Saber Interactive CEO says Saints Row had to die because the games were too expensive: “The days of throwing money at games other than the GTAs of the world is over”

Saber Interactive Matthew Karch has given his two cents on the apparent quiet death of the Saints Row franchise, saying the games got too expensive and lacked direction.

In an interview with Stephen Totilo for Game File (paywalled), Karch said “the Saints Row team is gone” and explained his assumptions on why the series isn’t likely to get a new installment any time soon.

“They were so expensive for what they were,” Karch said. “They didn’t know what they were building. They didn’t have any real direction. It couldn’t last. And so, who’s going to fund them for the next game after that disaster?”

Karch was seemingly referencing 2022’s Saints Row reboot, which received mixed reviews and “did not meet the full expectations and left the fanbase partially polarized,” according to publisher Deep Silver’s then-parent company, Embracer, which subsequently moved Volition from Deep Silver to Gearbox before closing the studio entirely in August 2023.

“It would be nice in an ideal world for everyone to have a job,” Karch added. “But games with nine-figure budgets are making eight figures in revenue and that’s dooming a lot of developers.”

“The days of throwing money at games other than maybe the GTAs of the world is over,” Karch said. “It’s over. This business needs to mature. If it doesn’t, the whole business is in trouble. Unfortunately, that means layoffs.”

There was a time when both Karch, as Saber’s CEO, and the folks at Volition all worked under Embracer together. The Saints Row IP, as well as Volition’s Red Faction series, are now in the hands of the Embracer-owned Plaion while Saber was sold off in March 2024 in deal valued at just shy of $250 million. Shortly after Volition’s closure, Deep Silver assured fans that Saints Row and Red Faction would “live on” at Plaion, but so far we’ve yet to see any evidence of that.

While we wait for GTA 6 to (hopefully) launch in the fall, here are some games like GTA to hold you over.