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Games

Layoffs Hit Saints Row Developer Volition, GM Dan Cermak Reportedly Departs

The move comes from Deep Silver in the wake of a lackluster showing from 'Agents of Mayhem'.
screenshot courtesy of Deep Silver

Major layoffs have hit Volition, the Illinois-based studio behind Saints Row, Red Faction, Freespace, and most recently, Agents of Mayhem. Longtime studio chief Dan Cermak has departed, as publisher and owner Deep Silver make substantial cuts. A source, who requested anonymity due to their proximity to the situation, indicated that 34 employees are being laid-off. This tracks with Kotaku reports, via sources, that put the number around 30. The move is reportedly in response to poor sales of Volition's recent Agents of Mayhem.

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Volition have always been an unusual studio, and the way Saints Row the Third became a phenomenon in the games community probably obscured the strengths and weaknesses of the developer's position in the industry. For much of the studio's history to date, it's a place where people accomplished great things on the fringes of the mainstream.

Remember that most of their major accomplishments kind of came out of left field. They put the capstone on the space combat flight sim genre with Freespace 2, but nobody would have expected something originally based on the Descent license to surpass LucasArts X-Wing series or the Wing Commander games. Red Faction was a fairly bog-standard FPS and then Guerrilla showed critics and audiences the kind of destructibility and "emergence" that was possible with new hardware. Saints Row was the screwball GTA clone, and then Saints Row the Third pretty much captured the culture and humor of an entire generation in one weirdly heartwarming, profane cartoon epic.

SR3 defined the studio at a crucial moment, as publisher THQ was sinking from a Udraw-shaped hole below the waterline. They were quickly acquired by Deep Silver in 2013, along with the Metro franchise, and a somewhat rushed-feeling Saints Row IV later that year.

But Volition has never quite escaped their most popular creation. Agents of Mayhem may have been a new franchise but its identity and tone were handcuffed to Saints Row, and it received a lukewarm reception from both Saints Row fans and people looking for something new.

Yet perhaps you could say that Volition beat the odds for much of its existence, but industry trends finally seem to be catching up with it. Mid-size studios like Volition and the "AA" games that they made have struggled mightily in the past decade, and landscape changed around them. With Saints Row the Third they beat the odds and landed a hit, but it didn't materially change their fortunes. Their fate remains tied to mid-tier publishers and the expiring appeal of a popular franchise, and that's not a position that allows for setbacks like Agents of Mayhem appears to be.

We're reaching out to Deep Silver for comment and will update as this develops.