A beloved PS2 shooter might finally be coming back.
A new leak seems to have revealed ahead of time the next PlayStation 2 game that will soon be released for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4. Earlier this month, Sony made many PlayStation fans ecstatic when it announced that it would begin bringing over classic PS2 games to modern hardware. The first initiative of this came this past week when Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Tomb Raider Legend, and Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus all became buyable on the PlayStation Store. Now, ahead of the announcement of July’s incoming wave of PlayStation classics, the identity of one PS2 title looks to have been divulged.
Spotted by Gematsu, a new rating for TimeSplitters has been found in Taiwan. Specifically, the game has been rated for both PS5 and PS4 consoles, which implies that it could be one of the new additions to the PlayStation Store as soon as this coming month. For now, Sony itself hasn’t commented on the situation, but ratings leaks of this type have a near-perfect track record. Because of this, there’s essentially no question that TimeSplitters will come to modern PlayStation consoles on a long enough timeline.
Released in 2000, the original TimeSplitters was a PS2 exclusive developed by Free Radical. It went on to see two sequels in TimeSplitters 2 and TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, both of which came to PS2 in addition to Xbox and GameCube. Since Future Perfect’s release in 2005, though, the TimeSplitters series has been on ice. In recent years, it was thought that TimeSplitters would be returning in some capacity after the IP rights for the franchise were obtained by Embracer Group. Sadly, in late 2023, the new iteration of Free Radical that was developing a TimeSplitters project was shut down, which once again killed any hopes of the property returning with a new installment.
How would you feel about the first TimeSplitters being the next PS2 game to make the jump to PS5 and PS4? And which other games from the PS2 era would you like to see Sony bring back in the months ahead? Be sure to let me know for yourself over on social media at @MooreMan12.