Lost, circa-2008 Timesplitters 4 prototype discovered on PS3 dev kit

This image from a 2007 teaser was one of the only remaining bits of Timesplitters 4 available to the public until this month. (credit: Free Radical)

Today, though, we actually have a chance to see and play what we missed over 15 years ago. That's thanks to an eagle-eyed eBay trawler who grabbed an aging PlayStation 3 development kit that happened to have a prototype of Timesplitters 4 sitting on its hard drive.

Reddit user Flimsy-Zebra3775 posted about the find earlier this month, asking the PS3 subreddit community for guidance on what looked like a working prototype of the long-lost game. After reportedly asking the seller "a lot of probing questions" and confirming that the prototype could be booted, Flimnsy-Zebra reportedly paid 525 pounds (about $670) for the dev kit, saying, "for history and my collection, it's worth it."