Earlier today, video game publisher THQ Nordic announced the acquisition of two video game franchises, Timesplitters and Second Sight. The company purchased both of the IP’s from Crytek for an undisclosed amount, but the main factor here is that both of the video game series were developed by Free Radical Design, known today as Deep Silver Dambuster, which is one of THQ Nordics video game proprietary developers. The acquisition could lead to what many fans have been hoping for, a remastered version of the Timesplitters series, or possibly the long awaited sequel. Second Sight has a dedicated cult following, but the likelihood of it seeing a sequel is not high. Prior to being bought out by THQ Nordic, Free Radical Design was a prominent video game developer during the early to mid 2000’s.
First releasing Time Splitters in 2000, the developer joined a host of other companies during the First Person Shooter boom at the time, such as Bungie, iD Software, Valve, and Rare who developed Halo, Doom, Half-Life, and Goldeneye 007 respectively. The company reached their peak when they released Timesplitters 2 in 2002, which is still regarded as one of the best fps games of all time. The game was critically acclaimed for its uniqueness and art style for an fps game, standing out among its peers. They then released a third game in the series, Timesplitters: Future Perfect in 2005.
While not quite as popular as the Timesplitters series, Second Sight was an intriguing addition to the stealth action-adventure genre when it first came out in 2004. Switching between a first-person and a third-person perspective while stealthily avoiding enemies was obviously a nod to the Metal Gear Solid franchise. However, the most exciting aspect about this game was the fact that you wielded psychic powers, which were utilized to get past certain sections and solve various puzzles.
Tragically, Free Radical Design folded after they launched Haze on the PlayStation 3, which was labeled as the next “Halo Killer”, giving it an insurmountable amount of hype leading up to its release. Once it did come out, it was lambasted by reviewers and resulted in horrible sales, leading to the company to declare bankruptcy prior to being bought out by Crytek, and eventually THQ Nordic, who then shut down the studio while bringing former employees to Deep Silver Dambuster. Perhaps the glory days of their former identity will be remembered in a huge way, but only time will tell, so we’ll just have to wait and see what THQ Nordic does with their newly acquired IP’s.