Tag Archives: free radical

Former Haze creative lead Derek Littlewood has told VG247 this morning that a now-confirmed sale of Free Radical to Crytek has brought “relief” to the UK firm.

“It’s clearly a really, really good thing,” he said.

“More than anything else I think everyone is relieved that we can now get back to concentrating on making games.”

A Crytek sale was rumoured last night and confirmed by Free Radical administrator ReSolve Partners this morning.

Free Radical entered administration at the end of last year, shedding 100 jobs over Christmas.

A formal announcement of the sale is expected later today.

Administrator ReSolve Partners has confirmed last night’s rumoured sale of Free Radical to Crytek.

“We are pleased to announce that a sale completed to Crytek late last night thus preserving over 40 jobs,” said a spokesperson.

A formal announcement is expected later today.

Thanks, GI.

Haze writer Rob Yescombe has apparently confirmed to 1UP that Free Radical is to be bought by Crytek.

Free Rad hit trouble just before Christmas last year, laying off 100 employees over the break.

The fate of the company is to be announced this week. Sounds as though it already has.

Thanks, Johnny Cullen.

Administration firm ReSolve Partners will confirm what’s the happen to Free Radical this week, making an announcement on the developer’s future on Wednesday, February 4.

Free Radical hit the skids just before Christmas, laying off 100 staff over the break.

A number of companies have been rumoured to be interested in Free Radical Design, including Codemasters and Monumental Games.

More on GI.

IGN’s yanked footage of Star Wars Battlefront III due to LucasArts pressure.

The publisher told the site the movie of Free Radical’s project – confirmed as real by insiders – was “the intellectual property of Lucasfilm” and had “been posted without permission.”

It looks as though the Kotaku footage we posted last week has also been pulled.

The off-screen video was taken from an alpha meeting at Free Radical last year.

Free Rad was apparently relieved of the project in 2008, months before entering administration. Pandemic is thought to be working on the game at the moment.

Happy New Year. We’re glad we shut down over Christmas. You didn’t miss a whole lot.

By far the most important story over the break was news that Free Radical cut its workforce by 140 to just 40.

The developer was confirmed as being in administration just before the Christmas holiday.

Speaking to 1UP, Cameron Gunn of administrators ReSolve Partners said, “We made around 140 employees redundant yesterday, effective 31 December (the date up to which they had been paid). We’re still trading on with the remaining 40 or so employees, have advertised the business for sale and have received some strong interest.”

News broke mid-December that staff had turned up for work only to be locked with a notice on the door telling them to adjourn to a nearby hotel.

Free Radical aside, other noteworthy Christmas news included confirmation that Mistwalker JRPG Cry On has been cancelled.

“AQI decided to cancel the project after analyzing the current market environment and forecasts for the future. We deeply apologize for troubling those who were awaiting its release,” said a company rep.

Cry On was apparently part of “Hironobu Sakaguchi’s triumvirate of Xbox 360 titles,” says this 1UP piece (the other two being Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey), and for those of you who don’t know, the game “was to be an action-RPG featuring a Nobuo Uematsu soundtrack [and] character designs by Kimihiko Fujisaka.”

Full round up below.

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Free Radical may be in its death throes, but at least we get to look at what might have been. One of the artists on TimeSplitters 4 has released a bunch of concept stuff from the game.

It’s all on Nick Carver’s site, as he’s now looking for a job and it’s apparently free season on TimeSplitters 4 concept art.

Help yourself. Thanks, Kotaku.

TIGA’s put out a press release expressing “condolences to everyone at Free Radical Design” after it was reported yesterday that the firm had gone into administration.

Richard Wilson, CEO of the body, said tjhe government must “take action” in light of the story by giving the games trade tax breaks.

His statement in full:

“On behalf of all TIGA members, I would like to say how sorry the whole industry is to hear of the fate of Free Radical Design. The studio has employed some very talented teams developing first class games over the years. Free Radical Design has also been a member of TIGA and a strong supporter of our trade association. I would like to congratulate everyone at the studio for their past achievements and I wish everyone good fortune in finding a new job as quickly as possible. Free Radical Design’s demise highlights the difficult economic environment in which UK games developers do business.

“Last night, Lord Mandelson, the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), advocated a form of ‘market-based industrial activism’. This approach, he said, means that ‘Policy should be activist in the sense that it recognises that government can and must complement market dynamics to get the best outcomes for our society and economy.’

