TimeSplitters

Each of the TimeSplitters games are first-person shooters which also feature elements of exploration and puzzle-solving. Multiplayer is a core gameplay element, both co-operative such as allowing two players to play through story missions together and competitive multiplayer; however, these multiplayer elements were local play only, without online multiplayer, until the release of TimeSplitters: Future Perfect.

The series' visual style uses character models and expressions emphasizing more caricatured, cartoon-like qualities and comic book-inspired design, supported by animators from traditional 2D animation backgrounds. Many of the characters represent parodies of established pop culture stereotypes, such as the aristocratic English explorer or the suave secret agent, and many aspects of the series focus on often surreal and self-deprecating humor.

The TimeSplitters games were developed by Free Radical Design, a development company based in the Midlands, UK. Free Radical was founded in 1999 by five people, all of whom had previously worked for Rare on the Nintendo 64 first-person shooters GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark for a year and a half of development, but before its release: directors David Doak and Steve Ellis set up the company, and were then followed by director Karl Hilton, soundtrack composer Graeme Norgate, and Lee Ray. As a result of this shared development team, gameplay similarities, and occasionally overlapping settings (such as a Russian dam, as featured in TimeSplitters 2), the TimeSplitters franchise is often compared to these predecessors, and considered to be their "spiritual successor."

Free Radical made an agreement with Eidos Interactive in February 1999 to "work for roughly three years on a novel FPS". Although it was not the first game worked on by the team–the first being an FPS with the working title of Redemption: what would later become Second Sight– TimeSplitters began development after the company received approval to obtain a PlayStation 2 devkit, which were difficult to obtain and decided to focus on creating a more straightforward shooter whose pace would suit the new console's power, and which could be developed in time for the PlayStation 2's delayed launch date. The team approached the project with the intent of increasing not just pace, but also the quantity/variety of enemies compared to GoldenEye and Perfect Dark. In the words of David Doak:"Steve [Ellis, lead programmer] got something up and running really quickly.