Saints Row arrived back on the scene in late August, after the franchise spent a few years away from the limelight. Sadly, the series reboot didn't quite live up to player expectations, and the game's reception seems to have led to some big changes at the studio.
In a new financial report from Embracer, the group says that Volition Studios will soon "transition' into Gearbox Software, the team behind the Borderlands series.
"The reception of Saints Row did not meet the full expectations and left the fanbase partially polarized. The game development studio, Volition, has been working hard to improve the player experience."
"Financially, Saints Row has performed in line with management expectations in the quarter. 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."
Interestingly, Embracer hints that more merges like this one could occur between some of its other studios. The Swedish company owns quite a few game developers these days, including a bunch of former Square Enix teams.
"This is the first internal group transfer where we transfer a major studio between operative groups, but it is not necessarily the last."
Regardless of this transition, Volition continues to support 2022's Saints Row reboot. The team recently detailed a huge November 2022 update for the game, which has just landed on Xbox.
What are your thoughts on this? Let us know down in the comments section below.
[source embracer.com]
Comments 11
After that absolute car crash I’m not surprised.
Their "Bright Future" didn't last long.
Like I said there’s the end of the Saints Row franchise.
It didn't leave the fan base "partially polarized," it left the fan base completely
Fans of Saints Row were pretty unanimous in their feelings, which is why you're in the pickle you're in.
The last 2 games (at least) haven't exactly done well - Agents of Mayhem in 2017 disappeared very quickly into obscurity and now Saints Row has disappointed.
I will never apportion blame without knowing the 'full' details, it could be that the Publisher didn't support them as well as 'needed' - not just financially either. Embracer have already closed down SE Montreal - which became Onoma and both Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal are helping with Perfect Dark and Fable. Its almost as if they bought these studio's for their IP's.
I lost interest in Saints Row with the 3rd entry - it was just too 'childish' and ridiculous for my taste and with 4 going even more OTT, I didn't bother. Nothing I saw in the run up to release that convinced me the Reboot would be worth my time either.
Maybe while at Gearbox they can '''reboot''' Duke Nukem and miss the point of that series too.
You know they already had the paper work done a year in advance. They knew this game wasn't going to hit expectations. Nothing positive was ever shown or said about it since announcement.
Looks like they're just going to be under Gearbox versus being dissolved, if I understand correctly.
From what heard they tried take Saints Row into woke direction?
Going to Gearbox will suit that fine as Borderlands is woke as s**t.
Wait. So you’re telling me that developing a game that alienates most of your player base and then arguing with them and telling them to ***** off and not buy the game didn’t work?
@BAMozzy Agents of Mayhem would have been a lot better if it had co-op.
@grumpypotato Exactly. I think there is a lesson to be learned from the failure of Saints Row on why you shouldn't change everything about a series with a reboot and alienate most of your fans with design decisions meant to appeal to non-customers. It's like they went all out to make the game that Twitter wanted, then nobody from Twitter bought the game.
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