With Poor Sales for Armageddon, THQ Phasing Out Red Faction

It's incredibly disappointing that they didn't expand on Red Faction Guerilla at all. I really enjoyed that game, and the multiplayer was surprisingly great.

Guerilla was incredibly fun, but it seems like they just missed the mark with Armageddon (imo).

Which sucks. I can't put into words how disappointed I was as soon as I tried the demo.

Hopefully the red faction tech is slowly integrated into other THQ games. Destructible environments in Saints row and Darksiders would be great.

Probably would've helped if the game was any good.

This is fucking lame. While I moderately enjoyed Armageddon and would hardly call it a "bad" game, it's not really what I, or apparently anyone else, wanted from a sequel. Guerrilla, while a departure, was also a huge step forward for the series in terms of how it could've been "modernized". I don't understand what Volition was thinking when they thought that that game's successor should be a fairly brief, linear shooter where you fight mostly aliens, without even including a proper multiplayer component. I knew the game wasn't going to sell well, but I didn't think they would kill the series off all together. I've been a massive fan since the original came out over 10 years ago, and it really saddens and angers me that Volition basically signed the franchise's death warrant by making the product that they did. It seems they perfectly understand what people love about Saint's Row, but totally missed the point on RF.

On the other hand, I was never expecting another RF game after 2. When Guerrilla was announced I was ecstatic, and considered it a godsend that there was even one more sequel, let alone two. Anyway, RIP (most likely) to one of my favorite series.

Its fine for everyone to complain that they ended the franchise but RF:G cost a ton of money and years in development to make. It came out, got good reviews and was well advertised but no one bought it and it didn't make its money back. Their again highly advertised but now average sequel also didn't sell and I completely understand why they would not want to continue making them. I am surprised they even made a sequel. People shouldn't pretend that Guerrilla was a massive success. It's exactly like he said, neither sold well enough to keep making them and they wouldn't be a very good business if they kept making big budget games that no one buys. Some of the comments in here are just dumb.

God forbid you try to build on what people liked about Guerrilla, you dumb FUCKS.

I don't feel bad. The franchise may come back next generation or something, much like how it was dormant until Guerrilla. I wasn't a big fan of either third person Red Faction personally, so I'm cool. Maybe Volition will have the time to attempt a revival of Descent instead? Anything but Shit's Row, please. But at least that franchise makes the studio money. 
 
Wonder how pissed off THQ is at the massive failure of De Blob 2? I mean, they put it on all platforms and it sold SO MUCH LESS than the Wii exclusive first one. That's kinda embarrassing; but totally expected. The first game was a'ight, but I don't know anyone who was really passionate about it and wanted more of it. Maybe they're expecting it to have a long tail at retail? 
 
Big publishers need to balance the major hit titles with smaller, less risky efforts better. I think THQ will be fine for now, but I'd like to see them get better at DLGs. Their Double Fine stuff was fantastic, but that Red Faction Battlegrounds was awful. I actually bet they could do a downloadable $15 Red Faction if they wanted to; let TimeGate (Section 8) get their hands on Geomod and see what they cook up. Wouldn't be nearly as risky as a new console entry.

Guerillia was so fucking fun! I doubt it's the "end" for Red Faction. They'll just take a Guitar Hero style break, and be back in a few years with a reboot.

The Red Faction: Origins... I'm callin' it.

@HarlequinRiot said:

There was a SyFy movie and everything. Wonder how much money they lost on the franchise. With that said, they should make a Saint's Row movie.

Shhhhh, do you want them to destroy Saints Row as well?

It'd just be the Postal movie with more dildos anyhow...

Yeah, who would've figured that no one wants a bland shooter that takes place in linear dark cave levels.

I can't get my head around how somebody thought that this change from a fun sandbox-style game to "this" was a good idea.

When GTA 5 is a linear shooter in dark caves it won't sell either. Should have made it not suck.

They take out what people liked about Guerilla and complain that the sequel doesn't sell when it got pretty mediocre reviews? Do they expect people to just blindly pick up a game? Granted a lot of people do but a lot of people also will only buy a game that gets good reviews.

When GTA 5 is a linear shooter in dark caves it won't sell either. Should have made it not suck.

Maybe. Just maybe if they would have expanded on what made the previous game great instead of restricting it, this would not have happened. 
 
You know it's obvious, when all of us here say so.

I hope whatever idiots at Volition cooked up Armageddon take a real good look in the mirror now and learn what it means to publish a franchise killer.

Armageddon was so OBVIOUSLY a bad idea I don't even know what to say about it that doesn't involve cuss-words. That it made it to completion is baffling, but its reception was not.

I hope THQ have brains enough to examine Guerilla in a few years and decide to revive it.

So now we can get a new Freespace, right?
 
Right?

It sold poorly Because they failed to make a fun Red Faction game. Next time, make a fun Red Faction game!

So dumb, this is all their own fault. Why did they change everything people liked from the first game and made it a shitty linear experiance. so fucking dumb.

@Grimmy616: Agree 100%. I loved the more open ended nature of Guerilla. Also, what was with the underground Aliens type setting. Totally killed the anarchistic feel of the first game.

I've never really liked Red Faction (there's just something about Volition games in general that never clicks with me, even), but Guerrilla showed potential at least. It's a damn shame Volition went the route they chose for Armageddon rather than building on Guerrilla's foundation. I wonder how Armageddon would have sold had it improved on Guerrilla's formula and mechanics.

To those in defense of Armageddon, that's fine, but realize that in today's environment, if you step up to a genre you have to make it your own. If you simply release a mediocre game, you will not only fail, but you're likely to cause an end to your franchise. There's no room today, with indie devs putting out very high quality work, for a high budget title that doesn't blow people's minds. It's sad but true.

