Free Radical's future looks very bleak after Crytek announced Timesplitters 4 has been cancelled while in an interview with Gamesindustry.biz, the co-founder of the company blames Ubisoft and others for causing the financial mess.
Steve Ellis who is one of the co-founders of the studio said in an interview ever since the move from Eidos as their publisher, the studio has been harmed more than helped with publishers.
While Eidos was very hands-off and ensured money was never an issue, Ubisoft was very hands-on and determined payment schedules based on formulas instead of progress.
Ubisoft was also revealed to be the reason why Haze became a PS3 exclusive since original plans had the game as an Xbox 360 and PC game. Ubisoft's strictness with the money and the need to rush the game ended up almost killing the company as a result due to the bomb in sales the game produced.
Their next publisher was Lucas Arts and was just as bad as Ubisoft but for different reasons. Free Radical was developing Star Wars Battlefront III but Lucas Arts' constant hiring and firing of people tied to the project ended up dooming it. Lucas Arts ended up dropping Free Radical due to their own issues regarding poor management at the time.
Activision was their next publisher and almost had Free Radical create the remake of GoldenEye before suddenly pulling all support away from the studio for no official reason. The studio would have ran out of funds to stay operational if Crytek didn't buy them once the offer was made.
http://www.screwattack.com/news/free...ncial-problems
________________________________________________________
Daily Recap:
1) Crytek announces Timseplitters 4 is no longer in development with the official reasons involving spiraling development costs and issues regarding Free Radical's stability.
http://www.egmnow.com/articles/news/...n-development/
2) Ubisoft officially debuts Rayman Origins 2 with the official name being "Rayman Legends" and Wii U exclusive content involving touchpad controls, the ability to scan items into the game, and the tease of Enzio from Assassin's Creed being a special playable character.
http://www.screwattack.com/news/raym...d-coming-wii-u