If you've ever wanted to play the PS3 demo of "TimeSplitters 4," developed by British studio Free Radical and canceled in 2008, that may be an oddly specific idea, but luckily you can now check out that demo.

A Reddit user posted a photo of a PS3 development kit he found on eBay, which turned out to contain a cancelled PS3 demo of Free Radical's TimeSplitters 4.

"The seller had a friend who worked at Free Radical until November 2008, a month before the studio closed." They will be launching the game over the weekend to see what it is and will send me a video. If it is legit I will buy it and if someone who knows HDD dumps help me I will upload the drive"

The seller eventually launched it and discovered that this was, in fact, a prototype of the cancelled 2008 version of TimeSplitters 4. After spending $672 (£525) on the console, Flimsy-Zebra3775 uploaded the prototype to Hidden Palace for all to see and download." History was secured," they said.

Scroll through the Reddit thread and you'll see how pleased fans of the series are with this discovery." "At least take a bow," said one user. 'GIFs of applause from us and the community. Now, take a bow." Many others congratulated the buyers for making history and supporting video game preservation efforts.

David Doak, founder and director of Free Radical, also responded to this unusual find on Twitter." This is exactly the kind of nonsense thatwas not interested in back in 2008"

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You can see for yourself what the PS3 demo had to offer players, or you can check out some of the various videos uploaded to YouTube since the discovery: the YouTube TimeSplitters 4 video shows one player is playing against several bots. The match takes place in the courtyard of a gothic castle with tangled tree roots. Futuristic and strangely eerie music accompanies the matches. It's not the most captivating FPS game I've witnessed, but it's certainly a cool project and well worth saving.

Free Radical first developed "TimeSplitters 4" in 2008, a game that incorporated quirky touches to the traditional FPS formula, including strange character designs, massive online multiplayer, and elemental powers. Unfortunately, Free Radical went under in mid-December 2008 following the failure of the PS3 shooter "Haze"; Crytek bought Free Radical and transferred the remaining staff to another studio. Free Radical and "TimeSplitters" were then reunited under Embracer after more than a decade, with some of the key staff returning. Unfortunately, "TimeSplitters 4" was equally doomed the second time around, and Embracer closed Free Radical in November.

Oddly enough, this wonderful find by Flimsy-Zebra3775 is not the only buried treasure of TimeSplitters to resurface this month. The former Free Radical Design developer recently released footage of the TimeSplitters 2 remaster, which was produced in July 2023, before Embracer closed the studio. But thanks to the closure, it looks like the demo of this strange PS3 version of TimeSplitters 4, produced in 2008, will be the only thing fans will be able to get their hands on for the foreseeable future.