It’s been a long time since fans got to play a new Red Faction game, with the series last installment releasing in 2011. Voliton’s closure last year seemingly killed the series for good. However, the franchise nearly got a stay of execution thanks to studio Fishlabs.
What do we know about the canceled new Red Faction game?
Fishlab’s new Red Faction game was still in pre-production when Embracer Group pulled the plug, laying off a sizable chunk of the studio’s staff. However, as RockPaperShotgun reported, the studio had a general idea of how the game would look.
The new Red Faction game would have largely disregarded Red Faction: Armageddon, which saw a mediocre reception in 2011. Instead, it would be a sequel to 2009’s Red Faction: Guerrilla, which was remastered in 2019. The game would maintain the same emphasis on destructible buildings and feature a similar-sized open world. There were also discussions about a more open-ended gameplay experience with stealth and disguise mechanics and vehicle customization.
Its story was still in the planning stages. However, the plan was for the new Red Faction game to take place 100 years after Gorilla. Its version of Mars would have been fully terraformed, resulting in a more colorful game world. The story would see a female protagonist joining another worker’s revolution. Players would interact and potentially form alliances with various factions, including local communities and predatory corporations.
Of course, the game was still in the concept stages, so we’ll never know for sure what the finished products would have looked like. The vote to greenlight the new Red Faction game was reportedly a 50-50 split, resulting in its cancelation and the layoff of about 50 Fishlabs employees.
