TimeSplitters 2 is Free Radical Design's 2002 first-person shooter, a time-travel campaign and split-screen multiplayer showcase built around fast action, broad modes, and a large character roster.
TimeSplitters 2 sends Sergeant Cortez and Corporal Hart across history to stop the TimeSplitters from using time crystals to rewrite humanity's future. Its campaign jumps between distinct eras and settings, including a Siberian dam, 1930s Chicago, Aztec temples, a robot factory, and far-future science fiction environments.
The game pairs arcade-speed shooting with objective-led missions, two-player cooperative campaign support, and a generous set of challenge and arcade modes. Its multiplayer suite became central to its reputation, with four-player split screen, bot support, customizable match rules, varied weapons, and a roster that spans soldiers, monsters, robots, historical figures, and comic oddities.
Free Radical Design was founded by developers who had worked on GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark, and TimeSplitters 2 carries that console FPS lineage into a faster, more colorful form. The tone is deliberately playful, moving from pulp horror to spy pastiche to science fiction while keeping its controls and arenas readable for repeated local play.
Eidos Interactive released TimeSplitters 2 for PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox in 2002. It was widely praised by critics, earned British Academy Games Awards nominations for Original Music and Sound, and later appeared on Popular Mechanics' 2019 list of the 100 greatest games.
Its lasting place comes from how much it packed into a console shooter before online play became the genre's default center. TimeSplitters 2 treated campaign, co-op, bots, party modes, unlocks, and character comedy as equal parts of one fast, replayable package.