Saints Row was more or less the death of the studio. I wonder if the reason they focused so much on SR was their own idea or the publishers.
It felt weird, in my opinion, that as the whole remake/remaster craze was going on, that they didn’t put out some polished and doodled up new version of Decent, Freespace or Summoner. They were pretty much the building blocks of the studio.
I mean, Freespace 2 is still one of the top-dogs in it’s genre. And it’s a 24 years old game.
AFAIK, servers are rented for years (I believe 24 months minimum), and renewed after financial performances (are we making more money in the multiplayer than the server costs, the “content” pipeline, and the maintenance?). If it doesn’t make money, they let the contract expire.
Second, the publisher usually pays the servers, while the studio is tasked with the last two tasks (content, maintenance).
So no, it won’t die immediately, but it will probably die next year. I highly doubt the publisher will task another third party studio to maintain it.
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