“The best outcome for the UK video games industry is an increase in the sector’s rate of growth and the return of the UK as the third largest developer of video games in the world. If we are to achieve these results then the Government must establish a more favourable tax environment and tackle the underlying skills shortages facing the industry. A tax break for games production and a larger supply of skilled workers may not have saved Free Radical Design. Nonetheless, this policy approach would strengthen the UK video games sector. The Secretary of State for BERR must take action.”

Free Radical went into administration on Wednesday. Employees found the company locked up yesterday.

According to Joystiq’s crack team, the official website of Activision’s open-world Crackdown-killer, Prototype, sprung a little leak. Joystiq, then, being from the Internet, quickly smuggled a few new, possibly illicit screenshots and movies back to its den.

However, we have no way of confirming the slip-up, as Activision seems to have caulked it up pretty quickly – replacing the leaked assets with a countdown timer.

Odds are, Activision will attempt to re-gobble these mistakenly regurgitated movies and screenshots – which we’re designating as “the best things you’ll see all day” – before too long, so go check them out!

By Nathan Grayson

Free Rad’s put out some concept images for TimeSplitters 4, following yesterday’s movie teaser.

Gearing up for a reveal, surely? Take a look.

Free Radical’s put up a new teaser for TimeSplitters 4 on its site, featuring Vader-style breathing and a monkey in a spacesuit. Obviously.

Little’s known of the game as yet, but you’d hope to be seeing something soon. Take a look at the snippet in the meantime.

Who knows where Timesplitters 4 will end up? You do! Kinda. If you point your browser over to Free Radical’s website, you’ll find a spiffy new poll that puts Timesplitters 4’s fate in your hands.

This poll — assuming it’s not being used as a backward way of asking: “Which version of the game should we cancel?” – runs contrary to PSW’s recent Timesplitters 4 cover story, which led us to believe Free Radical had already hammered out the game’s nitty-gritty details.

So, with all that said, for which platform did you rock the vote?

By Nathan Grayson

Amazon.com was listing Star Wars: Battlefront III last night, as reported by GoNintendo, but has since pulled the product. This link now brings up a 404.

The retailer was listing the game for Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, DS, PSP and PlayStation 2, according to Kotaku, for a March 2009 release.

The game’s in development at Free Radical, apparently. E3 reveal, innit.

They’re on PlayStation Beyond, and don’t show much, to be honest. No details on this at all at the moment, but you can assume a reveal soon if it’s in print now.

Talking with Gamerush, Haze community development manager Ubi_Wuzzi has called IGN’s 4.5/10 review of the game “rude”.

“I think they’ve been pretty rude with the game,” he said.

“During journalists hands-on we were really happy as anyone had fun with the game. Most of them stated that the gameplay was solid and multiplayer well balanced.

“Anyway, we have no comments regarding reviews. But as a gamer I would say that the most important are the user reviews. We’ll see how the game is rated by gamers.”

Haze now has a Metacritic score of 56, stat-fans.

By Mike Bowden

Looks as though there may be a problem with being able to invite Friends into games in Haze. This thread‘s just popped up on the Ubisoft forums showing gamers complaining that when attempting to invite Friends into games, the title asks for a patch. Of which there isn’t one, apparently.

We’re trying to get comment on this now.

A number of sites published their Haze reviews last night, with the game shipping in the US yesterday and Ubisoft lifting the UK embargo on online reviews last night.

The PS3-exclusive hit headlines yesterday when IGN gave it 4.5/10.

This lot should give you a pretty clear picture of what’s hitting British shelves this Friday:

• Gamershell – 6.5/10
• GameDaily – 7/10
• GamesRadar – 7/10
• GiantBomb – 2/5
• Gamespot – 6/10

So there we are. It’s probably not the worst thing in the world, says the internet, but won’t be setting records. Gamespot’s given it a “Lynch”, and that’s as good an indication as any. We’re still waiting on Eurogamer and CVG’s scores, but “in the middle somewhere” is probably a safe bet.

And that’s that.

After the break. It’s the entire intro sequence, from loading the game to entering combat for the first time. There’s a lot of shouting involved. See for yourself.

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We’ve just received word from Ubisoft UK that the Friday embargo on online Haze reviews has now been lifted. Expect to see UK reviews going live from now on.

Free Radical scriptwriter Rob Yescombe has responded to IGN’s 4.5/10 drubbing of shooter Haze by saying he just wants people to make up their own minds.

“My thoughts are ‘Owch’. No, wait – MEGAowch,” he told PSU.

“Haze has had mixed reviews, but even GoldenEye got a 4/10 when it first came out. With a 9/10 in the Italian PSM, and an extremely positive review in Famitsu, we’re looking forward to people playing Haze and making a judgment for themselves.”

More through the link.