TimeSplitters was probably one of the most inventive first person shooters of its time, a glorious game that a lot of fans look back upon fondly. With shooters getting a renaissance of sorts in recent times – games like DOOM, Titanfall 2, Overwatch, Splatoon, and more are far different from the ordinary expectation of what a shooter should be – now is as good a time as any for a TimeSplitters revival.

Thankfully, it looks like TimeSplitters Rewind, the previously announced remake of the original games in CryEngine, will be releasing later this year. The game is a standalone multiplayer game being developed by fans of the original Timesplitters series. It will include characters, maps, and weapons from all three games completely rebuilt in the new engine. While this is a far cry from a brand new TimeSplitters, for many fans, even this may be enough.

You can check out a trailer for TimeSplitters Rewind below.

After much speculation about Crytek’s financial troubles, Deep Silver has announced that it is purchased the rights to the Homefront IP thus moving the development of Homefront: The Revolution from Crytek UK to a new team. This new team is Dambuster Studios which is led by Hasit Zala, former head of Crytek UK (as per VG247). It also seems that the development team from Crytek Nottingham will be joining Dambusters for development.

Crytek officially stated that, “[They] will continue their hard work on upcoming shooter Homefront: The Revolution. Both parties hope to finalize and implement a deal soon.”

CEO of Koch Media Group Dr. Klemens Kundratitz said, “We are thrilled to see another great IP joining the Deep Silver universe. We strongly believe in the potential of Homefront: The Revolution and trust in the new team to continue the path they have been walking in the last years.”

Thoughts on the acquisition? Let us know in the comments below.

Crytek UK wasn’t always having to handle its senior management going AWOL while a first person shooter was still in development – as seems to be the case with Homefront: The Revolution these days. It used to be Free Radical, developer of the beloved Timesplitters series before Crytek purchased the studio following its filing for bankruptcy.

Though Timesplitters has yet to see a sequel, there’s still plenty of love for it. As Crytek UK animator Mark Jackson told OXM, “You would not believe the amount of times people ask for Timesplitters. I couldn’t really comment, but there’s a lot of love for it at the studio. I can’t really say much more than that.”

A sequel isn’t happening but does that mean the franchise is dead? “God no! Like I say, in the studio it’s held very dear. It’s just waiting for the right situations and deals to be done. I’m not privy to that, but from everybody working at the studio – everyone, whenever we say what would you like to do next, it’s TimeSplitters.

“So yeah, there’s a lot of love for it. But I couldn’t say where that goes, or who pulls the strings to make that happen, or when it would happen, but it’s certainly not something that people dismiss.”

Do you want to see a new Timesplitters, perhaps for next gen consoles? Let us know in the comments.

Financial woes for Crytek UK continue as Kotaku reports that Hasit Zala, who is the director for upcoming sandbox FPS Homefront: The Revolution has reportedly walked away from the development studio. This is due to recent reports of Crytek not paying staff, resulting in several development team members not showing up for work.

Zala isn’t alone as development manager Ben Harris and studio head Karl Hilton have reportedly left the studio as well and there’s apparently no senior management on hand at all (with the situation being described as a continued “downwards spiral”). Crytek still hasn’t acknowledged the situation and it could be very bad in the long-term since Zala is also the franchise director the company’s free to play shooter Warface.

Thoughts on the company’s future at this point, especially with news of Deep Silver possibly stepping in and purchasing the studio to publish Homefront: The Revolution? Let us know in the comments below.

Rumours of Crytek going bankrupt emerged not too long – and were quickly swept aside by the Crytek and Ryse: Son of Rome developer – but the bad news has only continued to pour in. According to recent reports from anonymous Crytek employees, members of Crytek UK, which are developing Homefront: The Revolution, are no longer going to work due to unpaid salaries. It also seems that 100 people have left the studio thus far, though permanent losses are yet to be revealed.

Kotaku spoke to four people from Crytek UK who revealed that many of the staff haven’t been paid amounts that are owed and have filed formal grievance letters for the same before deciding to not come in.

