be working on a new game.

For me, TimeSplitters not getting a re-release, sequel etc. was just like Shenmue. These two franchises were the ones I have wanted the most and longed for. And now, in the midts of getting Shenmue re-release and Shenmue III, we might see a re-release of TimeSplitters AND TimeSplitters 4. I'm so happy ?

 

[Mattis]

I should also make it clear that Second Sight, a wonderful game from the same studio, and highly overlooked is also part of the deal.

Second Sight was a science fiction action adventure game also developed by Free Radical Design and released for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube in September 2004, followed by PC in February 2005. Here is an overview of the game, via PlayStation.com:

Join John Vattic, a man endowed with psychic abilities, as he attempts to escape a US medical facility. As you discover more and more of John’s psychic powers, you’ll slowly uncover the events that landed him in the hands of the researchers. You’ll gain access to a variety of psionic abilities (such as Psi-Blast, Telekinesis, Projection, and Charm) and powerful weapons (including handguns, tranquilizers, and machine guns). Complete your objectives using a combination of shooting action and stealth tactics.

While THQ Nordic did not share further information, it teased that “full details of future TimeSplitters and Second Sight products will be revealed in due course.”

Read more at Gematsu

 

[spud1897]

Hell Yes!

 

[Flagship]

Great news! I never played these personally outside of an event but I knew A LOT of people who were very passionate about this series (and appeared to have developed a bias towards inverted controls ) koch media is on a roll!

 

[Mattis]

Great news! I never played these personally outside of an event but I knew A LOT of people who were very passionate about this series (and appeared to have developed a bias towards inverted controls ) koch media is on a roll!

If they give Timesplitters the ol' Shenmue re-release treatment, you will be in for a treat! The music by Graeme Norgate is banging and the settings for the campaigns are awesome (at least in TS2). Multiplayer is maybe the best FPS multiplayer I have played. I mean technically Battlefield etc are technically better, but this is the most FUN i have had with an FPS.

 

[SCQ]

This is awesome news. It better have Monkey bots.

 

[Mattis]

Like these?

 

[Mr. OL]

I never played Timespitters, but Second Sight was one of my favorite games of its generation, and it always made me want to play Timesplitters.
At this point I'd honestly just be happy to see the games appear on Steam or something. Would be lovely getting to play Second Sight without having to dig out my old Xbox.

 

[OldFarT]

A re-release of Timesplitters would be too cool.

 

[xatruio]

Alwyas had an eye on Second Sight (no pun intended). Looks intriguing, for sure.

 

[Mattis]

I have to admit, being a huge fan of Free Radical, I never played Second Sight, I bought a copy of it last year for the PS2, but I don't have a PS2 ? And at the time when it came out, my mind was else where.

 

[SCQ]

I had no idea second sight was made by the same people as timesplitters. I remember seeing the box everywhere but never picking it up because I thought the front art looked dumb lol

 

[9dragons]

I am a huge fan of the old time splitter games and I would be glad If Time splitters 4 would happen one day. I really hope THQ Nordic will revive the Franchise with a new game. A re release in HD of a old game would be nice for some People too but a new game would be much bother.

Second Sight looks also very interesting. I never had to Change to play it unfortunately. If this title gets a entry I will play it for sure this time.

 

[Mr. OL]

Kinda sad to hear so many here never played Second Sight. Never found its audience, I guess.
Just a tip, if you don't know anything about the story already, make sure you don't look anything up either. It's got a pretty cool twist near the end that really deserves to be experienced when you actually play it, rather than just looking at youtube videos or something.

Anyway, I think I was mostly just aware that Second Sight was a Free Radical game because I recognized the animation and visual style of it as being really similar to the cutscenes from the Timesplitters 2 demo I once played. Even though I never played the Timeplitters games in full, that demo and Second Sight made the name "Free Radical" stick out in my mind as a dev team that was really, really good with animation. Much like Naughty Dog and Insomniac during that era, everything was done "by hand," so to speak; not a lick of mo-capping anywhere. And that always gave it this slightly "cartoony" vibe that was really appealing to me. Here's the cutscene from Timesplitters 2, as an example:


It's probably just wishful thinking, but if they ever make more Timesplitters or Second Sight, I hope they carry on that style; it'd be a shame to see everything go full-motion capture like most other games nowadays.

 

[Lan Di-sama]

I remember having a ton of fun with Timesplitters 2 with my friends on Xbox. And those arcade style challenges were a blast when playing alone. Ah, nostalgia.

 

[Mattis]

It's probably just wishful thinking, but if they ever make more Timesplitters or Second Sight, I hope they carry on that style; it'd be a shame to see everything go full-motion capture like most other games nowadays.

This! I loved their style, at least in TS2, and the animations were amazing for the time. Like the cutscene before the NeoTokyo level was great too!

I remember having a ton of fun with Timesplitters 2 with my friends on Xbox. And those arcade style challenges were a blast when playing alone. Ah, nostalgia.

I actually forgot all about the challenges! Can you imagine playing these games on a Switch? ?

 

[Mattis]

Kinda sad to hear so many here never played Second Sight. Never found its audience

I remember seeing a video that a reason for it too was that just the month before or something Psi-Ops came out, which was very similar in regards to game mechanics if I'm not mistaken.