Saints Row developer Volition has been closed ‘effective immediately’

Saints Row developer Volition has been shut down “effective immediately”.

A message from the studio reads: “The Volition team has proudly created world-class entertainment for fans around the globe for 30 years.

“We’ve been driven by a passion for our community and always worked to deliver joy, surprise, and delight.”

“This past June, Embracer Group announced a restructuring program to strengthen Embracer and maintain its position as a leader in the video game industry.

“As part of that program, they evaluated strategic and operational goals and made the difficult decision to close Volition effective immediately.

“To help our team, we are working to provide job assistance and help smooth the transition for our Volition family members.

“We thank our customers and fans around the world for all the love and support over the years. You will always be in our hearts.”

Volition was originally formed 30 years ago, as Parallax Software Corporation, before changing its name to Volition in 1996.

The studio was acquired by THQ in 2000, and when THQ went bankrupt in 2012 it was then acquired by Koch Media and placed under its Deep Silver label. Koch (now known as Plaion) was then acquired by Embracer Group in 2018.

In its early days, the studio was best known for the Descent series, as well as the Red Faction games.

But it was the Saints Row series – 2006’s Saints Row, Saints Row 2, Saints Row: The Third and Saints Row IV – that became the studio’s most popular franchise.

In recent years Volition’s output has seen less critical acclaim. Agents of Mayhem was released in 2017 to a lukewarm response, and an attempt to reboot Saints Row last year was also met with mixed reviews, with scores of 61-65 on the review aggregation site Metacritic.

Further reading

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Embracer Group announces plans to close some studios and cancel some game projects

The restructuring will make it a "more focused, self-sufficient company", its CEO says

Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors previously said he was personally disappointed by the reception to Saints Row, when he spoke during Embracer’s AGM last September.

Months later it was announced that the studio was to become part of Gearbox following the disappointing reception to the Saints Row reboot.

However, after Embracer annoucned in June that it planned to close some studios and cancel some projects as part of a new “restructuring program”, it has now emerged that Volition was part of those plans.