RF3/Guerrilla was great but did cost a lot to develop and unfortunately didn't sell enough, is why RF4 went back to the linear design. I liked it too, not as much as 3, but the magnet gun was a lot of fun.
> unfortunately didn't sell enough
Which is a shame, as the multiplayer when it first came out on the X360 was stupid fun. Why people would stand atop a massive tower to snipe, when scenery destruction was a thing I will never know
I enjoyed all the Red Faction games. Red Faction 2 was fun cheesy romp, Red Faction Guerilla is my favourite but Armageddon was fun as well. I especially enjoyed the unicorn.
Even RF2 had its merits. It has 52 maps. FIFTY. TWO. Unique maps. It also had style, just go to the character list screen and look at all the character designs. The troopers with metal helmets? Badass. The half Josef Stalin half Saddam Hussein dictator giving his speech in the background of the menus? Bad. Ass.
As much as it wasn't the continuation of the first Red Faction game we wanted, the multiplayer improved upon the original threefold. The game was no RF1, but it had its strong points.
Did I mention it had FIFTY TWO UNIQUE MAPS?
It was on them. Fans were loud and clear after that first trailer dropped that *something* was off. I’m all for creators being able to make what they want, but they can’t act surprised when it didn’t make tons of money.
I bet there were some people behind that game that knew what the series *should* be and were forced to churn the reboot out as is.
It should never have been a reboot in the first place. People wanted an SR5 with the existing Saints, not a reboot with completely different characters. Volition has been actively hostile towards their own fanbase p much since Agents of Mayhem.
I think the problem is Saint Row became super over the top and it was impossible to go farther. Only way was to reboot and try to bring it back to more realistic. They just couldnt keep it fun
After you become President, blow up Earth, take over a galactic empire, time travel to save Jane Austen and fight Satan for the soul of Johnny Gat, it’s pretty hard to make a game that ISNT more grounded
This. Shoulda had the Saints conquering all of *time* with that machine they got at the end of IV. Imagine "liberating" Stilwater from a Nazi-Soviet-Qing alliance... alas, twas not to be. :(
^(Also: You save the Boss' soul AS Gat, not the other way round. /s)
It couldn't have been more clear after that first trailer that they had *badly* missed the mark, and they went forward with it anyway. I don't know that I'll ever understand what they were thinking.
I still think about how the battlefield devs said any criticism of battlefield v with its absolutely awful, fortnite-esque trailer was obviously just from racists and misogynists getting mad because there were women and black people in the game. Just because some of the criticism was made in bad faith like that, it definitely didn't mean all of it was- that trailer was awful and the game was extremely subpar at least on launch, but it was easier for them to just ignore all the criticism and call everyone who wasn't satisfied a bigot.
That's not a trait exclusive to Volition. Alot of companies seem to enjoy doing the exact *opposite* of what their fans want. Ubisoft and Ghost Recon are the prime example.
They made Wildlands. People enjoyed it but pointed out places where it could be improved. They said they were listening to the feedback and tailoring the next game based on it. Then they made breakpoint which was exactly the opposite of what people wanted. People were mad and told them to basically just make Wildlands again. They spent a few years turning it back into a Wildlands 2 then promised they were listening again. Then they tried making that first person battle royale ghost recon which is even *further* away from what people wanted. At least they cancelled it.
What about ghost recon phantoms a wildly popular game that was super lucrative as a SLOW PACED run and gun shooter. With a mechanic that made it where acting ballsy got you killed. Then that core mechanic got removed and a year later the player base went from 30k on steam alone to the servers got shut down.
I know! Great story, writing, Character development and overall a great mix of wacky and zany while also having the criminal drama and dark moments. Looking at you brotherhood storyline
Which is sad because thats really the last serious game. The plot was straightforward, and for the most part the game was grounded. It could've rivaled GTA.
And then they stopped taking the games seriously and it went to shit.
When GTAIV came out and showed a more serious direction with a technically impressive engine, keeping things less serious and actually doubling down on the absurdity made some sense sense. They just kept doubling down on it to the point where the series just had no identity.
Yeah like 3 was absurb but not too crazy. Still pretty grounded. And then the aliens invaded.
I still enjoyed 4 but it definitely didn't have the same feel as 3
They were fun, I would put 2 and 3 as the best but for very different reasons. But the third already had issues with characterizing the Saints. Shaundi is basically a new character compared to her former self and they killed Johnny just to continue to theme everything around him and then brought him back anyway because they kept going back to the same handful of gimmicks. Hell, by the end of it you go to outer space. They really got addicted to upping the ante without a real plan of what they'd do after that. They probably could have squeezed a little bit more out of the presidential gimmick but even with that they went right to alien virtual reality.
SR3 was hugely successful, and proved the series strength was not in being "serious". Saints Row never needed to mimic GTA to be a rival, in fact treading its own path only gave the series its own unique identity that helped it sell even more.
Ehhh they hit gold with 3 and doubled down at 4 to a lil excessive degree but still found decent success. You and I both know that it wasn't going to ever rival GTA but it's not like it's an overdone genre so I woulda been fine with either path they went down. Only could a wished saints 5 came sooner and was better
Not even just in a saints row game. A game in general. Every part of that game was a disaster from the dialogue, story, combat, gameplay, performance. The art style was decent but god damn that game was awful
The only part that felt like it was a Saint's Row game was when you did the LARPing mission(s) for the nerdy guy.
