What is TimeSplitters Rewind?
TimeSplitters Rewind is a fan project that serves as a greatest hits collection of maps, modes, leagues, challenges and story content across the original trilogy of TimeSplitters games.
Rewind is not a traditional remake in that there aren't 3 separate executables, it is one game that, as closely as possible, captures the spirit of the 3 games in one. So, unlike a traditional HD collection or remake, it is its own title. By the end of this game's development, the goal is to have extensive content spanning the three games but our initial launch will focus on a subset of both existing content from the original games and some new content.
Across the past decade, nearly 200 hundred contributors have committed hours to this project, ranging from a few hours to thousands of hours of development time, some hobbyists and others AAA game developers. This is the largest amount of free content ever provided in a video game (without monetized elements) and it was not easy to make.
We made this game from pure passion and an interest in seeing more TimeSplitters content. Feel free to read the full project history below!
Project History
2007
- Free Radical Design enters pre-production on TimeSplitters 4
2008
- Free Radical Design, the original developers of the TimeSplitters games goes into insolvency (administration) and TimeSplitters 4 gets shelved (Source)
2009
- Crytek UK acquires Free Radical Design and all of its IP for £50 million (Source)
2012
- A Facebook page titled "100,000 Strong for TimeSplitters 4" gets created and starts an initial conversation to bring attention to the IP
- Petition gets created by fans, addressed to Crytek UK to create a TimeSplitters HD Collection, acquiring 81,376 supporters
- Tom Clarke-Hill (voice of Cortez) makes a video supporting the petition
- TimeSplitters Revolt is formed and helps push the petition. Ultimately becomes a landing page for an initial conversation around a TimeSplitters Collection
- After the petition closes and not much is heard, an initial form of a fan project is created and referred to as the "TimeSplitters UT 2004 Mod" (Watch Video)
- TimeSplitters UT2004 Mod gets closed down....they are told they can reconsider the project with a few special conditions
2013
- Crytek gives their official blessing to Pantheonyx to develop a fan project for the TimeSplitters IP. They provided the team with the original TimeSplitters assets. (These assets are unused in TimeSplitters Rewind and all assets are rebuilt from scratch)
- Pantheonyx forms a development team with professional programmers, departments and department leads to develop the game "TimeSplitters Rewind"
- Pantheonyx launches a website to begin engaging with the community and developing a fanbase
- Pantheonyx begins engaging with the community through "community playdates" and various Skype channels
- The Pantheonyx project lead showcases the first build of Rewind in which Cortez is seen running around with a soviet rifle on Ice Station (Watch Video)
- Pantheonyx launches the TimeSplitters Rewind Steam Greenlight page (Archive Link)
- Pantheonyx does a launch announcement to boost the Steam Greenlight page and announces an unconfirmed plan to release the game on PS4 (Watch Video)
- Pantheonyx launches the TimeSplitters Rewind website and other forums. They begin hiring additional team members, mainly artists
- While Crytek provided full access to the source code of the engine, it proved challenging for programmers to take advantage without the ability to spend full time resources on the project as adoption of the engine publicly was still new
2014
- The programmers leave the project en masse and progress grinds to a halt
- Game becomes increasingly unstable, weapon system breaks and the multiplayer stops functioning altogether
- The team switches to Unreal Engine 4 on advice and approval from Crytek and the artists pick up programming although at a much slower rate
- The decision to publish a release plan is focused on, however, there are no programmers to create a demo for the announcement
- PS4 release is completely taken off of the table
- Content from the artists of the Rewind team is posted to the Steam Greenlight page without the consent of the artists causing internal struggle
- The Steam Greenlight page for TimeSplitters Rewind is taken down
- The project goes loses all programmers and leadership
- Crytek sells Crytek UK to Deep Silver parent company Koch Media meaning Free Radical/Crytek UK is officially separated from the TimeSplitters IP
2015
- The project lead leaves
- Without direction, the artists scrap the Unreal Engine 4 build and attempt to build the game based on Unreal Tournament
- The team discovers that using Unreal Tournament as a base is a violation of Epic's development and that build gets scrapped
- The team rebuilds the game again in Unreal Engine 4, this time based on the "Shooter Game Template" found on the Unreal Marketplace
- Crytek contact changes and via new leadership on Pantheonyx, the direction of the project changes towards a more monetizable, full game development
2016
- A new project lead joins the project, steering the project back to its original direction
- The project lead takes over the existing Unreal Engine build and is able to restore multiplayer functionality
- The Unreal build is moving along well and the project is making positive progress
- Cameron Williams (HollowCam) creates the TimeSplitters Rewind Discord as a fan
- The project lead begins to convince the team to switch back to CryEngine 3 and they resume their conversation with Crytek as before
- Many team members leave the project after the engine switch means the project gets reset once again
2017
- Negotiations around the project continue with Crytek and the team continues development of the Unreal Engine 4 project
- Crytek asks the team to commit to CryEngine and the Unreal Engine 4 work proves incompatible
- The programming team begins rehiring as the Unreal Engine developers don't know how to work in CryEngine, the team shrinks again
- Pantheonyx as a team goes away and is quietly rebranded as "Cinder Interactive"
- The project seems dire and a developer on the team creates the infamous "crystals trailer" in an effort to set a deadline to follow…the release date marked for 2017
