'£525 down, but for history and my collection, it's worth it': Free Radical's cancelled version of TimeSplitters 4 was discovered on eBay and is now playable

For those wondering what it would be like to play the cancelled 2008 PS3 demo of TimeSplitters 4 developed by the British studio Free Radical—which is an oddly specific thought—you're in luck because it's currently available to check out. 

One Reddit user has single-handedly brought the FPS game back from the dead after they posted a picture of a PS3 devkit that they found on eBay, which turned out to have a cancelled PS3 demo of Free Radical's TimeSplitters 4 on it.

«I asked the seller a lot of probing questions without giving it away; they indeed had a friend who worked at Free Radical until November 2008, a month before the studio shut down,» Reddit user Flimsy-Zebra3775 explained in a comment under their original post. «They are going to boot the game up at the weekend to see what it is and send me a video; if it's legit, I'll buy it, and if someone who knows HDD dumping helps me, I'll upload the drive.»

The seller ended up booting into it and discovering that this was, in fact, a prototype from the 2008 cancelled version of TimeSplitters 4. After spending $672 (£525) for the console, Flimsy-Zebra3775 uploaded the prototype to Hidden Palace for all to see and download. «History secured,» they said. 

If you scrolled through the Reddit thread, you'd see just how happy fans of the series were about this discovery. «At the very least, go on and take a bow,» one user said. "(Gif with applauds coming your way from us and the community, and we’ll throw in some roses for the Heck of it.) Go on now, take that bow." Many others simply congratulated the buyer on making history and supporting video game preservation efforts. 

David Doak, the founder and director of Free Radical, also responded to the rare find on Twitter. «This is exactly the kind of nonsense that <insert any publisher name> wasn't interested in back in 2008.» 

You can see what the PS3 demo had in store for players for yourself, or you can check out some of the various videos that have been uploaded to