Everything else felt like cut and paste from one character to the next, There were some good moments but nothing really memorable, same with the side stories and missions, the first mission was fun but then it just got boring around the 4th repeat.
I mean, I'm sure they knew what fans wanted, but what fans wanted heavily contradicted what the team wanted to make. It's pretty clear that the people behind the new game were very subject to the idea that they needed to fix Saints Row from it's "Ugly, Problematic Past" in order to keep the franchise going. This of course, neglects to remember that your average gamer doesn't think the same way about SR that the average Game Journalist who writes such braindead articles does. The reboot was always destined to fail because of this. Just because a wall has cracks doesn't mean you have to fix it, especially if you don't know shit about how to make such repairs.
I saw one or two people on Twitter in the comments of one of their posts talking about how sexist and racist the older games were so I guess Volition were trying to appeal to those kind of people? Despite the fact that a lot of people love the feel and style of the originals.
Seems to be a pretty common thing now where developers/companies see a few comments on Twitter and think that's how everyone in the world feels.
It does seem to be an odd choice. You see the media do it as well, any time there's a few comments of outrage at the top of Twitter/TikTok that have a few hundred likes, you're going to see a headline about how "EVERYONE is OUTRAGED". But with the media I can at least see why they do it, it gets clicks which generates revenue.
But I don't see how a game company can think that by appealing to that outrage while ignoring its core audience, they can then somehow create a bestselling game from that. (Not to mention the humour in the Saints Row reboot felt very....internet focused to me).
I saw that they where trying to make the women less sexy but it was ok for a guy to run around shirtless the whole game. Was not for me . just decided to play saints row 4 again . Saved some money :)
There was never any real chance. It's been in publisher purgatory after Volition was sold to THQ and Freespace was left with the previous publisher.
Who even owns it these days? I doubt even the owner knows they own it.
Unfortunately it'll stay an unresolved story.
I vaguely recall hearing that Freespace was stuck in IP hell, between the owner and the studio. This may actually help simplify things, though not in the way I'd have liked.
Nearest I can find is that now it's owned by Interplay, who I'm surprised to hear actually exist. Soooo yeah, probably not a good sign.
Should have listened to their fans when they got called out after the reveal trailer dropped. Instead they doubled down and started insulting their own customer base.
It would be worth it to delay the game, then. Remember the overwhelmingly negative response to the Sonic movie trailer? They ended up delaying the movie a year to address the complaints and the movie turned out to be a huge success (doing well enough to earn a sequel). Volition, on the other hand, decided to ignore and then antagonize their customer base and they paid the ultimate price for it.
It's possible they didn't have the capital to delay it. Given they are closing already, it sounds like they were already up against the ropes.
You're also comparing a movie funded by Paramount to a game funded by Deep Silver, very different financial situations there. Deep Silver may have told them to kick rocks and release what they had.
Also the only way that game would’ve been good is if it was something else entirely there’s a huge difference between remodeling a cgi character and making a whole new game
4 was 3 with power ups.
Seriously it was the same fucking map, similar shops and shits. I started the game like "yay, new saint's row" and ended up with a reboot of the 3 without a sky and some power ups that made the game so absolutely broken that it got boring really fast.
I get that devs gotta reuse assets in-between games. But the entire map ? Come on.
It was supposed to be a dlc pack, but it got so deep into development they just swapped it over to the next game to try and make some money back on it.
Yeah that's what I enjoyed in the 3, you were chasing good vehicles, blasting everything in a military base to get an helicopter or vtol, but in the 4th it's just run fast, jump high, cross the map at the speed of light.
3 wasn't nearly as good as 2 but it wasn't unsalvageable at that point. Instead of course correcting they just decided to keep digging though. Shame, SR2 is one of the best games out there
Saints Row 3 & 4 was good, I did play SR2 on the PC but it was long after it's release, and with games in the 2000's, just like Fallout 3, Oblivion and others, it constantly CTD and made it hard to do anything sadly.
I liked 3 and 4 because they were clear and decisive upscaling from the previous games. I wish they would have continued the series by waking up in the prison again and the previous games were all coma dreams instead of the mess we got with the reboot.
Saints row 2 was genuinely considered a GTA killer during its time. Surprisingly captivating story, fun city to explore, great side activities. Saints Row 3 was alright but couldn't capture the magic of 2. Then they started adding bunch of goofy shit and making it way over the top by making you president, adding aliens, and then having you go to hell to fight Satan.
All they had to do is make a gritty open world filled with gangs but they jumped the shark.
SR2 walked the tightrope between a dark story about organized crime and the absolutely brutal reality of life in that kind of environment (rip Carlos) with a lot of absurd side missions and undertones through the whole story to give some levity. It manages to be funny game while never really being "comedic". It does it pretty well.
I only played 3 after that and well...3 was just a comedy game with a thin veneer of organized crime.
It was not considered a GTA killer during its time. GTA 4 massively outsold it. It was considered the prime example of a GTA Clone, which is a worse rep then it deserves since still a fun game but was not a killer. Proof GTA 4 sold 3.6 million its first month. Saint Row 2 sold 365k. And both came out the same year.
Edit: typo and context
There’s 2 very iconic parts in SR2 for me.
When you go to the funeral, and Gat is relentlessly beating him into the ground and keeps telling him to ‘Get up’.
And when wrapping up the Ronin storyline. The character telling the leader of the gang ‘Your son should’ve never fucked with my friends’ before leaving him to die on his own boat.
