Volition's punishment.

Almost

Consequences for one's actions are rarely a concept we see explored and highlighted outside of school life, wherein it's the be-all end-all of life discussions. Because in the real world that's not entirely true, or only part of the truth, or a straight up lie altogether. Actions can sometimes never be traced to a direct causal link and who can honestly say whether or not their downturn in life is a direct result of their own negligence or a general slippery slope maybe somewhat helped along by their own actions. It's a murky and misty mire to try and tread across where there's no real right route. Except if you happen to be a company called Volition. Because in their case; Saints Row absolutely was the reason that their company is soon having the reigns around it's independence tightened.

 

This news comes from the lips of horrible Lovecraftian amalgamation monster 'Embracer Group' as they recently turned around and cut Volition's independence. Which is quite stark because I didn't even know Embracer Group owned them. Who else does Embracer Group own? Do they own me, and I just don't know it? If so, I'd really like to start getting some cheques in the mail any day now, Embracer Senpai; maybe then I'd stop laying dirt on your companies name! Embracer has decreed that Volition to be rolled under the wing of the producer Gearbox- wait, Embracer own Gearbox as well? I thought that was Epic Games! (Wait- actually now I come to think of it I just collate those two company founders as the same person because they're both equally childish. Now I remember...)

And how can we be sure that this is the victim of the recently released Saints Row Reboot game? I mean, what if this is simply because of the terrible losses of- let me check... The last game they made before that was 2017's Agents of Mayhem? Hmm... yeah I can't really see a scapegoat for them on this one. But the punishment doesn't seem to quite fit the crime, at least; not how Deep Silver seemed to describe the reception of Saints Row.  Listen to the word of 'corporate' and all you would hear, time and time again, was how the game is absolute not a failure. They said that, whilst the game was 'divisive' critically, the commercial sales proved more than enough to break even- oh wait, now I can see the subtle hints that this game didn't perform well... huh, funny I didn't notice that until this very moment...

Still, it's a little bit screwed up for your boss to ensure you that everything is going totally fine only for your entire department to be kicked out from their purview and under the eyes of another wobbly supposedly comedic video game company within the space of a few months. (Does this mean that the several chunks of menu options in the remake that were locked away for DLC will remain forever greyed out? No, apparently Deep Silver get to handle that stuff by themselves) Heck, there were members of the Volition team that themselves felt the need to bitterly stand up to the criticism of their work as self-appointed Twitter warriors. I can understand the passion, which makes sense when your very competence is challenged on a public forum; but perhaps those individuals would have ended up feeling a bit less worthless if they hadn't fought against perceptions of their game for month only for the bosses boss to agree with the haters and strip away all autonomy your studio had for the crime of delivering a truly atrocious game.

Which is not to say that I think Saints Row Reboot wasn't bad enough to destroy the franchise. If anything, the reboot's desperate attempts to strip away the identity of Saints Row to appeal to some imaginary mass market of Saints fans that were only waiting for the game to become less crude before they could really fall in love with the franchise, just highlighted how much the series was played out and empty. Honestly, Saints Row struggled to find itself years before the Reboot came around, this was just the shuddering final nail in that coffin. And since Volition's only other franchise has been itself awol for the past eleven years; I guess that made it a nail in Volition's coffin at the same time. As twisted as it sounds, this was probably a long time coming.

But does this mean the death of Saints Row and Volition? Not necessarily. The company still exists under the producing management of Gearbox, so there might be a chance for a surprise resurgence some years down the line if Gearbox can be tricked into financing such a thing. Although the scant Saints Row Reboot fans may have to come to terms with the sobering reality that it might be with yet another reboot to the brand. Afterall, pissing off the fanbase with a low quality game is one thing, but doing that and just about making a profit at the same time is pretty much a carnal sin of commercial work. The next time Saints Row sees the light of day we'll be in a different age and it'll carry the Gearbox badge and probably their cringe as well. The real question is whether or not that Gearbox logo will mean the game will be better or worse... after New Tales from the Borderlands, that's anyone's guess... (At least it might play better.)

Until that magical day, however, I suppose all we can do is look back on the demented life of the Saints Row franchise and try to remember the good in what it was. This was supposed to be the bold new face of the franchise and it was just awful. Unfortunately it was too awful to be continued, which is a bit of a shame because I was kind of hoping they'd go crazy and make this a bi-yearly series of hilariously bad cringe games. But apparently the 'I know it's abjectly terrible but I'm a hipster so I'm going to play it anyway' crowd isn't nearly as big as it likes to pretend it is on Twitter. And considering Twitter is soon to be the way of the dodo; I guess it's not really tenable for Volition to hide behind those loud accounts as proof of their apparently broad market appeal.

Of course I feel bad for Volition. I don't particularly love any one of their recent games, and have even fallen hard out of love with Saints Row 2 in recent years, but any developer stuck making one single game franchise for over a decade is unethical in my opinion. No artist wants to reiterate on the same themes they did before again and again, they want to change it up and keep things feeling fresh and interesting. Saints Row didn't even start as something unique and everytime it's tried to make itself into anything new the end product has veered closer to 'clueless' with every step. I know shifts of the status quo like this tend to lead to lay-offs; and that is one instance where I feel unabashedly bad. It is surprising I must say, the sheer stopping power of rank mediocrity.