Rest In Peace Volition Inc Being Shut Down After Thirty Years

[Husky_Khan]

Rest In Peace Volition Game Studio (June 14th 1993 to August 31st 2023.

Founded in 1993 as the Parallax Software Corporation by two computer programmers Mike Kulas and Matt Toschlog who previously worked for the automotive/motoring magazine Car and Driver, they worked initially on a prototype game called Inferno and by 1994 were sending out VHS tapes to gaming publishers as their company ballooned to eight employees! After spending over a half million of their own money plus that from publisher Interplay, in March 1995 they released the critically acclaimed and popular computer game known as Descent. It was a science fiction based first person shooter/flight simulator where you piloted a spaceship fighting invading artificial life forms and that emphasized the 'six points of freedom' movement.

Soonafter they rebranded their company as Volition and riding on the success of Descent, began working on a sequel (Descent II in 1996 and Descent 3 in 1999). One of their most popular releases was FreeSpace, an epically scaled space flight simulator inspired by games such as the Star Wars TIE Fighter/X-Wing series and often compared to contemporaries like Wing Commander. Other games released included the action RPG Summoner and the well received Red Faction series of games, all four of which were well received first person shooters that took place during a futuristic Martian rebellion.

Then came the Saints Row franchise... While the quality was seen as tapering off towards the end, they released four (and a half) solid Saints Row games before decided to spin around in a chair in absolute mayhem for llike the better part of a decade before deciding to reboot the prized Saints Row franchise with a whole new reboot that would be known as Saints Row.

Uhhhhh not sure what happened after that but for some reason their owners, the Embracer Group, decided to shut them down.

Descent




Summoner



FreeSpace



Red Faction


Agents of Mayhem


RIP.

Saints Row developer Volition shuts down after 30 years

Saints Row developer Volition has announced they're shutting down after three decades of game production. The developer announced they've closed their doors as of today – news confirmed over on their…

nichegamer.com

 

[Bear Ribs]

Shame. I didn't play Saint's Row at all but I had a heck of a lot of fun with the entire Descent series during the golden age of flight sims, and played the heck out of Summoner.

I always felt Summoner was a really innovative game and really needed to be polished a lot more, there were some great ideas in there but some of their choices, like how monsters would avoid being locked down by chains, were terrible and in general the implementation needed more work.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Shame. I didn't play Saint's Row at all but I had a heck of a lot of fun with the entire Descent series during the golden age of flight sims, and played the heck out of Summoner.

I always felt Summoner was a really innovative game and really needed to be polished a lot more, there were some great ideas in there but some of their choices, like how monsters would avoid being locked down by chains, were terrible and in general the implementation needed more work.

Interesting I'll see if I can check that out. I never played Summoner myself.

The second and third Saints Row games are very worthwhile and tonally a fair bit different which is neat as well because it leads to a divided fanbase which often likes both games but tends to favor one or the other and can get opionated over it.