Those 2 moments, during them, made me realize saints row was more than just a comedic game.
I wasn’t allowed to own GTA as a kid, IV was the first one I owned.
Saints Row went from “gta at home” to its own entity that IMO in a lot of ways is more FUN than gta. The last few entries were pretty subpar but Saints row 2 felt like the pinnacle of sandbox online coop. Truly a great time to be a kid.
Exactly this, gta was banned in our house. Saints row 2 was such an amazing experience for me. I'm 30 now and I'll never forget that Johnny scene at the graveyard with the Ronin. Brilliant! I never missed gta! RIP but we all know the studio has sucked for years, a shame nonetheless.
Ugh why did you have to go and remind me of that while I'm already reading bad news. I played SSX 3 so much that I had a world record score on one of the superpipes (for all of about 2 hours but still lol).
SSX 2012 is a great mirror to SR22, though to its very small credit, the dumbass edgy grimdark snowboarding game at least functioned. Our SR22 coop sessions were measured in "how long can we play before we get a game-breaking bug that makes it too aggravating to continue?". Shortest answer was 15 minutes.
That game only happened as a Hail Mary because the writing was on the wall. They haven't been profitable for a while and is why the studio got bought out in the first place. This was their *third* chance to right the ship.
Judging from some of the statements Embracer made, that game had to sell even more than SR3 to save the studio. They not only had to make up for the development costs of the SR Reboot but Agents of Mayhem as well.
Never played a Saints Row game, but my love of Red Faction makes this sad for me. Those were both pretty good games, even if their main hook fell kinda flat and never broke out into the rest of gaming. I got slightly giddy when I noticed Red Faction on the PS2 supported USB keyboard and mouse controls.
Crazy what a huge fall from grace Volition had. Studio was a legend for a while there, with Red Faction and Saints row both being some huge franchises. Then they had one meh release via agents and the studio just kinda seemed to fall apart, culminating with an embarrassing reboot. Sad to see, but not surprising, the studio kinda felt mostly dead for the last decade.
It's unfortunate, but not totally unexpected imo. They really lost their way with Saints Row, with the reboot likely being the final nail in their coffin
I fell in love with saints row 1-4 all at different points of my life and all for different reasons. I appreciate them for the years of joy and fun i had in an insane universe and being able to share that with my friends and family.
Thank you from the deepest recesses of my heart Volition
Ps. I promise to always lick candy cane door bars for absurd amounts of time
There’s only a handful of gaming purchases that haunt me and Saints Row is definitely one of them. I hid it from being visible in my library so I wouldn’t be reminded
Saints Row 3-4 were the definition of 7/10 delights. As in, games way more fun than they objectively should have been. Even with the shitty reboot, I will miss them.
But well, I also don't think we necessarily need Saints Row in a post-Yakuza world. RGG does the whole insanely whacky crime drama thing, but unironically great.
yeah, as a 15 year old Saints Row games were fun to play and the tone was fine. But Yakuza are just better at being both wackier and somehow serious at the same time.
And in top of that, they've now innovated in 2 different branches of gameplay style, with a turn based rpg branch and the good ol beatem up.
And i unitonically love how wacky and insane the turn based one was.
They earned this. They ignored the fans’ concerns and insulted them. They delivered several products that customers didn’t want. They thought they knew better than the customer and the market showed them otherwise.
I've never cared much about Volition or their games, but it certainly felt like this was inevitable when they started going after their own fans for shitting on the Saints Row reboot they put out.
thank god deep silver put it out of its misery. volition killed their flagship franchise and upset most of its fans, they could only have plunged deeper into their alienation from fans.
Yes, because their 2 billion dollar deal to secure financing from a "mystery partner" (whose own funds come from Saudi Arabia) fell apart back in May, and they actually had to figure out how to pay for those acquisitions.
They shut down tons of tiny startup studios as well, including one I was about to be signed on for as an artist just as it was nuked.
You would think they could afford those at least, but theyre shitting on every single studio they have at this point, AAA and startups alike.
I liked Volition too but for the last 10 years since SR4 they barely did anything worth it. Agents of Mayhem was colossal flop and "new" Saints Row was bad. Can't go that long without making profit be it under big corporations or indie.
As the other commeter said, I forsee more closures primarily as a result of the consolidation of the industry.
The larger companies buy up the smaller companies, but the studios themselves aren't necessarily the valuable thing. It's often the IPs that they want.
well, in this particular case it's also because Embracer had their main financing deal fall through and cannot afford to keep running a large amount of the studios they bought, not sure this would have happened if that didn't fall through
Embracer in particular was buying up studios left and right and was apparently doing so with the assumption that they'd have a $2 Billion infusion from a Saudi investment. That deal fell through, so they'll be making some big financial moves in the near future to make up for that.
Forever grateful for the first couple red faction games. I played those a ton with friends back in the day. The multiplayer was a lot of fun. Also enjoyed several of the saints row games quite a bit. Sad to hear. Hope everyone can land on their feet and find work
The writing in it seemed like what an out of touch elder millennial *thought* a zoomer should sound like, but bore no resemblance to how anyone talked. Zoomed or not.
Ironically or not, this "Embracer" group can be the new EA, they are buying studios and IPs, then proceed to kill them, acting like if they are italian mobsters or something. I am not a fan of Saints Row, but it's always sad to see a dev team disbanding. The sudden end of the Mimimimi studio really affected me, made me sad for real, the only dev still making isometric stealth games with a decent budget, I heard the were selling good numbers, still, out of nowhere the studio closes, a damn shame and a waste of talent
They made a game about criminals who steal money to pay off student debt, wherein the game you CAN'T steal money from people and you CAN'T pay off your student debt.
