The "TimeSplitters" games were developed by Free Radical Design, a development company based in the Midlands, UK, founded in 1999 by many members of the team who previously worked for Rare on the Nintendo 64 first-person shooters "GoldenEye 007" and "Perfect Dark" (including directors David Doak, Steve Ellis, and Karl Hilton; and soundtrack composer Graeme Norgate). As a result of this shared development team, gameplay similarities, and occasionally overlapping settings (such as a Russian dam, as featured in "TimeSplitters 2"), the "TimeSplitters" games are often compared to these predecessors.