Embracer group is terrible. It came with big promises of reviving dormant franchises but it's just closing studios with not a single game announcement to show for it.
A shame, but the writing has been on the wall for a long time. Volition was never quite the same after the THQ bankruptcy, and that was still several years before Embracer took over.
Some of the original developers made a modern version with Overload.
There is also Miner Wars 2081, a criminal underrated Descent-like game from the makers of Space Engineers, has great story campaign, destructible environments and a lot of other really nice touches. Failed however on the mulitplayer aspects that were promised in the EarlyAccess thus lots of negative reviews.
Freespace 2 with a force feedback joystick. When you got a bit too close to a capital ship’s beam weapon and the whole joystick started to shake. One of my most immersive experiences in a game.
I doubt any of the guys that worked on Decent or the Freespace games are part of Volition at this point.
But damn are those games good.
If any game deserves a remake/remaster, it’s Freespace. Doesn’t need much, just bring it up to par with Freespace 2 mechanics wise and polish the graphics a bit.
Disappointing, but not surprising given how poorly received the last Saints Row game was and how Embracer made it clear they were going to be closing studios once their Saudi deal fell through. Hopefully, some of the studio can land on their feet, but still, thirty years in the industry just to get shut down like that.
Sad, because I was a fan of them and bought all their games from Saint's Row 1 all the way to Gat out of Hell (although not in chronological order) and got Agents of Mayhem for free somewhere, but think they've made some bad moves lately.
I think it all started going downhill from Agents of Mayhem, and them screwing up with the reboot of Saint's Row was probably the nail in the coffin. I wish they'd just made Saint's Row 5 instead, with wacky time travel shenanigans and a more polished set of superpowers.
At the point where they decided to "reboot" to something old school and grittier (TOO old school, imo) they really didn't get what their fanbase wanted, and what new players who'd only heard of and experienced Saint's Row 4 would get excited about.
They could've probably taken Saint's Row up to 6 entries if they'd just iterated on the formula from 4 and possibly Gat out of Hell (I wouldn't know, I got distracted and didn't play it after I bought it, ironically). Similar to how United Front Games (the developer of Sleeping Dogs) could've probably stayed in business if they'd just made Sleeping Dogs 2 instead of that horrible "free to play" multiplayer asset flip of some of the least interesting elements of Sleeping Dogs 1.
I’ve never really understood the hate for Agents of Mayhem. It really captures “playable action movie” perfectly. I’d say my biggest complaint is that it is very poorly balanced such that most characters are unusable at the highest difficulties.
That’s what happened to Sleeping Dogs? Lame. I loved that game!
I agree with Saints Row. I didn’t think new younger audiences would take to a restart of the formula, or that old fans would want to start from scratch so to speak. Meanwhile ramping up from 4 would sate the old fans by somehow getting even more bonkers, and younger gamers would have this insane shit show of a sandbox even if they aren’t familiar with the brand (and would probably boost sales of the old ones too.)
Yep, it's been a trend all year. My studio got canned back at the end of January. Publisher called us into a studio-wide meeting scheduled during lunch with 1 hour of notice, only to say "The game you spent 6 years on is canceled and all 150 of you are fired. The media will know in 30 minutes, don't say anything until then if you want to keep a severance package." (I have since landed on my feet elsewhere.)
These studios are owned by big publishers and generally work for years at a loss. With the costs to borrow increasing, we're seeing cuts on long-term investments that might not make their money back (like movies and games).
Volition was owned by Embracer, which is now struggling with funding. So anything that isn't a sure bet is effectively canned - and in turn you see these studios shut down left and right, plus big layoffs from studios that are still open.
There’s your problem. Hiring an entire team for 6+ years and then cancelling the project. That’s hundreds of thousands, if not millions, down the drain.
The current AA / AAA gamedev industry isn’t sustainable
Baldur's Gate took 6 years to make. Starfield has been in development since 2015 - that's 8 years. As gamers demand more, games have grown in scope. The ones that stayed behind have gotten punished.
If a AAA game doesn't have at least 8 hours of story and realistic graphics in the modern era, it gets panned by reviewers. People's expectations have been raised - and are continuing to be raised - and in turn, that inflates how long it takes to make a game. People will say "Why should I spend $60 on this game when I can spend $60 on this game that gives me more stuff?" (See: Immortals of Aveum, which itself has been in development for 4-5 years.)
The games that don't take that long are the stale yearly franchises - the FIFAs and CODs of the world. Even COD alternates between studios, with each installment taking 1-3 years. Some franchises (like Pokemon) have multiple teams within a studio that operate independently of one another; Arceus was made by the Let's Go team, while Scarlet/Violet was made by the Sword/Shield team.
If studios stop betting on long-term projects, you're going to wind up with stale yearly iterations - or half-baked games rushed out the door to meet a deadline. If it's true that you say AAA (and even AA!) dev isn't sustainable, then that's effectively calling for stale franchises pushing out cheap content for quick cash grabs (see also: Hollywood movies over the last decade).
It's also not just games this is happening to. Disney recently canned a 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea show that was ready to go. There's the Scooby-Doo stuff that Max recently pulled before release as well. That stuff isn't my industry; I don't know how long it takes to make those things... but I know it costs about as much to make as a AAA game does.
There's probably a reckoning to be had for both industries, but I don't think the correction should be that drastic - and I think it will be bad for people who consume that content.
With TV/movies that are made for streaming this seems to be some classic Hollywood accounting. They are taking the write-offs in the cancelled content, while keeping subscribers strung along with the promise of new projects. The question is how long until consumers stop buying it.
I wish studios like Bethesda would adopt a more stylistic art style and games that were smaller in scope. I don’t need to explore 10 000 planets with realistic graphics. I just want a tight RPG with good world building.
I think this is the crux of the issue. There’s been a trend for AAA to push for bigger and more ambitious games, which leads to long, expensive development cycles. But pretty much everyone who is passionate about gaming can point to a game that stuck with them not because it was huge and ambitious, but because it did one thing really well. Games don’t have to be huge to be amazing.
They made a lot of bad moves after a while but the saints row series and their other games were pretty baller. Sad. Hope the team all find good stable positions after.
To what extent were the og Saint’s Row games and the remake made by the same people? I know Volition’s name was on both games, but I wonder if a lot of the experienced leaders left Volition after Saints Row 4? Seems like that’s always the explanation whenever a studio’s games take a sudden dip in quality.
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