Story Highlights
- The Saints Row Reboot was released early last year with a mostly negative reception from players and critics alike.
- While not a commercial failure, the game vastly underperformed commercially, so much so that it needed to sell 2 million copies just to break even.
- Saints Row also supposedly cost over 100 million dollars in development.
According to numerous sources, one of the most infamous releases of last year, the Saints Row reboot supposedly cost over 100 million dollars to make.
While nothing about the game’s budget has been explicitly exposed, sources have mentioned that it’s a well-known fact about the game’s development behind the scenes. Furthermore, according to Embracer’s own Sundal Collier, the game needed to sell at least 2 million copies just to break even.
Big loss for Embracer Group $EMBRAC's PC/Console segment due to the high depreciation associated with underperforming releases earlier in the year, particularly Saints Row, which cost more than $100 million (total completed games value for July-Sep was SEK 1671m). pic.twitter.com/pQnJJc2IL5
— EmbracerInvestor (@EmbracerInvest) February 16, 2023
If true, that’s a damning statement for the game itself. As the game notably underperformed both critically and commercially. Embracer Group also suffered a major loss in PC/Console sales due to the game’s disappointing performance.
Saints Row was nearly universally panned for its outdated visuals and open-world design, as well as an underwhelming story and utterly painful writing.
It’s also a look at the expensive nature of AAA game development. Budgets are skyrocketing with games costing more and more, which just shows the risk that’s constantly present in this industry.
Even so, Embracer has had a rather successful year all things considered with other major titles such as Evil West and Goat Simulator 3, along with other well-performing games like Deep Rock Galactic, Borderlands 3, Chivalry 2, and many more.
The publisher acquired various new IPs last year such as Legacy of Kain, Tomb Raider as well as Deus Ex alongside a whole smorgasbord of well-renowned studios such as Eidos Montreal and Crystal Dynamics.
Coupled with their goal of releasing a whopping 234 games within the next 3 years and hopefully we can expect more regarding some of these IPs. God knows us Deus Ex fans are practically starving at this point.
As for Saints Row itself, the game’s developers Volition were merged with Gearbox Software in November last year. As of now, the series’ future remains muddy at best and non-existent at worst.
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