Saints Row Developer Moved to Gearbox After Lackluster Launch

The Saints Row developer Volition has been juggled around internally within Embracer Group and is now under the umbrella of Gearbox, Embracer announced this week. The move was confirmed in the latest financial report from Embracer with the massive company confirming that this sort of transfer is the first of its kind within the group. This transition also notably follows the launch of this year's Saints Row game, a reboot criticized not only for its bugs but also the divisive direction the game opted for compared to past titles.

Embracer offered a few different views on Saints Row and Volition in the report that detailed the internal move. The game "not meet the full expectations and left the fanbase partially polarized" which is something players already knew, but the group also said that the game performed in line with financial expectations for the quarter.

"Financially, Saints Row has performed in line with management expectations in the quarter," the Embracer Group report said. "Going forward, Volition will transition to become part of Gearbox which has all the tools, including an experienced management team in the US, to create future success at Volition. This is the first internal group transfer where we transfer a major studio between operative groups, but it is not necessarily the last."

For clarity, this isn't the sort of situation like the one with Square Enix where it sold off some of its developers. Embracer still owns Volition overall, a studio which was previously part of the Embracer-owned Deep Silver. Gearbox is also owned by Embracer, and Volition is now under Gearbox. It's a large, webbed chain of developers being owned by different groups, but it all leads back to Embracer owning a ton of different studios with an equally staggering number of games in the works.

It was not stated what Volition would be working on next, but Embracer said that the studio "has been working hard to improve the player experience."

In the same financial report, Embracer confirmed that Dead Island 2 had been delayed once more, an occurrence which is as familiar as Embracer's acquisition announcements at this point.