Timesplitters dev Free Radical Design shut down as Embracer cuts costs

Free Radical Design, the studio behind the anticipated Timesplitters 4, has been shut down as video games industry layoffs continue.

2

The gaming market has cut over 6,000 jobs as publishers try to stabilize profits through cost control measures. Big-name publishers from Electronic Arts to Ubisoft have eliminated hundreds of jobs, but Swedish decentralized games empire The Embracer Group may lead the charge with over 900 people being laid off as of September 30, with more layoffs happening since.

At the time Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors warned that more layoffs are possible. Now parent company Plaion, who operates the Deep Silver publishing label, has apparently closed Free Radical Design (FRD). This comes shortly after Plaion also closed Volition, the developers of the Saints Row franchise. The FRD studio had been resurrected in 2021 after Embracer purchased the IP back in 2018, and Free Radical Design had been working on a new Timesplitters game.

Steve Ellis, the studio development director at Free Radical design, confirmed the studio's closure on LinkedIn:

"Today I had to inform all staff at Free Radical Design that they were being made redundant, at the worst possible time of year, and through no fault of their own.

"This industry needs to grow up and learn how to do better and stop treating its staff as dispensable. We're unfortunately only the latest in a very long line of similar stories this year.

"Such a shame that the world will never get to see the game that we were developing."