Longtime readers and first-person shooter followers may keep in mind how excited we had been for the announcement of Timesplitters 4 in late 2008. Sadly, an intriguing trailer was the final we noticed of the sport earlier than the mission was killed amidst Free Radical’s chapter later that 12 months.
At present, although, we even have an opportunity to see and play what we missed over 15 years in the past. That is because of an eagle-eyed eBay trawler who grabbed an growing older PlayStation 3 growth equipment that occurred to have a prototype of Timesplitters 4 sitting on its arduous drive.
Reddit consumer Flimsy-Zebra3775 posted about the find earlier this month, asking the PS3 subreddit group for steering on what regarded like a working prototype of the long-lost recreation. After reportedly asking the seller “a lot of probing questions” and confirming that the prototype could be booted, Flimnsy-Zebra reportedly paid 525 pounds (about $670) for the dev equipment, saying, “for historical past and my assortment, it is price it.”
Footage from the now-archived prototype, working on an precise PS3.
As soon as the dev equipment was in hand, Flimsy-Zebra shared the prototype information with the Timespliters subreddit and Hidden Palace, a website dedicated to archiving these sorts of prototypes for posterity. Whereas the unfinished construct would not work on PS3 emulator RPCS3, followers have uploaded a number of videos of the sport working on precise PS3 {hardware}, exhibiting off battles with computer-controlled bots exterior a gothic fort (and a few extremely kick-ass music, in addition).
Free Radical founder (and famous GoldenEye/Excellent Darkish developer) David Doak confirmed the footage’s authenticity on social media, reminiscing that “that is precisely the type of nonsense that [insert any publisher name] wasn’t occupied with again in 2008. You’re welcome.”
After Free Radical closed for good in 2014, a studio with the identical identify was re-formed under publishing conglomerate Embracer in 2021 to as soon as once more attempt to make a model of Timesplitters 4 a actuality. Mockingly sufficient, that Timesplitters 4 mission was additionally shuttered amid massive layoffs at Embracer late final 12 months. Who is aware of, perhaps in 2040 a prototype model of that utterly completely different Timesplitters 4 will flip up on some random dev equipment, prepared for archiving.