Embracer’s TimeSplitters studio Free Radical faces closure | VGC
Embracer’s TimeSplitters studio Free Radical faces closure | VGC
The UK-based developer was re-established just two years ago to revive the classic FPS series…
Facing closure, potentially unless Embracer finds a buyer, but a handful of devs have already been spotted looking for work, so layoffs have started.
Personally, I haven't seen an FPS made for me in a long time, so I was betting on a new TimeSplitters being it. The last two FPS campaigns I was into were Half-Life: Alyx in 2020 and Titanfall 2 in 2016. Those are slim pickings over a long timespan while the rest of the genre focused on live service garbage (though, to be fair, I still have yet to play Wolfenstein II). If that new Perfect Dark happens, I'm betting Microsoft spends $400M turning it into an extraction shooter multiplayer with a modern Call of Duty campaign, neither of which is what I want. TimeSplitters was likely only going to happen on a shoestring budget that couldn't afford to turn into the kind of game I don't want it to be, lol.
I personally haven't seen a FPS be unique or engaging since the last Bioshock... and before that was maybe the first Bioshock or FEAR lol
The MiLiTaRy Is CoOL vibe from COD, Battlefront and Halo never appealed to me, but Halo Combat Evolved on PC and Halo 3's multiplayer was at least fun.
Another Embracer casualty. It's crazy how studios are getting gutted left and right because a single business deal fell through. I wonder how many studios Embracer is going to shut down before they finally finish "restructuring"?
I think it's way beyond that business deal by now. They're not responsible for the layoffs at Sony, Microsoft, EA, or Epic, after all. Something ended the money party that everyone in the industry staffed up for, and that something might be inflation reducing consumer spending, the crypto crash, higher interest rates making borrowing money more expensive, something else entirely, or a little bit of all of that.