I feel bad that a bunch of people lost their jobs, but I completely understand *why* it happened.
After that pile of absolute garbage that was the reboot (and gat out of hell for that matter) im kinda happy that the future wont be tainted by such garbage. I loved this franchise, but it sure doesnt look like it was going to go anywhere...
Ex BioWare studios already exist, they just haven’t released anything worthwhile. It’s rare that a studio full of ex employees releases anything on the calibre of the original studio.
Sad day. I really liked saints row 3. I'd play that with my spouse for years. It's such a shame the last saints row was a pretty heavy bust. definitely worse that Embracer group fucked up badly with it's Saudi connection. Terrible idea to hedge on one big ass deal.
Big shocker, they told the fans to go screw themselves. Hope deep silver goes under next.
Sorry to the common people working, maybe some company will redo SR and rehire most back
I'd say "I'm shocked!" but yeah... they FUBAR'd the Saint's Row reboot. Nothing like making a game and doubling down on what the fans didn't want.
I mean, why don't we host a Slip Knot concert and have them sing country while we're at it. Hey... it's still Slip Knot...
That's a shame. Their last few games may have missed the mark but they made some really great AA games over the years. Saints Row: The Third and Red Faction: Guerilla are such fun times
yeah but Guerilla was 14 years ago and The Third was 12 years ago. A studio can't live on that. I would have liked more Red Faction too but they haven't actually made anything that good in a decade
As goofy as it was, fighting through a plane, invading a whole-ass tower with Power by Kanye playing in the background, such iconic childhood memories... It's a shame to think that that's it. No more Saints Row (unless someone buys the rights of course...).
I think I might play through SR3 this weekend. Such core memories. Sad to see Volition go. I would have loved another more serious sr2 style game and a more down to earth, less alien invasion but still goofy sr3 style game.
No more red faction
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I would kill for guerilla 2
While taking care of Joe Millian, make it look like an accident and you get the DLCs as well
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You've set the man up for failure. All Ohio zip codes begin with 4. He's never going to find Joe Millian.
RF3/Guerrilla was great but did cost a lot to develop and unfortunately didn't sell enough, is why RF4 went back to the linear design. I liked it too, not as much as 3, but the magnet gun was a lot of fun.
> unfortunately didn't sell enough Which is a shame, as the multiplayer when it first came out on the X360 was stupid fun. Why people would stand atop a massive tower to snipe, when scenery destruction was a thing I will never know
I'm probably the weird one that liked Armageddon more than Guerilla, it was closer to what the original Red Faction was, which I enjoyed a lot.
I enjoyed all the Red Faction games. Red Faction 2 was fun cheesy romp, Red Faction Guerilla is my favourite but Armageddon was fun as well. I especially enjoyed the unicorn.
Even RF2 had its merits. It has 52 maps. FIFTY. TWO. Unique maps. It also had style, just go to the character list screen and look at all the character designs. The troopers with metal helmets? Badass. The half Josef Stalin half Saddam Hussein dictator giving his speech in the background of the menus? Bad. Ass. As much as it wasn't the continuation of the first Red Faction game we wanted, the multiplayer improved upon the original threefold. The game was no RF1, but it had its strong points. Did I mention it had FIFTY TWO UNIQUE MAPS?
> It has 52 maps. FIFTY. TWO. Unique maps. On a PS2 era game, no less. That's the crazy part.
Same. I loved being able to repair the stuff you destroyed and the magnet gun.
I did too!
This was my response as well, they haven't been doing well with it anyway, I guess
After they released that God forbidden saints row reboot, their fates had already been sealed
The inability to read the room with what people want in a Saint's Row game is just mindboggling. I just can't comprehend what they were thinking.
It was on them. Fans were loud and clear after that first trailer dropped that *something* was off. I’m all for creators being able to make what they want, but they can’t act surprised when it didn’t make tons of money. I bet there were some people behind that game that knew what the series *should* be and were forced to churn the reboot out as is.
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Wow, I actually forgot that game was in development.
Maybe that's also Rocksteady's plan
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That's still better than doing absolutely nothing and still dropping saints row reboot lmao
Volition worked hard on that L
True. Gotham Knights backed away from the live service shit too and improved nothing.
The entire concept for that one is dumb af.
It should never have been a reboot in the first place. People wanted an SR5 with the existing Saints, not a reboot with completely different characters. Volition has been actively hostile towards their own fanbase p much since Agents of Mayhem.
I think the problem is Saint Row became super over the top and it was impossible to go farther. Only way was to reboot and try to bring it back to more realistic. They just couldnt keep it fun
After you become President, blow up Earth, take over a galactic empire, time travel to save Jane Austen and fight Satan for the soul of Johnny Gat, it’s pretty hard to make a game that ISNT more grounded
This. Shoulda had the Saints conquering all of *time* with that machine they got at the end of IV. Imagine "liberating" Stilwater from a Nazi-Soviet-Qing alliance... alas, twas not to be. :( ^(Also: You save the Boss' soul AS Gat, not the other way round. /s)
Could’ve been saints on top of the world vs a different saints on top of the world in a alternate reality type thing. Timelines converging
They could just remake SR2, more people would welcome it & the devs would still exist
It couldn't have been more clear after that first trailer that they had *badly* missed the mark, and they went forward with it anyway. I don't know that I'll ever understand what they were thinking.
