THQ Nordic has bought the rights to the TimeSplitters games. In the early years of the twenty-first century, three games were released in that series. A fourth was rumored to be in development, but never appeared.
Publisher THQ Nordic has not yet announced plans for new games in the TimeSplitters series. In an announcement, the publisher said that the TimeSplitters games were seen as highly influential at the time of their release due to their unique humor, graphic style and references to popular culture.
The first game in the TimeSplitters series came out in 2000 for the PlayStation 2. It is a first-person shooter that bears similarities to games such as GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark. Time travel is central to the game; it takes place over a span of one hundred years between 1935 and 2035.
A sequel was released in 2002: TimeSplitters 2. That game was released for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Nintendo GameCube. A third installment in the series titled TimeSplitters: Future Perfect was released for those same consoles in 2005.
The three TimeSplitters games were created by Free Radical Design. That studio was bought by Crytek in 2009. There was a rumor that TimeSplitters 4 was already being worked on before the takeover and in 2011, there was also a rumor about the arrival of a fourth part, but that never appeared.
In 2014, the former team of developers from Free Radical Design moved largely to the new studio Deep Silver Dambuster, which is owned by THQ Nordic. The rights to TimeSplitters and Second Sight, however, remained in the hands of Crytek. THQ will also get the rights to Second Sight; that was a science fiction action game also made by Free Radical Design.