- The crystals trailer is met with a largely negative reception and controversy stirs amongst the team as there are no programmers available to meet this deadline
- Some inappropriate comments are made from one of the developers about CryEngine, creating further division within the team and the relationship with Crytek. Media covers the incident (Source)
- The team engages the community about a rebrand and considers dropping the TimeSplitters name entirely
- Assets from the project are shared publicly without team member consent, creating further divide amongst the team and causing the team to split apart almost fully
- The project lead switches...again and the team switches back to Unreal Engine 4
2018
- The project lead contributes to the CryEngine build alongside a few artists
- THQ Nordic acquires the TimeSplitters IP alongside additional Free Radical Design IP, Second Sight
- Communication around Rewind begins again with THQ Nordic representative to honor agreement with Crytek
- THQ Nordic does not hold the team to a specific engine
- The project restarts again in order to shift to Unreal Engine 4 and re-entice programmers
- The team loses overall leadership besides the interim project lead and composer, Jose Pavli
- The team is too small to continue progressing on core systems
- A build is made in secret, outside of the core team (never intended to be TimeSplitters Rewind)
- The project is pitched to then project lead Jose to see about using the project as the full TimeSplitters Rewind build and the team adopts this build…creating the final time a project would be started and the final time the team would switch engines
2019
- That secret build gets folded into the team as TimeSplitters Rewind and progress is steady for a few months in silence
- Crazyb2000 gets multiplayer, challenge mode and story working at a very basic level in a few months
- Crazyb2000 releases the team's most successful video to date showcasing a functional build of the game using mostly placeholder assets
- The video is received incredibly well, the positive sentiment around the community skyrockets and a few new developers are recruited
- The project slows down. The initial push was significant but the game needed to replace all of the placeholder assets and create fully new content
- The team attempts to move all disciplines to work on the map Chinese in order to get one completed asset in the game
- Character artists, weapon artists, level designers and more attempt to learn environment art in an attempt to finish Chinese
- Cameron Williams (who joined the project in early 2019) learns environment art and completes the first pass of Chinese
- Cameron starts to lead the artists across the team to drive more environments
- 8 levels get their placeholder assets replaced
- The development build is still held exclusively by one developer due to concerns around the project leaking
- The project slows down significantly again, not having activity on the team for weeks
2020
- Cameron creates an update video in secrecy and releases it to the world at the beginning of 2020 asking for help across multiple departments
- Nearly 200 contributors apply to join the project and the team size increases from 15 to 45 in the course of two months
- Access to the development build is given to more contributors
- COVID-19 shuts down the world and development skyrockets
- Arcade League is developed as a separate mode
- All story mode levels are playable
- Challenge mode has a few levels in the game
- Character select is set up
2021
- A large portion of the community is brought in to test the game
- The build that was made in the prior two years starts to prove troublesome as things were put together quickly and without scale
- The team is flooded with a large amount of bugs
- Progress slows down immensely and the only progress being made is really on environment art assets
- Free Radical Design reforms under Plaion (Formerly Koch Media) and announces plans to work on a new TimeSplitters project
- Tom Clarke Hill joins the project to provide narration and the voice of Cortez
2022
- Progress picks back up, the programming team shrinks to 3, some investing hundreds of hours a month to bring down bug counts, implement features, etc while art continues at a steady pace
- The team passes 100 contributors, some providing a few hours of work a month, others hundreds
- The team moves into "Content Lock" which means they are no longer planning to add new content, just refine what's already in the build
- A mapmaker prototype is created and pitched to the team with an intent to integrate it
2023
- The games industry begins doing mass layoffs causing a huge shift in focus across the team as people need to reprioritize work
- The programming team's hours and resources shrink and the project goes silent for most of the year while some art assets continue to slowly slot in
- Free Radical feels the brunt of the game industry layoffs and is met with a studio closure leaving the TimeSplitters IP once again dormant
2024
- The team puts out the March 2024 Candid Discussion video attempting to get help to finish the game as churn increases significantly with the state of the games industry getting more and more dire
- The team deprioritizes public-facing content in an effort to wrap the game up and get it shipped in at least an alpha state
- The number of contributors on the project actively contributing shrinks down to less than 10
- Mapmaker is cut from the build due to not having the programming resources to bring it to life for an initial release
2025
- Cameron sets an internal release date with the team and creates "The list" that all contributors would work towards and attempt to deliver by the NA 25th anniversary of TimeSplitters 1 (and launch of PS2) October 26th, 2025
- A Go-to-Market manager joins and the team prepares for launch
- QA testing efforts ramp up significantly and a patching system is created to support
- The game is moved to Steam Deck (with Proton) and marked as the minimum spec requirements for the game
- The release date is internally pushed back to create more time for polish
- The team publishes the website officially on the 25th anniversary and sets its sights on the future