THQ abandons Red Faction Franchise

[Vergil'sBitch]

THQ abandons Red Faction franchise after Armageddon flops

Red Faction: Armageddon is likely to be the last game ever in the series, as publisher THQ admits its sales were so bad that they 'do not intend to carry forward with that franchise in any meaningful way'.

According to THQ boss Brian Farrell Armageddon was 'clearly a disappointing performance' in terms of critical commercial success. Speaking to investors he admitted that the game 'did not resonate with a sufficiently broad console gaming audience', despite a 'passionate niche following.'

Despite its flaws previous game Guerrilla received a much more positive reception, and was essentially Saints Row on Mars - not surprising given the two games share the same developer.

Although Armageddon was also by Volition it abandoned the open world environment in favour of becoming a linear third person shooter. Despite some fun weapons though it still managed to make little use of the game's excellent destructible scenery and barely made any impact on sales charts.

'Given that that title now in two successive versions has [only] found a niche, we do not intend to carry forward with that franchise in any meaningful way,' said Farrell.

'In today's hit-driven, core gaming business, even highly-polished titles with a reasonable following like Red Faction face a bar that continues to move higher and higher.'

THQ are so upset with how Armageddon did that they're changing their own internal review process as a result, to try and ensure better quality games - a tacit admission that Armageddon just wasn't up to scratch.

The news about Red Faction came as THQ reported pretty poor results for its first financial quarter of the year, with a net loss of $38.4 million for April through June. That's even worse than last year's $30.1 million loss, despite a rise in sales from $149.4 million to $195.2 million.

The publisher is predicting better times ahead though, with the likes of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, WWE '12, uDraw HD, and Saints Row: The Third all expected to do well.

A warning to all that no franchise is safe. Oh and, I didn't know if anyone played it so I posted it anyway.

 

[Angelo Credo]

Oh COME ON NOW.
Red Faction was always originally a fairly linear shooter anyway and it was remarkably popular, they got lucky with Guerilla being such a hit, then when they try to take the game back to its roots, the fickle fans who never played it before Guerilla most likely reacted in a "Wait, what the hell is this? lol it's trying to be cod" manner.

Shame, because RF was a damn good series.

 

[Dark Drakan]

Should have stuck with improving on the first 2 games with updated engines. I really liked Red Faction 1 & 2 and played them for years but didnt even bother with the new ones after they totally changed the design of the game and even the genre. A shame they didnt just work on improved destruction and multiplayer and keep it an FPS. They didnt need to turn it into Saints Row on mars as they put it, we have Saints Row and it does fine on its own.