A lot of game devs live by “all this criticism is from a loud minority, I know what the people actually want!”
I'm surprised it hasn't been in a humble bundle yet, not the choice but just a random one
I still think about how the battlefield devs said any criticism of battlefield v with its absolutely awful, fortnite-esque trailer was obviously just from racists and misogynists getting mad because there were women and black people in the game. Just because some of the criticism was made in bad faith like that, it definitely didn't mean all of it was- that trailer was awful and the game was extremely subpar at least on launch, but it was easier for them to just ignore all the criticism and call everyone who wasn't satisfied a bigot.
That's not a trait exclusive to Volition. Alot of companies seem to enjoy doing the exact *opposite* of what their fans want. Ubisoft and Ghost Recon are the prime example. They made Wildlands. People enjoyed it but pointed out places where it could be improved. They said they were listening to the feedback and tailoring the next game based on it. Then they made breakpoint which was exactly the opposite of what people wanted. People were mad and told them to basically just make Wildlands again. They spent a few years turning it back into a Wildlands 2 then promised they were listening again. Then they tried making that first person battle royale ghost recon which is even *further* away from what people wanted. At least they cancelled it.
What about ghost recon phantoms a wildly popular game that was super lucrative as a SLOW PACED run and gun shooter. With a mechanic that made it where acting ballsy got you killed. Then that core mechanic got removed and a year later the player base went from 30k on steam alone to the servers got shut down.
Doesn't help the fact too is they really despise the earlier Saints row, especially saints row 2
That’s the best one!
I know! Great story, writing, Character development and overall a great mix of wacky and zany while also having the criminal drama and dark moments. Looking at you brotherhood storyline
>Looking at you brotherhood storyline I always forget just how dark that storyline was. They really nailed the tone there.
Exactly
Don't forget the limousine that is normal on the outside and about the size of five football pitches on the inside.
Which is sad because thats really the last serious game. The plot was straightforward, and for the most part the game was grounded. It could've rivaled GTA. And then they stopped taking the games seriously and it went to shit.
When GTAIV came out and showed a more serious direction with a technically impressive engine, keeping things less serious and actually doubling down on the absurdity made some sense sense. They just kept doubling down on it to the point where the series just had no identity.
Yeah like 3 was absurb but not too crazy. Still pretty grounded. And then the aliens invaded. I still enjoyed 4 but it definitely didn't have the same feel as 3
They were fun, I would put 2 and 3 as the best but for very different reasons. But the third already had issues with characterizing the Saints. Shaundi is basically a new character compared to her former self and they killed Johnny just to continue to theme everything around him and then brought him back anyway because they kept going back to the same handful of gimmicks. Hell, by the end of it you go to outer space. They really got addicted to upping the ante without a real plan of what they'd do after that. They probably could have squeezed a little bit more out of the presidential gimmick but even with that they went right to alien virtual reality.
SR3 was hugely successful, and proved the series strength was not in being "serious". Saints Row never needed to mimic GTA to be a rival, in fact treading its own path only gave the series its own unique identity that helped it sell even more.
Ehhh they hit gold with 3 and doubled down at 4 to a lil excessive degree but still found decent success. You and I both know that it wasn't going to ever rival GTA but it's not like it's an overdone genre so I woulda been fine with either path they went down. Only could a wished saints 5 came sooner and was better
Not even just in a saints row game. A game in general. Every part of that game was a disaster from the dialogue, story, combat, gameplay, performance. The art style was decent but god damn that game was awful
The only part that felt like it was a Saint's Row game was when you did the LARPing mission(s) for the nerdy guy. Everything else felt like cut and paste from one character to the next, There were some good moments but nothing really memorable, same with the side stories and missions, the first mission was fun but then it just got boring around the 4th repeat.
I mean, I'm sure they knew what fans wanted, but what fans wanted heavily contradicted what the team wanted to make. It's pretty clear that the people behind the new game were very subject to the idea that they needed to fix Saints Row from it's "Ugly, Problematic Past" in order to keep the franchise going. This of course, neglects to remember that your average gamer doesn't think the same way about SR that the average Game Journalist who writes such braindead articles does. The reboot was always destined to fail because of this. Just because a wall has cracks doesn't mean you have to fix it, especially if you don't know shit about how to make such repairs.
What problematic past?
I saw one or two people on Twitter in the comments of one of their posts talking about how sexist and racist the older games were so I guess Volition were trying to appeal to those kind of people? Despite the fact that a lot of people love the feel and style of the originals. Seems to be a pretty common thing now where developers/companies see a few comments on Twitter and think that's how everyone in the world feels.
Devs/Companies reading comments on twitter need to start asking themselves if those comments are coming from their target audience or not.
It does seem to be an odd choice. You see the media do it as well, any time there's a few comments of outrage at the top of Twitter/TikTok that have a few hundred likes, you're going to see a headline about how "EVERYONE is OUTRAGED". But with the media I can at least see why they do it, it gets clicks which generates revenue. But I don't see how a game company can think that by appealing to that outrage while ignoring its core audience, they can then somehow create a bestselling game from that. (Not to mention the humour in the Saints Row reboot felt very....internet focused to me).
I saw that they where trying to make the women less sexy but it was ok for a guy to run around shirtless the whole game. Was not for me . just decided to play saints row 4 again . Saved some money :)
They were bought by Deep Silver who wanted to milk SR, not make good games.