There’s also a rumour going around that Deep Silver, which is working with Crytek on the game and publishing it, may step and purchase the studio altogether to continue development. Since Homefront: The Revolution recently appeared at E3 and will be making other appearances in the coming months, it only makes sense that they’d want things to go smoothly. As one source stated, “They have invested a lot in Homefront and will want to protect their investment.”

Thoughts on the situation? Let us know below.

Crytek has been having some rather serious financial problems as of late, though it’s been denying the same. Nonetheless, development on Homefront: The Revolution is proceeding with designer Fasahat Salim telling GameSpot that it will push the limits of CryEngine.

“For us, we’re really excited by the scale at which we’re operating. We’re pushing the CryEngine to its limits. This is one of the biggest worlds we’ve [ever] built at Crytek. So we’re very excited about it.”

Of all the cities to have the Koreans take over, why choose Philadelphia? Salim said, “When we were thinking about this game, we could have based it anywhere. We wanted to go with Philadelphia because there’s a lot of symbolic significance in Philadelphia. It’s the birthplace of US independence. To this day, it has a lot of iconic buildings built around independence. It’s home to the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall.”

That’s a fairly strong good point and hopefully, Homefront: The Revolution will overcome any problems that Crytek is facing to release in 2015 for the PS4, PC and Xbox One.

Homefront: The Revolution is created by Crytek UK and published by Crytek and Deep Silver, taking the franchise into a true sand-box first person shooter genre. The game sees the Korean People’s Army occupying the United States and pushing Philadelphia under the heel of oppression. Of course, the citizens of Philly are fighting back and the above gameplay trailer shows how.

There are major Metro: Last Light vibes in terms of atmosphere and tone but there will be several different ways to approach missions. The objective is to disrupt and rebel against the KPA though, resulting in true guerilla tactics rather than outright warfare. You’ll also be teaming up with friends and up to four players can co-operate to cause chaos.

Homefront: The Revolution will be releasing in 2015 for Xbox One, PS4 and PC, taking advantage of the next gen consoles’ power for the increased scale. What are your thoughts? Let us know below.

Deep Silver and Crytek UK surprised the world when they announced Homefront: The Revolution, a direct sequel to THQ’s middling first person shooter of the same name. However, while the initial plan was to follow the first game’s linear approach, Crytek UK game designer Fasahat Salim revealed to Joystiq that plans changed significantly when it acquired the license.

“When we were working with THQ we were initially started on quite a linear, level-by-level first-person shooter. After we acquired the license, we jumped at the possibility of expanding on that. That’s when we came up with the idea of [focusing on] guerrilla warfare” and the team decided to move to an open world.

“It’s not only an open world. We can make this into an evolving open world. A space that responds to what you’re doing in the game. It’s not only the environment that changes, it’s the people that inhabit the space as well.”

“We were quite worried about what was going to happen to all of the work that we put into this game, but then we found out Crytek were actually going to go in and buy the whole IP, which is really exciting for us. All of a sudden, there was an opportunity to go way beyond anything that we had initially thought of when we started out.”

As for the guerrilla warfare tactics, Salim emphasized that the game won’t be out overpowering the Koreans as much as destabilizing their hold on the US citizenry. “We’re trying to encourage missions where the player has to basically hit the enemy quickly and try to get out, that is kind of what guerrilla warfare is all about. That includes things like sabotaging KPA infrastructure, assassinating or ambushing KPA. Basically we want to focus on hit-and-run type tactics.”

Homefront: The Revolution will be out in 2015 for PS4, Xbox One and PC. Stay tuned for more details.

Homefront 2 is now being developed by the subsidiary studio Crytek UK and published by the parent company Crytek (Far Cry series and Ryse: Son of Rome), developers and creators of the powerful CryEngine. Homefront 2 will be running on the brand new next generation video game engine, currently titled CryEngine 4th Generation. It is currently slated for a release sometime in 2014 but this may slide to a later date in 2015. There are currently no specifics regarding which platforms Homefront 2 will be launching on, but the game will be available at retail and via digital download.

