The CEO of Saber Interactive has some pretty damning words to say about 2022’s poorly-received Saints Row reboot, and its developer Volition.
As part of an interview with Game File (paywalled), Saber’s Matt Karch spoke about studio closures and layoffs. Volition, you may recall, was shuttered in 2023 as part of then-parent company Embracer Group’s previously announced “restructuring” programme.
Reflecting on this, Karch – who worked under the Embracer umbrella for a period of time before the sale of Saber assets – stated while “it would be nice in an ideal world for everyone to have a job”, the Saints Row team “were so expensive for what they were” and, therefore are “gone”.
“They didn’t know what they were building. They didn’t have any real direction. It couldn’t last,” Karch said. “And so, who’s going to fund them for the next game after that disaster?”
He added: “The days of throwing money at games other than maybe the GTAs of the world [are] over… It’s over.” Karch stated “this business needs to mature”, and if it doesn’t it’s “in trouble”.
“Unfortunately, that means layoffs,” the Saber exec continued. “If I were running a team in California, my goal would be: ‘Okay. Who are the absolutely must-haves in this group? And they exist. We have American talent [at Saber.] And who could do this for, you know, a quarter of the price in Poland?'”
2022’s Volition-developed Saints Row reboot was met with disappointing critical and commercial reception.Following its release, Embracer admitted the game “did not meet the full expectations and left the fanbase partially polarised” in a financial update shared in the November of that year.
We called Saints Row a “snappy but slightly uneven reboot” on its release. “Volition’s Saints Row reboot won’t set the world alight, but there’s a punchy game here with some pleasant surprises,” reads Eurogamer’s Saints Row review.