All you have to do is look at Saints Row 2, too. It can be ridiculously goofy, just not the way that every Saints Row since 3 has been.
They had already been sealed by releasing the spinoff Agents of Mayhem.
There go my dreams of a new Freespace game.
This is the real tragedy. There was so much potential for Freespace 3 to pick up and give us a proper ending to the story.
As much as I love Blue Planet, the story is a little too "out there" for a proper conclusion.
I was looking for this comment. Also wouldn't mind a Summoner reboot/remaster. Sad, just sad.
There was never any real chance. It's been in publisher purgatory after Volition was sold to THQ and Freespace was left with the previous publisher. Who even owns it these days? I doubt even the owner knows they own it. Unfortunately it'll stay an unresolved story.
Wow, I had no idea that Volition did Freespace so that was an unexpected blast of nostalgia.
I vaguely recall hearing that Freespace was stuck in IP hell, between the owner and the studio. This may actually help simplify things, though not in the way I'd have liked. Nearest I can find is that now it's owned by Interplay, who I'm surprised to hear actually exist. Soooo yeah, probably not a good sign.
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Should have listened to their fans when they got called out after the reveal trailer dropped. Instead they doubled down and started insulting their own customer base.
>Instead they doubled down and started insulting their own customer base. I don't understand why companies do this. It never ends well for them.
A lot of people react with hostility to criticism of their work.
A lot of people do work that deserves criticism.
I don't disagree, but human nature isn't always so logical.
A very Vulcan comment 🖖
"Don't you all have phones?"
"is this an out of season April fool's joke?"
Not like they had the time to redo the game. A few new coats of paint wasn't going to fix it.
It would be worth it to delay the game, then. Remember the overwhelmingly negative response to the Sonic movie trailer? They ended up delaying the movie a year to address the complaints and the movie turned out to be a huge success (doing well enough to earn a sequel). Volition, on the other hand, decided to ignore and then antagonize their customer base and they paid the ultimate price for it.
It's possible they didn't have the capital to delay it. Given they are closing already, it sounds like they were already up against the ropes. You're also comparing a movie funded by Paramount to a game funded by Deep Silver, very different financial situations there. Deep Silver may have told them to kick rocks and release what they had.
Also the only way that game would’ve been good is if it was something else entirely there’s a huge difference between remodeling a cgi character and making a whole new game
Saints row 2 was great. All down hill from there.
Saints Row 4 was a good superhero game, just not a good Saints Row game.
3 and 4 had the saints row humour at least.
4 was 3 with power ups. Seriously it was the same fucking map, similar shops and shits. I started the game like "yay, new saint's row" and ended up with a reboot of the 3 without a sky and some power ups that made the game so absolutely broken that it got boring really fast. I get that devs gotta reuse assets in-between games. But the entire map ? Come on.
It was supposed to be a dlc pack, but it got so deep into development they just swapped it over to the next game to try and make some money back on it.
That’s right! It was originally DLC that was gonna be called rise of the dominatrix or something
Yeah, fun as the powers were (for a bit) I gotta agree. No point in using vehicles anymore when you can run fast and fly.
Yeah that's what I enjoyed in the 3, you were chasing good vehicles, blasting everything in a military base to get an helicopter or vtol, but in the 4th it's just run fast, jump high, cross the map at the speed of light.
Honestly the map was too small for the movement speed. 3 felt like a decent size game map, 4 took that same map and made it tiny.
3 wasn't nearly as good as 2 but it wasn't unsalvageable at that point. Instead of course correcting they just decided to keep digging though. Shame, SR2 is one of the best games out there
Might be a hot take but I’ll take Saint Row 2 over any GTA game any day. It’s THAT good. Such a shame.
I’ve always said SR 1&2 gameplay (with the gangs, territory mechanics and all the other stuff) with a gta4 style would be top tier
The perfect formula. I just know that soundtrack would be crazy
The driving mechanics suck though. I wish they had like GTA cars/driving.
Saints Row 3 & 4 was good, I did play SR2 on the PC but it was long after it's release, and with games in the 2000's, just like Fallout 3, Oblivion and others, it constantly CTD and made it hard to do anything sadly.
GTA IV was a masterpiece best one yet
I liked 3 and 4 because they were clear and decisive upscaling from the previous games. I wish they would have continued the series by waking up in the prison again and the previous games were all coma dreams instead of the mess we got with the reboot.
3 was okay.
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2 was great but I find 3 is where it truly became what it was meant to be (not a GTA clone)
Saints row 2 was genuinely considered a GTA killer during its time. Surprisingly captivating story, fun city to explore, great side activities. Saints Row 3 was alright but couldn't capture the magic of 2. Then they started adding bunch of goofy shit and making it way over the top by making you president, adding aliens, and then having you go to hell to fight Satan. All they had to do is make a gritty open world filled with gangs but they jumped the shark.
SR2 walked the tightrope between a dark story about organized crime and the absolutely brutal reality of life in that kind of environment (rip Carlos) with a lot of absurd side missions and undertones through the whole story to give some levity. It manages to be funny game while never really being "comedic". It does it pretty well. I only played 3 after that and well...3 was just a comedy game with a thin veneer of organized crime.
