TheRetroArcade
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Joined: Feb 2026
Joined: Feb 2026
Beyond Words is part of Steam Next Fest.
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When you read the words "From legendary developers Steve Ellis and David Doak" you could be forgiven for assuming that the next words would be "comes a new FPS".
Ellis and Doak were among Free Radical Design's co-founders, giving us the excellent TimeSplitters series, and nearly Star Wars: Battlefront 3, before it was canned and the studio went bankrupt. Before that, they worked at Rare, on games like GoldenEye and Perfect Dark.
But their new game, which you can play now thanks to Steam Next Fest, has nothing to do with any of these illustrious first-person shooters. Instead, Beyond Words is a roguelike take on Scrabble, which sounds quite a bit like Balatro.
This might seem like a weird departure for them, but after their recent experience trying to get an FPS off the ground, it's actually pretty understandable.
In 2021, Free Radical was reformed. It had survived bankruptcy and been acquired by Crytek in 2009, where it was renamed Crytek UK, and then in 2014 it was sold to Deep Silver. The reformed Free Radical continued to be a subsidiary of Deep Silver under Embracer Group, and former members of the team, including Ellis and Doak, returned, specifically to bring back TimeSplitters.
But since Embracer's whole strategy appears to be acquiring old studios and old games, before shutting them down, things didn't exactly work out. Embracer shut down Free Radical in 2023.
Chatting to Time Extension in December last year, Ellis called the experience "soul-crushing" after he had to "lay off the entire staff". And he wasn't eager to go through that again.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
"Having been through this twice, I was keen not to jump right into another big team environment. I was also keen to get more hands-on than it was possible to be while running a larger studio, so doing something smaller sounded like fun."
Doak feels the same way: "My best experiences of making games have been working in (relatively) small teams. So that's what we decided to do. I'm too old for all the other shit now."
So they joined forces again to make a much smaller game and developed a few prototypes. Beyond Words was not one of those prototypes, though; it was a fun weekend project for Ellis while the team was working on another project, which ended up convincing everyone to change course
"I enjoy the scope for strategic play," said Ellis. "In other roguelike games that I've played, I find that although they are heavily RNG-driven, the random ...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Want to add more newsletters?
Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you're going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them.
Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.
From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.
Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.
Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.
Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.
Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!
When you read the words "From legendary developers Steve Ellis and David Doak" you could be forgiven for assuming that the next words would be "comes a new FPS".
Ellis and Doak were among Free Radical Design's co-founders, giving us the excellent TimeSplitters series, and nearly Star Wars: Battlefront 3, before it was canned and the studio went bankrupt. Before that, they worked at Rare, on games like GoldenEye and Perfect Dark.
But their new game, which you can play now thanks to Steam Next Fest, has nothing to do with any of these illustrious first-person shooters. Instead, Beyond Words is a roguelike take on Scrabble, which sounds quite a bit like Balatro.
This might seem like a weird departure for them, but after their recent experience trying to get an FPS off the ground, it's actually pretty understandable.
In 2021, Free Radical was reformed. It had survived bankruptcy and been acquired by Crytek in 2009, where it was renamed Crytek UK, and then in 2014 it was sold to Deep Silver. The reformed Free Radical continued to be a subsidiary of Deep Silver under Embracer Group, and former members of the team, including Ellis and Doak, returned, specifically to bring back TimeSplitters.
But since Embracer's whole strategy appears to be acquiring old studios and old games, before shutting them down, things didn't exactly work out. Embracer shut down Free Radical in 2023.
Chatting to Time Extension in December last year, Ellis called the experience "soul-crushing" after he had to "lay off the entire staff". And he wasn't eager to go through that again.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
"Having been through this twice, I was keen not to jump right into another big team environment. I was also keen to get more hands-on than it was possible to be while running a larger studio, so doing something smaller sounded like fun."
Doak feels the same way: "My best experiences of making games have been working in (relatively) small teams. So that's what we decided to do. I'm too old for all the other shit now."
So they joined forces again to make a much smaller game and developed a few prototypes. Beyond Words was not one of those prototypes, though; it was a fun weekend project for Ellis while the team was working on another project, which ended up convincing everyone to change course
"I enjoy the scope for strategic play," said Ellis. "In other roguelike games that I've played, I find that although they are heavily RNG-driven, the random ...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?