Red Faction franchise won't continue 'in any meaningful way'

by Ludwig Kietzmann on Jul 27th 2011 6:01PM

Red Faction: Armageddon has signaled the end of not just a familiar red planet, but an entire, transmedia universe. Speaking during an investor call this evening, THQ CEO Brian Farrell described the franchise's reach as "niche," and consequently no longer worth pursuing.

"Given that that title, now in two successive versions, has just found a niche, we do not intend to carry forward with that franchise in any meaningful way," Farrell said. He described the development team at Volition as "talented," and noted that they would be moving on to the company's Guillermo del Toro project, Insane.

Though Red Faction: Guerrilla fell victim to a B-for-botched launch campaign in 2009, it was received well enough by critics and "niche" consumers to warrant further exploration. 2011 brought a sequel (Red Faction: Armageddon), a promotional spin-off (Red Faction: Battlegrounds) and a SyFy original movie called Red Faction: Origins.

We'll try to get more info from THQ regarding its decision, but for now you can return to the older games (there were two before Guerrilla, by the way!) and extract some relevant lessons for the future. Bonus: If you complete Red Faction 1, you'll learn how to defuse a bomb.

Tags: microsoft, pc, playstation, ps3, Red-Faction-Armageddon, thq, volition, xbox

Reader Comments (67)

Cool, it needs a nice long gentle sleep. Now pass the memo over to Activision and tell Activision to pass that same memo over to EA.

@Dance Mofo And pass the memo to Capcom too.

@KGameLover1 And nintendo.

@Cavall

Hell no, Nintendo actually innovates and evolves in every new installment.

Just compare Wind Waker to Twilight Princess or Mario 64 to Galaxy.

@Qehb

Yeah, Wind Waker was superior to Twilight Princess in every conceivable way.

@TraceurRyuk Part III Absolutely.

@Qehb
I'm really beginning to detest the word "innovate" being used in the same sentence as Nintendo. They have brought out some intriguing concepts, but like its competitors, but damn... next thing you know, people will be calling it "kafka-esque".

Well, can't say I didn't expect it after how awful the second was... The first was great, it's sad that it's shutting down... Oh well

@KGameLover1 red faction armaggedon is the 4th one in the red faction series

@TheBurbin

I think he is talking about the second game, it was pretty bad ... the first one was a "blow it all up" romp, the second one was an on rails corridor shooter with limited environmental destructibility. Guerrilla was fun in a GTA in SPAAAAAAACE kinda way, but Armageddon was back to the limited destructibility and overly intrusive plot.

I wonder how much less the franchise would have cost THQ without that movie they paid Sy-Fy to make?

oh well, I honestly am not surprised that this happened when I heard that the long time head of Violition had quit, I remember thinking "I bet he got pissed at THQ for running his games into the ground with dumb project goals."

@KGameLover1

Just to clarify, Voilition is not shutting down. The Red Faction franchise just won't be produced anymore.

Truly is a sad thing, Red Faction was the game back in the day that blew me away with its destructive gameplay and Guerrilla was awesome. As of now, it needs rest so that one day it will return and claim it's true glory and rise again.

I really liked Guerrilla for the excellent multiplayer, I skipped the RC Pro Am joke of an arcade game and Armageddon for lacking multiplayer. It's sad that they're so out of touch with their customers, and now another innocent franchise bites the dust due to executive sequel-itis greed and bad decision making.

@SilentSoul

Yea I'm calling bullshit on his excuse. Pretty sure "blowing shit up" isn't a niche interest.

@jsx How long was the single player though? I could care less about multiplayer mode. If the single player was decently long I might get it.

Summoner 3.

Get on it.

@Faenix
This

@Dickhole Pasta

I've actually beaten that game. Not proud to announce that.

Oh wow.
He certainly doesn't hold back does he?

@BlackedOut

I'd wish other CEO's would take notice. Instead of dragging the old tired franchises as though they can still milk every penny out of them handing out copy after copy, each one less inventive as the last.

