The studio behind Descent, Red Faction, and the Saints Row series is officially dead. The shutdown notice was posted on LinkedIn out of all places.
The post, which was met with a mix of sympathy and criticism regarding the studio’s last release, states the following:
“The Volition team has proudly created world-class entertainment for fans around the globe for 30 years. We’ve been driven by a passion for our community and always worked to deliver joy, surprise, and delight.
This past June, Embracer Group announced a restructuring program to strengthen Embracer and maintain its position as a leader in the video game industry. As part of that program, they evaluated strategic and operational goals and made the difficult decision to close Volition effective immediately.
To help our team, we are working to provide job assistance and help smooth the transition for our Volition family members. We thank our customers and fans around the world for all the love and support over the years. You will always be in our hearts.” – Volition Games.
It’s doubtful that many will be surprised by this news. The reboot of one of the company’s most famous franchises was met with loads of criticism and poor sales numbers. The reboot decided to move away from the adult themes and anything-goes attitude. Instead, the new Saints focused on topics like student loans and ditched the inner-city gang aesthetic from the previous games.
The attempts to make the typically raunchy game “grow up” were met with backlash. This resulted in the Saints Row Twitter account being defiant when people questioned this new direction.
We are not backing down on this game. We get it, it’s new and it’s a shock reaction to a reboot like no other. The gif was supposed to convey that.
— Saints Row (@SaintsRow) August 26, 2021
Do you really think what you said ? This is LITERALLY THE OPPOSITE, you talking like there has not been backlash, i think you will regret this only this statement kill the franchise you can’t be « Faithful » and at the sametime remove your tone/style you lying even to yourself.. pic.twitter.com/LnpgvsWbgp
— à l’ancienne 🏴☠️ (@s_dorocka) November 18, 2021
Before that, Agents of Mayhem arrived on the scene in 2017 and also underperformed. Not even re-releases of Saints Row IV could improve things.
As we covered several months ago, Volition’s Saints Row may have cost the developer’s parent company, Embracer Group, around $100 million. Not long after the game launched, development and update duties were handed over to Gearbox, which may have been the true beginning of the end.
The sad irony is that Sony announced that September’s PlayStation Plus free game is Saints Row.
[Source: LinkedIn]
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