Look, it's great for the staff at Time Splitters developer Free Radical that the studio found a buyer. Nobody likes to be out of a job. But did they need a name change?
A condition of the purchase is that, as they are assimilated into Crytek's (the studio's buyers) European mainframe, Free Radical will no longer be known as Free Radical. They'll be known as Crytek UK.
Sure, it's naught but a name change. It'll still be made up of the same guys, and - provided they don't go and do something stupid like pitch Haze 2 - they'll probably come up with some excellent, excellent games.
But as has happened before with Westwood (EA), Psygnosis (SCE Liverpool) and Origin (EA, again), as soon as the developers are brought into a larger fold and lose that name, that identity, we lose a little something as well. A little of that recognition, a little of that intangible continuity that gives certain developers a certain pedigree.
Ah well! Now that's out of our system, it could be worse. We could have lost the whole damn studio, and that just wouldn't have been good for anyone.