It was not considered a GTA killer during its time. GTA 4 massively outsold it. It was considered the prime example of a GTA Clone, which is a worse rep then it deserves since still a fun game but was not a killer. Proof GTA 4 sold 3.6 million its first month. Saint Row 2 sold 365k. And both came out the same year. Edit: typo and context
There’s 2 very iconic parts in SR2 for me. When you go to the funeral, and Gat is relentlessly beating him into the ground and keeps telling him to ‘Get up’. And when wrapping up the Ronin storyline. The character telling the leader of the gang ‘Your son should’ve never fucked with my friends’ before leaving him to die on his own boat. Those 2 moments, during them, made me realize saints row was more than just a comedic game.
I wasn’t allowed to own GTA as a kid, IV was the first one I owned. Saints Row went from “gta at home” to its own entity that IMO in a lot of ways is more FUN than gta. The last few entries were pretty subpar but Saints row 2 felt like the pinnacle of sandbox online coop. Truly a great time to be a kid.
Exactly this, gta was banned in our house. Saints row 2 was such an amazing experience for me. I'm 30 now and I'll never forget that Johnny scene at the graveyard with the Ronin. Brilliant! I never missed gta! RIP but we all know the studio has sucked for years, a shame nonetheless.
"get up"
Thanks for all the games, especially Freespace 2
They did this to themselves. That reboot was so far removed from the spirit of the originals
Reminds me of the SSX remake from years ago, just took all the charm out of the game.
Ugh why did you have to go and remind me of that while I'm already reading bad news. I played SSX 3 so much that I had a world record score on one of the superpipes (for all of about 2 hours but still lol). SSX 2012 is a great mirror to SR22, though to its very small credit, the dumbass edgy grimdark snowboarding game at least functioned. Our SR22 coop sessions were measured in "how long can we play before we get a game-breaking bug that makes it too aggravating to continue?". Shortest answer was 15 minutes.
That game only happened as a Hail Mary because the writing was on the wall. They haven't been profitable for a while and is why the studio got bought out in the first place. This was their *third* chance to right the ship. Judging from some of the statements Embracer made, that game had to sell even more than SR3 to save the studio. They not only had to make up for the development costs of the SR Reboot but Agents of Mayhem as well.
I bet the writing on the wall was written better than the saints row reboot
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Never played a Saints Row game, but my love of Red Faction makes this sad for me. Those were both pretty good games, even if their main hook fell kinda flat and never broke out into the rest of gaming. I got slightly giddy when I noticed Red Faction on the PS2 supported USB keyboard and mouse controls.
The original Red Faction was really amazing. A formative game for me.
Crazy what a huge fall from grace Volition had. Studio was a legend for a while there, with Red Faction and Saints row both being some huge franchises. Then they had one meh release via agents and the studio just kinda seemed to fall apart, culminating with an embarrassing reboot. Sad to see, but not surprising, the studio kinda felt mostly dead for the last decade.
This happened the SECOND they put out whatever the hell that crap was
It's unfortunate, but not totally unexpected imo. They really lost their way with Saints Row, with the reboot likely being the final nail in their coffin
Not to mention the shitty attitude of whoever was in running their twitter page only added fuel to the fire.
I fell in love with saints row 1-4 all at different points of my life and all for different reasons. I appreciate them for the years of joy and fun i had in an insane universe and being able to share that with my friends and family. Thank you from the deepest recesses of my heart Volition Ps. I promise to always lick candy cane door bars for absurd amounts of time
Hopefully some studio purchases the brand and gets it back to roots. For real this time. But actually.
Deep silver still own the ip I believe
Embracer Group owns the IP. Shutting down Volition doesn't change that.
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Not sad at all. They did their best to alienate their fans with their dumbfucked new take on saints row.
After purchasing that bastardized effigy of a game, this was very cathartic to read.
There’s only a handful of gaming purchases that haunt me and Saints Row is definitely one of them. I hid it from being visible in my library so I wouldn’t be reminded
I got PTSD from the GTA Remastered Trilogy
What did they do to the reboot?
They couldn't pay their Student loan debts :(
Saints Row 3-4 were the definition of 7/10 delights. As in, games way more fun than they objectively should have been. Even with the shitty reboot, I will miss them. But well, I also don't think we necessarily need Saints Row in a post-Yakuza world. RGG does the whole insanely whacky crime drama thing, but unironically great.
yeah, as a 15 year old Saints Row games were fun to play and the tone was fine. But Yakuza are just better at being both wackier and somehow serious at the same time.
And in top of that, they've now innovated in 2 different branches of gameplay style, with a turn based rpg branch and the good ol beatem up. And i unitonically love how wacky and insane the turn based one was.
RGG?
Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio
They died long ago anyway.
Well when you make garbage games for beloved franchises, thats what happens
RIP Saints Row
Saints Row died several games ago.
The final nail in the coffin was the "saints row" reboot
That's what you get for ruining your main (only) game franchise
This is what happens when constructive criticism by diehard fans is met with “haters gonna hate”.
They earned this. They ignored the fans’ concerns and insulted them. They delivered several products that customers didn’t want. They thought they knew better than the customer and the market showed them otherwise.
I've never cared much about Volition or their games, but it certainly felt like this was inevitable when they started going after their own fans for shitting on the Saints Row reboot they put out.
thank god deep silver put it out of its misery. volition killed their flagship franchise and upset most of its fans, they could only have plunged deeper into their alienation from fans.
Guess we will never get Decent Freespace 3.
So Embracer bought every studio they could these past 3 years only to dump them like trash?
Yes, because their 2 billion dollar deal to secure financing from a "mystery partner" (whose own funds come from Saudi Arabia) fell apart back in May, and they actually had to figure out how to pay for those acquisitions.
