THQ Nordic is no stranger to acquiring licenses and fan favorite IPs. Beforetaking on the THQ moniker, the company actually purchased the remaining catalog of IPs following the bankruptcy sale of the original THQ. It acquired all sorts of intellectual properties likeSaints Row,Darksiders,Destroy All Humans,Red Faction, and more. Nearly one year after announcing it had acquired theTimesplittersIP, THQ Nordic finally provides an update on the franchise.
In its Q1 financial reporting to investors, THQ Nordic reveals that Steve Ellis, one of the original developers on the classic shooter franchise, has joined theTimeSplittersteam. Not much else is known about the project as the announcement only states that Ellis is going to help chart the future of the franchise, likely indicating that an actual game is still far off.
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Ellis is a video game veteran having worked at Rare on games likeGoldenEye 007andPerfect Darkbefore leaving in 1999 to start Free Radical Design. The team there made a name for themselves with the originalTimeSplittersseries of game, though it eventually fell on hard times after its version ofStar Wars Battlefront 2title was canceled deep into development and the PlayStation 3 exclusiveHazeflopped. Free Radical was eventually bought out by Crytek though due to money issues, the studio ultimately was closed before being rescued by Deep Silver who moved them to the new Dambuster Studios office.
Considering Dambuster’s long legacy and familiarity with the franchise, it would make sense that the studio would get another shot with theTimeSplitterslicense. However, the THQ Nordic report makes it clear thatDambuster is currently working onDead Island 2, another long-in-development game that has bounced between a number of different studios since its announcement back in 2014. Whether the nextTimeSplittersis planned as the next project for Dambuster or is destined to go to another studio that is available right now is anyone’s guess.