You can blow someone's mind with creativity, or you can blow their minds with incredible production values. But you can't blow their minds with middling generic mediocrity, and being "simply alright" is "simply not enough". Whoever decided Armageddon was worth the time to create failed to realize just how eyeball-poppingly rad it would have to be to hold up against Uncharted and Gears, and it HAD to hold up against those. Not surprisingly, it didn't.

Let's just quit our denial and embrace the notion that the high budget B-game is dead and unfeasible. Back to the drawing board lads: Release some games WORTH the 60 bucks you're charging your customers. Hopefully not at the cost of genuinely interesting games like Guerilla.

A few months ago Game Informer did an hour long documentary on Volition.  In that documentary the head of Volition says that the lesson they learned from Red Faction 2 was that destruction in a corridor shooter was meaningless.  That's why they decided to make Guerrilla open world, they wanted to focus on the destruction and they knew that was the only way to make it meaningful. 
 
Then the next game they make is a fucking corridor shooter with destruction.  They had to know that the game was no good when they made it, no one could be that oblivious. 
 
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2011/03/30/the-secret-history-of-volition.aspx It's at about 6:55 in the fourth video if anyone is interested.

I guess we all better buy Saints Row The Third if we want Volition to stay in business.

Maybe they should have made a sequel to red faction guerilla instead of a half assed next game with no open world or multiplayer.

It sold poorly because they went from a nice open world game to a shitty linear piece of crap, I can't believe they will just drop the franchise on that, I would rather have a red faction built upon the guerrilla foundation than a new saints row.... what a bunch of idiots.

Alright so they basically took out destructible fun and one the most balanced competitive multiplayer games I have ever played. 
 
Theres a reason why it failed, a refined guerilla could of been the best game i'd played in ages.

I thought Guerilla sold well? Hm, wierd.

Really depressing that they would can an entire franchise over one obvious misstep. Why they abandon what made Guerrilla so unique is beyond me, but it hardly seems fair to blame the franchise for the designers' folly. Makes me think a lot less of THQ and their upper management. I hope that Saint's Row The Third does well for Volition's sake.

Edit: Also, maybe they should make better games than Homefront and MX vs ATV instead of canning entire franchises that people actually are interested in, if they are so worried about their fiscal loss.

@sthusby said:

I thought Guerilla sold well? Hm, wierd.

It did, this didn't.

Man I hope Saints Row 3 isn't a huge turd. But yeah, I was psyched for Armageddon but disappointed when it wasn't more of what was great about Guerilla.

Yeah fuck that guy for blaming the audience and not taking responsibly who does he think he is. Oh Wait...

The last three launches we've had have been disappointing in terms of the quality," he said. "Mid-70s [in terms of Metacritic average] is not good enough, and the entire team in our core group knows that."

This wouldn't have happened if you had just made a sequel to Guerilla like everyone expected and wanted instead of stripping everything good about Red Faction out of Red Faction. :|

Changing to the linear format didn't seem to attract any new buyers but it did seem to be written off by many fans of Guerrilla. Disappointing, I would have rather the series been cancelled after two unique open world Guerilla games rather than only one and some boring corridor crawl.

I hope people realize these press releases are worded this way to not come out and be disrespectful to the people who worked on this game. Making announcements like this can easily erupt a shit storm and at the same time offend the people at Volition. The last thing anyone needs is to be reminded of all the bad ideas and mistakes made along the way that may or may not have been responsible for Red Faction Armageddon's poor retail performance.

Another step in THQ fucking over Volition. They forced the company to lay off some workers some months ago, and they're limiting the studio's creativity by making them work on the same franchises over and over again.

A little birdy told me that people at Volition knew that Armageddon was dogshit about halfway through the development, but the people who designed the initial concept were the people in power, so no changes were made. Of course these assholes weren't the ones who were fired.

Wow. The worst news I've heard in a while. Way to promote a creative environment, THQ.

They remove all the stuff that made Guerrilla good and it doesn't sell...and they deduce people are over Red Faction? Gotta love suits!

How  do they act baffled that gamers wont reward them with their money when the series went from shit like using a nearly invincible mech to level a town full of buildings in RFG to shooting shitty aliens in a cave in the sequel?  Idiots.

I thought Guerilla sold well? Hm, wierd.

They should have examined the game first and then come to the conclusion on why the game sold poorly. If you write a bad book in a series, does that mean you should end the series abruptly, just like Red Faction?

Not like this.

Kinda sucks, but oh well I can still play Red Faction Guerrilla.

No loss. The lazy PC port for Guerilla made me fed up with the franchise. Real shame too, cus I loved the first one.

Maybe this will give them a chance to do something inspired now instead of making mediocre franchises.

I'm hopeful for SR3 but I don't have much belief in THQ lately so I don't know. We'll see.

I didn't like guerilla myself. But ask any other poster here just about, and they could tell you quite succintly why armegeddon faltered. Personally, the very first red faction was pretty good, but perhaps trying to go back to that with their modern take still just did not do it.

You can even tell it sold poorly in pre-orders on Steam. There only exist "300 Genuine Maul exist" items for TF2. So only 300 people bought it before the game came out...how sad.

What a pity too, I loved Red Faction: Guerrilla.

I would've bought Guerilla if it wasn't for the fact that the environments fucking sucked. Just red sand everywhere. No variation. No vegetation. Nothing green or anything, just fucking sand and identical buildings. Breaking things to pieces was fun and all, but it wasn't enough for me. 
 
That said, it's really sad that they're shutting the franchise down after they fucked it up completely themselves.

its release, not it's release.

C'mon.

Maybe now they'll finally go ahead and make FreeSpace 3.