After reports that Free Radical employees arrived at work one day, only to find the locks changed and security guards keeping them out of the office, rumours spread wildly that the company behind games such as Time Splitters, Second Sight and Haze, had shut down.

It’s now been revealed, however, that Free Radical have instead been placed in to administration, a process by which a third-party attempts to resolve their client’s debts. A member of Resolve Partners, an administration group in the UK, Cameron Gunn said:

“We will be spending the next three or four days assessing the financial position of the company but it’s business as usual, although we have asked that almost all of the employees apart from a skeleton crew remain at home.”

“All employees have been paid up until the end of December and we hope to make another announcement before Christmas or very soon thereafter, but we must stress at this stage that it’s business as usual.”

Of concern to Free Radical fans, however, is the fact that co-founder David Doak, as well as other key senior Free Radical members, have left the company to form a new development outfit, Pumpkin Beach. Another worrying sign of Free Radical’s health is the reported loss of the rights to develop the third Star Wars Battlefront game, with the project going to another UK developer, Rebellion. Uneasy times, to say the least.