After more than a decade and a half of inactivity, "Time Splitters" is officially back and Free Radical Design, the developer of the original series, has been reorganized to develop the new game.

Publisher Deep Silver announced the news on Twitter, revealing that the reborn studio will be led by Steve Ellis and David Doak. Fans have been eagerly awaiting a new installment in the series for years, so it is perhaps not surprising that the news was received favorably by gamers.

The original TimeSplitters was released as a launch title for the PS2 in 2000, with a sequel in 2002: Future Perfect was released in 2005. Since then, the series languished in various states of development until the original Free Radical Design studio (subsequently renamed Crytek UK) closed in 2014.

In 2018, THQ Nordic (Deep Silver's parent company) bought the rights to the franchise, and in 2019, Steve Ellis was hired to "help get the long-loved series back on track". So, longtime fans have been excited about the prospect of the game's return, and this news confirms that it will happen.

Not much is being said in this announcement. No trailer, no screenshots, no marketing materials. And there is not even confirmation as to whether this continuation of the franchise will take the form of a sequel, a complete reboot, or a remake of one/all of the original games.

Perhaps the most important thing we can glean from this announcement is that Deep Silver is "establishing a new development studio" and that development of a new game has not yet begun. So, while we are certainly looking forward to playing the new TimeSplitters game at some point, it will be a long time before we will be able to even see it, let alone actually play it.

Of course, fans of the series have been waiting for the franchise to return in some form for the past 16 years, and I wouldn't mind if they did a little more. We also don't yet know on which platform this new "Time Splitters" project will be released: PS5, Xbox Series X, or PC would be reasonable. Unless, of course, development takes longer and PS6 is released by then.