Last week, it was announced that the Embracer Group had closed Volition, the developer behind the Saints Row and Red Faction series. The news came after the team shipped two relatively disappointing games in a row between Agents of Mayhem and the 2022 Saints Row reboot. However, the studio didn’t own either IP, which means that publisher Deep Silver (and by extension its parent company the Embracer Group) could elect to continue with either series. Judging by a recent tweet from Deep Silver, it looks like that’s exactly what the publisher will eventually do.
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The revelation comes from a recent tweet the Deep Silver account made as something of a response and sendup to the team at Volition. They shared Volition’s own tweet about the studio’s closure and sent their best wishes to everyone there. The tweet followed with “We’re incredibly grateful for their unforgettable work on Saints Row and Red Faction, whose IPs will live on at Plaion.” Now, before you’re confused, Plaion is a subsidiary of Embracer that’s been handling Deep Silver’s publishing.ย
This is, of course, far from confirmation that any work has been started for either franchise. Saints Row just finished up its scheduled DLC content, so it’ll likely be quite a while before we hear more from the franchise. We don’t even know which of Embracer’s many studios would even take on either project, but it is clear that the two franchises won’t be dying any time soon. At least if Deep Silver has anything to say about it. Until something is officially announced, it’s hard to say what’s next for the franchises.
The Future of Saints Row and Red Faction
While we can’t say exactly what’s going to happen with Saints Row and Red Faction, we do know a few things about the former. For one, it was recently announced that the team doesn’t have any plans to remaster the first two games in the series. Many fans were hoping that Saints Row 1 and 2 would eventually get the remake treatment after it proved relatively successful with 3 and 4. Of course, if Deep Silver and Plaion have trouble finding a developer for the next game in the franchise, it could revisit that idea, but for now, it’s best to assume it isn’t happening.
What is happening is that the Saints Row reboot is coming to PlayStation Plus in September. While the game didn’t quite perform to expectations, it could get new life now that players on PlayStation can hop in at no extra cost. Of course, with Sony recently raising the prices for PS+, it might not be the player increase Deep Silver was hoping for. Either way, making the game more easily available for PlayStation players should be a good thing for the community at large.
As for Red Faction, we haven’t seen anything substantial from it since 2011 due to lackluster sales. If it does get a reboot or sequel, we probably won’t be hearing about it any time soon with Volition closing its doors.
