TimeSplitters Next cancelled gameplay footage appears online
Showing Fortnite clone origins, and later progress as TS2 remaster.
Footage showing Free Radical Design's sadly-cancelled TimeSplitters project has surfaced online, revealing five minutes of gameplay.
The video, posted to LinkedIn by a former Free Radical Design staff member, shows a version of the game from July 2023 - roughly five months before the project was cancelled and the studio shut down by parent company Embracer.
TimeSplitters fans will likely be excited (and upset, seeing as the project is now dead) to see numerous familiar elements return, including an expanded Siberia dam level, iconic weapons, fan-favourite characters and GoldenEye's classic health/shield UI.
But there are certainly differences, seen in the more modern character movement and speed of gameplay. Towards the end of the video, various elements look very similar to Fortnite - such as mention of an open world, and a shot of a character gliding downwards to the ground. UI screens show a menu directly copied from Fortnite, plus an item shop showing characters and accessories to buy.
This fits with what we've heard of the project previously, which is that it began life as a Fortnite clone but later morphed into an expanded alternate universe take on the classic TimeSplitters 2.
"Originally it was a Fortnite clone. Nobody wanted that really, not even us, but we didn't have much of a choice for a long time," one developer on the project previously stated.
But a later U-turn shifted the project into safer waters, it's been claimed, with a pitch that was "mostly TS2" with a couple of TimeSplitters: Future Perfect levels, an original level and a couple of brand new sections.
"It was going to be a 'What If...' where Corporal Hart went through instead of Cortez so we could make things slightly different," the developer continued, referencing the two main characters of TimeSplitters 2.
Today's footage is currently viewable via LinkedIn, and has already been rehosted elsewhere.
"So, you want to know about the cancelled TimeSplitters game?" the developer wrote. "I'll be sure to post what I can... Embracer Group can go hide in a cave somewhere."
Embracer is currently in the middle of a devastating restructuring process which has seen it lay off eight percent of its workforce - a total of 1387 employees.