Embracer Group looking into external partnerships for Saints Row series

[MegaFreeman]

This morning, Embracer Group released a new open letter, in which they talk about their newly founded Fellowship Entertainment spin-off (subsidiary that will focus on video games).

As part of the open letter, they talk about investing more into their well established and performing gaming IPs, such as Kindgom Come: Deliverance, Dead Island, and Darksiders IPs. However, after talking about investing into those, they briefly mention about actively exploring "external partnerships" around their own "other well-known IPs", under which they named Saints Row as one of them.

Apart from the largest IPs we will more actively be exploring external partnership around our roster of other well-known IPs such as Saints Row, Legacy of Kain, Deus Ex, Red Faction, The Mask, Thief, TimeSplitters, amongst many others.

"External partnership" is a very vague term that could mean anything from hiring an outside studio to develop a new game, to minor stuff like a Fortnite collab, or potentially not even going anywhere, like the prequel pitch. At any case, looks like the series still isn't written off as dead and abandoned.

 

[reina3]

...at the very least, this means they haven't forgotten the series exists.

Thank you for sharing MegaFreeman!

 

[LostSoulToo]

The problem that Saints Row, as an IP, ran into is that it's not a big 'growth' product. Which means anyone working on or with it cannot afford to throw a large development budget at it, nor can they afford the overhead of a large publisher (and the unreasonable sales expectations that will almost certainly come with it). But at the same time, the expectations, visually, aesthetically, artistically, also don't mesh well with what a small developer can reasonably expect to deliver. That puts the series in an awkward position.

 

[MegaFreeman]

The problem that Saints Row, as an IP, ran into is that it's not a big 'growth' product. Which means anyone working on or with it cannot afford to throw a large development budget at it, nor can they afford the overhead of a large publisher (and the unreasonable sales expectations that will almost certainly come with it)

I kinda disagree with this. Saints Row has a lot of potential as a profitable product with a lot of growth. Honestly these days its all in the marketing. Take for example Bethesda games, the worse they get the more profitable and recognizable their IPs become. I think these days its all about the marketing too, take for example Cyberpunk, that game pretty much aura farmed its success with expensive marketing and then fixing the game years later and relaunching the marketing with a new anime. They just kept throwing cash at it and people ate it up, despite being one of the objectively worst video game launches in the history.
That being said, I also don't think Saints Row being profitable will automatically mean its a good Saints Row game (SRTT and SRR were both profitable after all).

But at the same time, the expectations, visually, aesthetically, artistically, also don't mesh well with what a small developer can reasonably expect to deliver. That puts the series in an awkward position.

This is a good point and I agree. Though right now, its really popular in the industry for publishers to outsource they work to eastern countries where cost of living/minimum wage is much lower, and they get to underpay them a lot compared to western counterparts. Honestly I think they would've gotten away with the reboot if it was just competently written, even with all its gameplay flaws. I think they can deliver whatever they want and as long as they can convince average joe that never played any of the previous SR games that its good, they'll get away with it.

Hopefully this means they're gonna invest into SR2 PC Patch to finally be finished.

 

[MODZSAD666]

This morning, Embracer Group released a new open letter, in which they talk about their newly founded Fellowship Entertainment spin-off (subsidiary that will focus on video games).

As part of the open letter, they talk about investing more into their well established and performing gaming IPs, such as Kindgom Come: Deliverance, Dead Island, and Darksiders IPs. However, after talking about investing into those, they briefly mention about actively exploring "external partnerships" around their own "other well-known IPs", under which they named Saints Row as one of them.



"External partnership" is a very vague term that could mean anything from hiring an outside studio to develop a new game, to minor stuff like a Fortnite collab, or potentially not even going anywhere, like the prequel pitch. At any case, looks like the series still isn't written off as dead and abandoned.

In my opinion the best idea is to continue and make Saints Row 5 and this is probably not the only option and add new crazy things, a new map and new progress graphically leave it in the same style as Saints Row 3 and 4.

 

[Some Modder]

I would like the new Saints Row game to be more grounded like 1 and 2 with a new and more advanced game engine with coop up to 4 players instead of 2 players.

 

[LostSoulToo]

I would like the new Saints Row game to be more grounded like 1 and 2 with a new and more advanced game engine with coop up to 4 players instead of 2 players.

...if you want GTA, why not play, I don't know, GTA?

 

[Some Modder]

...if you want GTA, why not play, I don't know, GTA?

I don't care for GTA and I never saw Saints Row 1-2 to be GTA clones and I am not a fan of what rockstar games is doing to the series with the crazy monetization.

I know its a business and they gotta make money somehow but Saints Row to me has heart as a brand filled with passion.

We all enjoy Saints Row 2!

That's fine, you can disagree with me but at the end of the day there will always be OG fans that want a new grounded Saints Row with a more advanced engine even if their parent companies aren't around to make it anymore.

 

[LostSoulToo]

I don't care for GTA and I never saw Saints Row 1-2 to be GTA clones and I am not a fan of what rockstar games is doing to the series with the crazy monetization.

I know its a business and they gotta make money somehow but Saints Row to me has heart as a brand filled with passion.

We all enjoy Saints Row 2!

That's fine, you can disagree with me but at the end of the day there will always be OG fans that want a new grounded Saints Row with a more advanced engine even if their parent companies aren't around to make it anymore.

I enjoy all of them (well, not the first, since I've never played it). But I don't enjoy them all *equally*. And I'm sure that's a sentiment that's pretty common. We've all got different 'favorites' for different reasons. For me, Saints Row is at its best when it's *not* taking itself seriously. SR2's biggest flaw is its repeated tonal whiplash, vacillating wildly between a gritty gangster GTA wannabe and repeated jaunts into 'out of left field' slapstick insanity. How or why is the player supposed to react to or care about Carlos's fate after spending the last couple hours bum-tossing, spraying half of downtown Stillwater with raw sewage, throwing obsessed fans into jet engines, and playing the lead role in a satirical version of the "Cops" show?

 

[MegaFreeman]

...if you want GTA, why not play, I don't know, GTA?

There are plenty of reasons to want a grounded Saints Row game over GTA, since SR does some of the things better than GTA.

For example, Character customization, vehicle customization, open world activities, better open world map, continuous storyline instead of a new storyline every release, fun gameplay over realism, fun game mechanics and gimmicks, overall better gunplay, better balance of wacky and serious, consistent (customizable) faction the storyline follows, and so on.