Free Radical Design

Background

Free Radical Design (originally known as "Geveret Ltd." until 1999) is a British game developer founded by David Doak, Steve Ellis, Karl Hilton and Graeme Norgate, who were all formally developers at Rare on projects like GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark. The studio is best known for the TimeSplitters series, which has since received many awards and a dedicated cult following. After the release of the PlayStation 3-exclusive title Haze in 2008, and the title receiving mixed-to-negative reviews along with the studio's troubles with developing a third title in the original Star Wars Battlefront series, Free Radical would near closure in late 2008, but would be saved after being bought by Far Cry and Crysis developers Crytek in 2009. The studio, renamed as "Crytek UK", would end its run during the development of Homefront: The Revolution, during which the series' IP was bought by Deep Silver and Crytek UK's staff was moved to "Deep Silver Dambuster". In May 2021, Deep Silver announced they had reformed Free Radical Design, with many of the members and founders from the original studio on board to develop a new entry in the TimeSplitters series. However, in December 2023, it was announced that the reformed studio had shut down, following a series of restructures by Embracer Group, Deep Silver's parent company.

1st Logo (October 26, 2000-March 21, 2005)

Visuals: On a black background, there is the text ".FREE RADICAL" in a modified version of Times New Roman (the stems of the Es and Fs are cut off, and the As are missing the middle line). To the right of ".FREE", there is a sideways barcode-like design that reads "DESIGN LTD" with several binary 1s and 0s underneath. A light emits through the logo, revealing a bit of smoke. The logo glows once, before fading out.

Variants:

For its first two appearances (TimeSplitters and its sequel), the logo is seen still on the copyright screen alongside the Eidos Interactive logo.
An alternate version of the animation appears on TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, in which the light is much more transparent and tinted purplish-blue, which disappears, leaving the logo solid white. It also cuts to black instead of fading out.

Technique: CGI.

Audio: A heavy whoosh sound, followed with a slam and phaser noise.

Audio Variant: On TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, the slam is absent.

Availability: Seen on TimeSplitters, its sequels TimeSplitters 2 and TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, in addition to Second Sight.

2nd Logo (May 20, 2008)

Visuals: On a black background, there is a design consisting of four blades, three of which are white and one blue, zoom out while spinning. The blades stop while the top shines, and a white box is drawn in next to them. The stacked name "FREE RADICAL" in Myriad Pro appears and lights up, not unlike the previous logo. The logo zooms in.

Technique: CGI.

Audio: An unnerving breathing sounder, with an echoed droning noise and a tense string note.

Availability: Only seen on Haze for PlayStation 3.