@Stevetrop Man of Mystery

I'm not sure what you're getting at. They killed the franchise because it wasn't making them money, not because they couldn't think of anything "inventive" to add to them. If they could just whip up another generic shooter and make a bundle of money, you better believe they'd be milking that franchise.

I'm pretty happy about this to be honest. I'll always remember Red Faction 2 as the game that brought me Quake-style gameplay on the Gamecube, and for that, I love it. It was a great game with a fast, fluid style. Once they tried to take the series in a direction that had nothing to do with the first two, trouble was already on the horizon.

I'm also rather pleased that the THQ CEO was able to come and outright say that there wouldn't be anymore Red Faction games. Most companies would simply let it die entirely- at least no one will get their hopes up like this.

R.I.P Red Faction- you had a few great games, but you really needed to be put down.

@MW4560

Guerrilla was fantastic, but then they decided to go in a completely different direction and turned it into a generic corridor shooter to try to appeal to a wider audience. The franchise doesn't need to be "put down", it just needs to return back to its roots.

@EatSleepChuck No, I think it really just needs to be put down. Every entry in the franchise has been worse than the one preceding it. The Red Faction series was like an experiment for THQ- with each game, they tried something new to see what worked. Unfortunately, in the end, nothing really did. Like I said, RF1&2 were good, but Red Faction is going nowhere but down. Time to lock it away.

@EatSleepChuck It's roots ARE a corridor shooter. Where you blow up the terrain and so on. Guerrilla was the odd one out in the series. And that one on XBLA and PSN.

I have Armageddon sitting on my 360, but never got around to playing it, so I may as well send it back to Gamefly. They certainly did what they could to push the hype wagon through other forms of media. That said, I never heard anything about how well that Red Faction movie on Sci-fi did. Probably not that great.

Time to sleep, Red Faction. I'll leave the night light on for you and your space friend NASA.

I'd just want them to make a Freespace 3. I'd be a happy panda if I could ever see that day.

@Stevetrop Man of Mystery Ah, a re-imagining of a beloved PC franchise?

"Freespace 3, a visceral first person shooter that takes place in the Freespace universe. You play as space marine Colonel John Smith on the Goliath as you take on the Vesudan threat. Enjoy third person, over the shoulder cover based co-op!"

I would pay hundreds for a for real Freespace 3. Not Rebel Assault/Star Fox on rails shooter with a Freespace skin, but a for real Freespace game. Sadly, the day that happens is the day Duke Nukem Forev... er... Half Life 2 episode 3 comes out!

Well when you take out everything that makes Red Faction unique & turn it into another generic shooter, this is what you get.

@Hawaii Jeff

Exactly my thoughts. They removed almost everything fun and original from the previous game. What did they expect would happen?

@Hawaii Jeff And then you take out the generic shooter, and you're left with a top-down fixed-camera car combat game.

If this was what they considered continuing the series in a *meaningful* way, I dread to see what they've got planned for the future.

This is what happens when you futz around with the formula too much. Guerilla, bless it's heart, was trying to do some things that was never really expected from the Red Faction franchise: sandbox gameplay and getting some of that 3rd person shooter action. Both aren't bad but neither are things that I had ever hoped the game would be.

The game turned out to be enjoyable but do you honestly expect to win fans of the series over with a change like that? Not to mention that there are arguably better and more popular 3rd person games out there. People don't care so much about the sandbox thing unless they are into the gaming culture and know wtf the term even means, but even still there are better games out there.

Red Faction 1 is still probably the shining example of what the franchise should be like. Not so much the linearity but the tone and the destructibility. I WANT TO BUILD TUNNELS WITH C4!!! >:(

@applefleas Oh yeah... these guys are morons. That's all. :)

@applefleas

Are you talking about the same Geurilla that created Killzone? Cause they are owned by Sony.

