Embracer Group to close Saints Row studio Volition ‘with immediate effect’

Embracer Group is closing Volition, the game studio behind Saints Row and Red Faction, ‘with immediate effect’. The Swedish game publisher announced its plans to close several studios in June.

Volition itself announces the closure of the studio on LinkedIn. Volition’s most recent game is the 2022 Saints Row reboot. Out quarterly figures from Embracer and mediocre scores it turned out that the title underperformed commercially. Embracer Group also suffered a significant financial blow at the beginning of 2023. CEO Lars Wingefors revealed that a $2 billion deal fell through at the last minute. Reportedly it concerns a deal with Savvy Games Group, an investment fund from Saudi Arabia.

Volition was founded over thirty years ago as Parallax Software Corporation. The studio developed the Descent games. In 1996, the studio changed its name to Volition, after which it worked on Saints Row, Red Faction and Summoner. In 2000, the studio was acquired by THQ. Following THQ’s bankruptcy filing in 2012, the studio was acquired by Koch Media – now known as Plaion – after which the games were published under the Deep Silver label. Since 2018, Plaion has been part of THQ Nordic, of which Embracer is the parent company. At the end of last year, Volition was brought under Borderlands maker Gearbox, also part of Embracer.

Saints Row The Third Remastered.