Normally we’re pretty focused on campaigns for localization. 100,000 Strong for TimeSplitters 4 is a fan campaign about more than just localization. These guys/gals want to revive an amazing franchise. It’s not “bring us this game,” it’s “make us this game.” And the best part is, it could work. We’ve interviewed two of the administrators of this campaign, Daniel Laine and Daniel Lathan, about their work with the petition and campaign.
oprainfall: Tell me a little bit about your campaign. Who are you guys?
Daniel Laine: The campaign is basically an attempt to rally the fans of the Timesplitters series to show Crytek, who currently own the license for the series, that there are enough people who remember how awesome the Timesplitters series that a remake is a plausible business model to gauge whether a Timesplitters 4 is a has a viable market.
I am a huge Timesplitters fan, hence my support for the campaign, I’m also the newest member on the admin team.
oprainfall: How did your campaign get started?
Daniel Laine: The campaign was started by Daniel Wesoly, he posted the petition on change.org and created the Facebook page. He isn’t currently active as an admin as all his resources are currently engaged in creating the fan mod of Timesplitters. Crytek gave Daniel and the team he put together permission to use the official Timesplitters assets and are backing his endeavour. At this moment in time the project is shrouded in secrecy, we are hoping he comes forward and releases a video of what they have achieved soon.
oprainfall: What are your goals, upcoming and overall? How do you plan to achieve them?
Daniel Laine: Our upcoming goals are to continue to get more people on board and signing the petition. We do this by contacting other websites and Facebook pages to see if they would be interested in running a story on what we are doing. We have also contacted Nick Button-Brown, Cevat Yerli, GFACE and Crytek, in the hope that someone lets slip new information. So far they remain tight lipped. Only Cevat Yerli has said anything about Timesplitters. To surmise his statements, if enough fans support it, it will happen in some form.
Of course our over all goal will always be Timesplitters 4, we’re pushing for the HD trilogy first. We firmly believe there is enough interest in the series that a trilogy will rejuvenate the imaginations of gamers and tempt them away from the identikit military shooters that dominate the market. There’s a whole new user base of gamers that have never played Timesplitters, that have been raised on identikit FPS shooter games, that is a lot of new potential fans.
oprainfall: What are you going to do once you hit 100,000 followers?
Daniel Laine: Once we hit 100,000 followers, actually once we hit 100,000 signatures on the petition, we will pressure Crytek for an updated official stance on what they have planned for the series. We think 100,000 signatures is a significant milestone and based on those numbers it puts the HD trilogy in a position to be made. A team of 10 working on that for a year would cost $500,000 with overheads. If it sold at $20 over Xbox Live and PSN and on Wii U it would generate $2,000,000. Those figures are not to be sniffed at.
oprainfall: So, who are the masterminds behind 100k for TimeSplitters 4, and what is it about TimeSplitters that inspired you to petition for it?
Daniel Laine: The mastermind behind it all is Daniel Wesoly, credit has to go to him for getting the ball rolling. As for me, I just have incredible memories of playing Timesplitters 2 and 3. It is by far my number one played series and I have put more hours in to TS2 than any other game. It just has an overwhelming sense of fun and insanity, it doesn’t pretend to take itself seriously, its full of quips and jokes. On top of that, it just has so much content, a story campaign, challenges, a map maker. It was introducing multiplayer modes that are still unrivalled and it was doing this before online consoles became mainstream. This is one of the reasons why I feel it would flourish now, its insanely competitive in multiplayer and with the online consoles now, the possibilities are nearly as insane as some of the characters in the game!
I became involved here after being a fan of the page, what had already been achieved in terms of getting TS back into the limelight inspired me to petition for it, I was already actively posting in forums and spreading the word around the internet and to friends. I was contacting Facebook pages and trying to get the attention of websites, I guess the other admins thought as I was doing it anyway, I may as well do it officially!
Daniel Lathan: I’m Daniel Lathan (Facebook name El Cien) and I joined the team when the current admins needed more people to help spread the word. I’d already been posting and commenting a lot on the page so I guess they thought I’d be a good admin!
My personal affinity to TimeSplitters lies with it’s timelessness. It was a new and fresh game when it was released over a decade ago and it still feels new and fresh now. This is mostly down to it’s huge variety of gameplay modes, full match customisation and tons of characters as well as loads of other features that haven’t been improved on by other games since!
There is no other game quite like TimeSplitters and that’s why we believe it should make a return. People tell us everyday that everyone they’ve introduced the game to has loved it. Whether you like FPS or not, TimeSplitters never fails to be just downright fun!
Already up to about 75,000 signatures at this point, they’re closing in on that golden number. If you’re a fan of TimeSplitters, why not head over to their petition and add your name (no other personal information required), and follow their campaign on Facebook? TimeSplitters is one of the few FPS games out there with personality to spare. It’d be a waste to have it lost in a sea of CoD.
