"Nobody was interested" in TimeSplitters 4 says dev

Free Radical co-founder and former managing director has said publishers were not interested in TimeSplitters 4.

In an interview with Edge, Ellis said publishers were not interested in different and unique shooters, but were more interested in the big franchises.

"There just isn't the interest there in doing anything that tries to step away from the rules of the genre - no one wants to do something that's quirky and different, because it's too much of a risk. And a large part of that is the cost of doing it."

Ellis also draws examples from other titles which have tried to take on the Call of Duty games.

"Nobody really buys any FPSes unless they're called Call Of Duty," he added. "I guess Battlefield did okay, but aside from that pretty much every FPS loses money. I mean, [look at] Crysis 2: great game, but there's no way it came anywhere close to recouping its dev costs."

Free Radical was acquired by Crytek, the studio was renamed Crytek UK, and there is speculation that TimeSplitters is being developed now. It's also been rumoured that Homefront 2 is also being developed by the Crysis developer.