• 1. Development
• 2. Story
• 3. Gameplay
• 4. Characters

Development

On December 19th of 2012, the publishing body THQ filed for bankruptcy under the protection of chapter 11 (When the applying entity is not able to service debt or pay the amount due to creditors, under chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code the debtor can retain control of the business, it’s operations and assets as a “debtor in possession” and is then subject to oversight of the court and jurisdiction.) After filing this claim for bankruptcy, Crytek acquired the the rights to the Homefront franchise and all related assets during an asset sale (commonly referred to as the THQ Asset Auction) for the incredibly low price of $500,000, because of this they will replace THQ as the publisher of this game.

Homefront trailer for representation purpose.

In an interview with VG247, general manager Nick mentioned that despite the game’s expected 2015 release date, it may in fact slide further back due to the sale of THQ, he also stressed that the sale would not affect the development of the game, “Crytek’s focus is fairly similar to THQ’s -namely to make the best game possible, so this will not have too much impact on the development itself. However, we might change the release date that we haven’t announced, and move this to another release date we won’t announce yet either.”

He later elaborated on the reasoning behind wanting to buy the Homefront IP by saying, “The worst case scenario for us was that this situation meant that all that work just ended up being thrown into the bin, so we wanted to buy the IP to make sure the team can finish off the game they wish to make. But we always have and will believe in the potential of the IP. This is why we agreed to work on it in the first place, so it’s now beneficial for us to have control over the IP’s destiny.”

Story

There are currently no details available relating to the plot of Homefront 2, but it is likely to continue from the first game’s plot, at least tangentially. Sometime during the second decade of the 2000’s political tension between North Korea and the worlds various super powers are high due to increased passive military aggression from North Korea, this is following the successful testing of a nuclear weapons program and the sinking of a South Korean vessel.

As sickness sweeps through the US and as the country further destabilizes, the GKR (Greater Korean Republic) detonates a HAND (High Altitude Nuclear Device – A preemptive military invasion maneuver which results in a large radius EMP [electromagnetic pulse] which weakens land based counter measures and computer functions) and begins the invasion and ultimately the annexation  in earnest.

Gameplay

Homefront is a first person shooter that follows the fairly standard FPS template of a mix between impressive battles full of explosions and set pieces, taking cover and returning fire.

The first Homefront game came coupled with a rather well recieved and deep multiplayer component, somewhat similar to that found in Kaos Studios’ first game Frontlines: Fuel of War. Whether or not this is being carried over to Homefront 2 is yet to be confirmed, but with the seemingly constant shift towards online gaming it seems somewhat inevitable.

Characters

There has been no mention of characters, both past or present starring in this game or making a return. Any information regarding characters at this point is purely speculation and/or supposition on the part of fans and Homefront enthusiasts.

Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game.

Crytek UK has confirmed in a recent interview with Eurogamer that it is now “talking to publishers” regarding the creation of non other than a new TimeSplitters.

“We’re talking to publishers at the moment about whether that’s [TimeSplitters] a viable route or not,” said Karl Hilton, the Crytek UK boss.

“There hasn’t been a TimeSplitters game for quite a while. Obviously TimeSplitters is a FPS with a strong multiplayer element. The question is, is that the way to go with another one, or should it go down a different route, or should we be developing a new IP altogether?”

“It’s down to us talking to publishers about what their interest is and where they see it going. If they’re keen for a TS game, then we’d be happy to do one. If they’d like us to develop something new then we’d do that.” he said.

“Whether the TS is like the classic TS or whether the TS is a new imagined TS, that’s the other thing to discuss with them.”

“Talking to publishers, everyone is aware of TimeSplitters. It’s got a brand awareness that’s really good. Its success in different markets was quite variable. So depending on who you talk to, they either look at it as a really successful product or as a product that was almost successful but could have done better.” he added.

Crytek UK (previously known as Free Radical), are currently working on the multiplayer aspect of Crysis 2, which is set for a March 2011 release.