After 13 years hacking through the development wilderness, TimeSplitters Rewind is out. Its creators revealed last month that the CryEngine-powered mod would finally be released in November. True to their word, Rewind is available to download now.
Rewind is a somewhat unusual fan project, a mixture of remake, compilation and spiritual successor to the first three TimeSplitters games. The website describes it as “a greatest hits collection of maps, modes, leagues, challenges and story content across the original trilogy of TimeSplitters games.”
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Frankly, that wouldn’t be hugely surprising. Rewind has endured a highly sporadic development since Crytek, which purchased Free Radical design, gave a group of modders going by Pantheonyx permission to make a TimeSplitters mod in the publisher’s formidable CryEngine. Like many ambitious fan projects, the road to release was rocky, to the point that Rewind’s website features a detailed timeline charting its many ups and downs.
There are some fascinating details here, like how at one point the team switched to Unreal Engine 4 and used Unreal Tournament as its technical basis, before discovering that “using Unreal Tournament as a base is a violation of Epic’s development”, resulting in the entire build being scrapped. Oops. The project really began picking up steam in 2020, when de facto art lead Cameron Williams released a secret update video that included a call for help, which saw the mod’s team size triple in two months.
I’m curious to see how the final(ish) product has turned out. While the original TimeSplitters games are fondly remembered for their imaginative premise and successfully translating FPS play to console, they don’t hold up enormously well today. But perhaps the Rewind team’s CryEngine overhaul can dust off some of the cobwebs and help demonstrate what made the games so beloved at the time.
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