Lost, circa-2008 Timesplitters 4 prototype discovered on PS3 dev kit
This image from a 2007 teaser was one of the only remaining bits of Timesplitters 4 available to the public until this month. (credit: Free Radical)
Longtime readers and first-person shooter fans might remember how excited we were for the announcement of Timesplitters 4 in late 2008. Unfortunately, an intriguing trailer was the last we saw of the game before the project was killed amidst Free Radical’s bankruptcy later that year.
Today, though, we actually have a chance to see and play what we missed over 15 years ago. That’s thanks to an eagle-eyed eBay trawler who grabbed an aging PlayStation 3 development kit that happened to have a prototype of Timesplitters 4 sitting on its hard drive.
Reddit user Flimsy-Zebra3775 posted about the find earlier this month, asking the PS3 subreddit community for guidance on what looked like a working prototype of the long-lost game. After reportedly asking the seller “a lot of probing questions” and confirming that the prototype could be booted, Flimnsy-Zebra reportedly paid 525 pounds (about $670) for the dev kit, saying, “for history and my collection, it’s worth it.”
