Crytek sparked hope for TimeSplitters fans last year when it bestowed its blessing upon the community-driven TimeSplitters Rewind PC mod to use the powerful CryEngine 3. And there was much rejoicing, for although Crytek bought series developer Free Radical Design a few years ago, it left any future TimeSplitters games in question as it refocused the team's talents onto Crysis development. It's been a while since the Facebook-turned-mod-group announced the good news, so project manager Michael Hubicka shares a whole bunch of new info in a Cooking with Grenades interview (via Escapist ). Monkeys: confirmed.

"We collaborate with Crytek as often as possible," Hubicka says. "We're both very busy working on our respective projects."

Rewind benefits from Crytek's permission to make use of the original asset materials and models for reference while building everything from scratch in CryEngine. Its design combines the best elements from all three TimeSplitters games with a focus on the series' amazingly fun multiplayer and challenges, and server admins can choose between classic or updated TimeSplitters playstyles. If Crytek continues being awesome, Rewind might see a single-player campaign in the future.

As in the original games, players will use a mixture of hitscan and ballistic weapons. LAN support will be available at launch, and Rewind's team will include the same version of the Sandbox CryEngine 3 SDK it's using for world editing.

As for new modes or new characters, Hubicka says the mod will launch with "extremely few" additions, as the group is instead working on adding in over 300 characters from the trilogy. New modes are a possibility if testing results positively and players want more. Servers will support up to 16 players and bots in all modes.

Hubicka doesn't have an exact release date for Rewind, but he expects a working demo before Christmas distributed by "mirrors and torrents" to handle demand. Even better: it'll all be free in accordance with a Crytek agreement, and subsequent content updates won't cost a single cent either.