In the most recent issue of Play Magazine UK there is a discussion with some former Free Radical Design employees. Here are what the employees have said.

Craig Collins, 3D Artist in relation to the TimeSplitters Future Perfect release:

People were pleased but we were starting to worry about where the money was coming from for the next project. There’s a big gap between a game being finished and game scores being revealed.

Tristan Reidford, Lead Artist for TimeSplitters Future Perfect:

Much like other sequels, Future Perfect was made because TimeSplitters 2 did so well, and we still had loads of ideas. TimeSplitters: Future Perfect didn’t perform as well as expected in the shops. Although fun to make, without stellar sales figures a further TimeSplitters game was going to be a tough one to sell to publishers. It’s a hard game to summarise in an easy sentence like ‘car modding racing game’ or ‘third-person stealth game. Then Battlefront 3 came calling. Through all of this, it was always hard to resist discussing ideas for TimeSplitters which, precisely because its not easy to summarise, is a fertile breeding ground for gaming and innovation, and personally I can’t wait to play the next one!

Ben Newman, Lead Character Artist for TimeSpliters Future Perfect mentions some characters which did not make TimeSplitters Future Perfect:

Harry Tipper’s original sabotage-inspired New York detective outfit and a schoolgirl outfit for Jo-Beth Casey

The employes mentioned how Ben Newman was a core individual for the artistic style of TimeSplitters Future Perfect. He is not employed currently at Crytek UK. You can see his blog here (rude pics). As models now have a higher number vertices, the ex-employees speculated TimeSplitters 4 will not be able to have as many characters as previously.

James Cunliffe, Lead Animator for TimeSplitters Future Perfect gives his opinion on TimeSplitters 4:

I think we just felt that the franchise was well received but we had other things we wanted to try before going back to it. We weren’t in any particular hurry to rush into TimeSplitters 4.

TimeSplitters is seen as a risk and harder to market. The differentiation between titles these day is wafer thin, everyone is chasing the same dollar. I don’t dislike any genre, I just dislike the lack of choice. I do think there is a lot more room for experimentation in games, not just wrapping that is the graphics. Do I think there is room in the market? Yes. Who is willing to take the risks when games cost over $20 million? Not many. The industry’s creativity is the casualty of it’s own success.

However, we know TimeSplitters 4 will be coming out at some point. We do not know when but it is on the radar.