You had two options... take Guerrilla into a complete destruction sandbox with the ability to terraform AND destroy massive structures!...

or

Realize you want to be lazy and half ass it with little investment, so you turn an open world title into a third person corridor "stop and pop" shooter and basically ditching every element your new player base found fun.

THQ only has themselves to blame.

@TheKbob Absolutely correct. I saw this coming since the announcement of RF:A. Take away open world gameplay and you take away everything that was compelling about Guerrilla.

@TheKbob

I completely agree. Honestly, Guerilla is one of My favorite games, and I'm constantly harassing My friends to get it. Armageddon kinda broke My heart with everything it trashed. Honestly if they'd just taken Guerilla and made it into an know with the ability to blow up the ground from rf1, they woulda had a huge hit on their hands.

@TheKbob

Did Guerrilla sell well? I was sort of under the impression that it didn't fare all that great either. Seems like they were screwed either way. Still, if they went path 1, at least the niche gamers would've been happy.

I liked Guerrilla but think it would have been much better if they allowed a coop player like Mercenaries 2. That game would have rocked with a friend online.

Neither will THQ at this rate....

Well if they hadn't changed it so much from the guerilla formula

the thing that made red faction special was the fact that there were no aliens, humans managed to conquer space, just to find out that it's empty, now the rotten politics & other problems we face now had moved to mars, and you were fighting against them, you were fighting against yourself, against other humans, also the open world of guerrilla was great, with armaggedon they just throwed everything out of the window, linear levels & aliens just ruined everything, that's why they can't continue the franchise, armaggedon wasn't the worst game ever, it was pretty fun, but it just ruined the feeling of the other red faction games

Lame. Make the right design decisions, Volition and THQ. Go back to what made the first Red Faction so magical. It was like Half-Life at the time, which was a compliment. Armageddon is like... mediocre. Stop making poor decisions regarding the franchise. It's not "niche," it just needs to be done right.

They were pretty crazy to think that something as bland as Red Faction could be a transmedia franchise.

Anyway just furthers my theory that live action video game movies portend a death or massive downturn in a franchise.

Such a shame, this is. It also highlights that THQ's desire not to develop niche games any more - it's mass-market vanilla, or bust. Goodbye games with greater depth :(.

Here's an idea: get it off the 360 platform and go back to Red Faction 2 and start taking notes.

Can't fail with those two tips.

I'm sad to see this franchise go but hopefully volition studio learn something from this to improve on their next game.

Fair enough. I loved Guerrilla, and I'd much rather see the series end with its reputation intact than be crammed into sequels, prequels, spinoffs, etc.

@Dickhole Pasta

Well it did bring us Battlestar Galactica, so that's something right? I suppose the old adage, "even a broken clock is right twice a day," holds true.

Really too bad. I thought Guerrilla was so close.

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Red Faction: Armageddon

Red Faction franchise won't continue 'in any meaningful way'

Reader Comments (67)

Posted: Jul 27th 2011 6:04PM Dance Mofo said

Posted: Jul 27th 2011 6:08PM KGameLover1 said

Posted: Jul 27th 2011 6:12PM Cavall said

Posted: Jul 27th 2011 6:32PM Qehb said

Posted: Jul 27th 2011 6:45PM TraceurRyuk Part III said

Posted: Jul 27th 2011 6:53PM Alboreo said

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Posted: Jul 27th 2011 6:13PM BlackedOut said

Posted: Jul 27th 2011 6:19PM Stevetrop Man of Mystery said

Posted: Jul 27th 2011 8:06PM EatSleepChuck said

Posted: Jul 27th 2011 6:14PM MW4560 said

Posted: Jul 27th 2011 8:10PM EatSleepChuck said

Posted: Jul 27th 2011 8:35PM MW4560 said

Posted: Jul 28th 2011 12:17AM Rabite said

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Posted: Jul 27th 2011 6:57PM Zelyre said

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