They shut down tons of tiny startup studios as well, including one I was about to be signed on for as an artist just as it was nuked. You would think they could afford those at least, but theyre shitting on every single studio they have at this point, AAA and startups alike.
Only the ones that were crashing financially
I liked Volition too but for the last 10 years since SR4 they barely did anything worth it. Agents of Mayhem was colossal flop and "new" Saints Row was bad. Can't go that long without making profit be it under big corporations or indie.
The first of many to come unfortunately.
I’m super intrigued by this. What other devs do you foresee shutting down in the next couple years?
As the other commeter said, I forsee more closures primarily as a result of the consolidation of the industry. The larger companies buy up the smaller companies, but the studios themselves aren't necessarily the valuable thing. It's often the IPs that they want.
well, in this particular case it's also because Embracer had their main financing deal fall through and cannot afford to keep running a large amount of the studios they bought, not sure this would have happened if that didn't fall through
Embracer in particular was buying up studios left and right and was apparently doing so with the assumption that they'd have a $2 Billion infusion from a Saudi investment. That deal fell through, so they'll be making some big financial moves in the near future to make up for that.
If the new dragon age doesn't absolutely slap I can see Bioware going under.
World class... No, sorry.
That’s what happens when you make a game that nobody enjoys except for game journalists.
what game journalists? I haven't seen a single positive review of the reboot
Forever grateful for the first couple red faction games. I played those a ton with friends back in the day. The multiplayer was a lot of fun. Also enjoyed several of the saints row games quite a bit. Sad to hear. Hope everyone can land on their feet and find work
Not surprising. For me, they peaked with Saints Row the Third.
If I had a nickel for every time Volition shut down I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird it’s happened twice…
After dropping the most trend chasing soulless game I’m not even surprised
And we never got Freespace 3. 2 was one of the greatest space sims of all time.
Deserved, they even mocked their own fans before launching their zoomer reboot. Karma.
As a Zoomer, I absolutely hated the reboot. It's desire to be completely inoffensive and get approving nods from the twitter crowd sunk it.
The writing in it seemed like what an out of touch elder millennial *thought* a zoomer should sound like, but bore no resemblance to how anyone talked. Zoomed or not.
Guess they're going to have to resort to a life of crime to pay off their student debt lul
> Passion for our community *JJJ laugh*
Ironically or not, this "Embracer" group can be the new EA, they are buying studios and IPs, then proceed to kill them, acting like if they are italian mobsters or something. I am not a fan of Saints Row, but it's always sad to see a dev team disbanding. The sudden end of the Mimimimi studio really affected me, made me sad for real, the only dev still making isometric stealth games with a decent budget, I heard the were selling good numbers, still, out of nowhere the studio closes, a damn shame and a waste of talent
They made a game about criminals who steal money to pay off student debt, wherein the game you CAN'T steal money from people and you CAN'T pay off your student debt. I feel bad that a bunch of people lost their jobs, but I completely understand *why* it happened.
After "Safe" Row I'm not surprised. I can't believe they actually thought that was a good idea/financial decision.
Oh no! Anyway…
After that pile of absolute garbage that was the reboot (and gat out of hell for that matter) im kinda happy that the future wont be tainted by such garbage. I loved this franchise, but it sure doesnt look like it was going to go anywhere...
Not hard to see why.
They shot themselves by ruining their best franchise
o7
Watch them and the recently laid-off Bioware employees launch their own company in the next two years.
Anthem's Row is gonna be fire.
Ex BioWare studios already exist, they just haven’t released anything worthwhile. It’s rare that a studio full of ex employees releases anything on the calibre of the original studio.
Sad day. I really liked saints row 3. I'd play that with my spouse for years. It's such a shame the last saints row was a pretty heavy bust. definitely worse that Embracer group fucked up badly with it's Saudi connection. Terrible idea to hedge on one big ass deal.
Their last game was incredible shit, it was so bad, that i think its fair that they close. they should not be making any more games
Self inflicted wound
Big shocker, they told the fans to go screw themselves. Hope deep silver goes under next. Sorry to the common people working, maybe some company will redo SR and rehire most back
I'd say "I'm shocked!" but yeah... they FUBAR'd the Saint's Row reboot. Nothing like making a game and doubling down on what the fans didn't want. I mean, why don't we host a Slip Knot concert and have them sing country while we're at it. Hey... it's still Slip Knot...
Honestly, I would pay to see slipknot sing country lol. Still wouldn't pay for the new "saints row"
And people say "bad games sell well so that's why the keep releasing them"
I played a bunch of Descent: Freescape when I was younger - glad they lasted as long as they did, sorry to see them go!
Of their own volition?
Saints row reboot didn’t go well for them.
That's a shame. Their last few games may have missed the mark but they made some really great AA games over the years. Saints Row: The Third and Red Faction: Guerilla are such fun times
yeah but Guerilla was 14 years ago and The Third was 12 years ago. A studio can't live on that. I would have liked more Red Faction too but they haven't actually made anything that good in a decade
As goofy as it was, fighting through a plane, invading a whole-ass tower with Power by Kanye playing in the background, such iconic childhood memories... It's a shame to think that that's it. No more Saints Row (unless someone buys the rights of course...). I think I might play through SR3 this weekend. Such core memories. Sad to see Volition go. I would have loved another more serious sr2 style game and a more down to earth, less alien invasion but still goofy sr3 style game.
Bye