Saint’s Row reboot moves to new studio after failing to meet expectations

As part of Embracer Group’s latest financial earnings report, Volition—the creator of the Saints Row reboot—is now a part of Gearbox Software.

“Going forward, Volition will transition to become part of Gearbox which has all the tools, including an experienced management team in the United States, to create future success at Volition,” the announcement reads. “This is the first internal group transfer where we transfer a major studio between operative groups, but it is not necessarily the last.”

Volition was first a subsidiary of game publisher Deep Silver. Now, the studio will go under Gearbox Software, which is still a part of Embracer Group. The mother company stated that the Saints Row Reboot, which was Volition’s latest project, “did not meet the full expectations and left the fanbase partially polarized.” Embracer pointed out that the game still performed “in line with management expectations in the quarter.”

This follows Volition’s patch for the game that went live last Wednesday. The update introduced a ton of game and performance improvements for Saints Row. Embracer Group CEO Lars Wingefors spoke with AGM (transcribed by VGC) in September about how the game was received by fans, calling it “very polarizing.”

“Personally, I had hoped for a greater reception to the game,” he said. “It’s been very polarizing. There are a lot of things that could be said in detail around it, but I’m with one hand happy to see lots of gamers and fans happy, and at the same time I’m a bit sad to also see fans not happy, so it’s difficult.”