4 year anniversary of SR2 Patch/Rerelease project

[nclok1405]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhB4sVtPUJ8

Today marks the 4 year anniversary since Volition has revealed SR2 Patch/Rerelease project on their live stream.
This video was made when IdolNinja was still alive and kicking.

Sadly, Volition and Deep Silver prioritized the SR2022 Reboot over SR2, and only silence followed the SR2 Rerelease project. It was *supposedly* being worked on a small team inside Volition even after IdolNinja's untimely death, but they never posted any evidence of the project still being alive like a screenshot or a video. Deep Silver kept saying the project is still being worked on but I'd say these are Corporate Speak and there were no real progress.

After Volition's death at the end of August 2023 there has been no completely-official announcement from Deep Silver.
There has been a status update from a SR Discord moderator that said "patch is still ongoing, but there's a possibility that it'll be picked up by another studio", however the moderator is not technically a Deep Silver or a Volition employee so I'd say it is only semi-official, and it is not fundamentally different from what Deep Silver has always said to us.

The only actual rumor regarding the SR2 Rerelease project came from Flippy's video:

https://youtu.be/yawfVO4-_gM?si=QBDbor57evf2Lcgq&t=167

From 2:47, looks like there are budget problems especially for multiplayer/co-op servers, as Steam's servers are costly. Even if by some miracle SR2 Rerelease project gets revived by Embracer Group, we might be forced to see Epic Online Services logo, or have multiplayer/co-op functions completely removed (multiplayer removal is unfortunately quite common for remasters; examples include Crysis, BioShock2, and Mass Effect 3)

Embracer Group, the parent company of Volition and Deep Silver, also have financial problems after their Saudi deal failed, but I hope they are wise enough to revive SR2 Rerelease project. If they release SR2 Rerelease to PC, then port it to Switch, PS4/5, and an Xbox afterwards, they can recover a lot of money and respect. I'm sure there are enough Switch users who played SRTT and SRIV and want to play another entry in the series, and there are PlayStation users who don't have working PS3 anymore but want to play SR2 again, preferably with trophies this time. Even for Xbox, having native version that can run in 60FPS would be better than running old SR2 through backwards compatibility.

I hope Embracer is not dumb.

[godzhand]

Let it die.

[annatar3]

I'm sure it was closed and forgotten at the same day as Mike died.

[Nada]

Originally posted by godzhand:

Let it die.

pretty sure they will like honestly why people don't if it never worked on pc and been years get the version they know works or kickstarter a program that provides a support to the game

but nah collective community here just complains because it's easier then taking action and making a solution

[Butz]

It's likely never going to be finished. If it was actually being worked on inside Volition then Deep Silver & Embracer, like any other studio. would have moonlighting policies in place to claim ownership over anything developed on company machines. Embrace killed Volition and now the project likely will be lost in legal limbo when Embracer either unloads Volition IPs they now own or just sits on them in perpetuity and does nothing with them.

If Idolninja and the Volition devs worked on this patch off-hours on their own machines then they probably cannot legally release the update since it uses code they no longer have legal access to since Volition was shuttered. It likely isn't worth the hassle to finish the patch, if they even can now without access to the source code, and then anonymously drop it and hope Embracer's legal team doesn't find out.

[Raynare]

I'd say just get it out even without Multiplayer. If it's Multiplayer holding them up most people would just be happy to finally play the game properly on PC even if it is missing Multiplayer.

[᲼]

Originally posted by nclok1405:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhB4sVtPUJ8

Today marks the 4 year anniversary since Volition has revealed SR2 Patch/Rerelease project on their live stream.
This video was made when IdolNinja was still alive and kicking.

Sadly, Volition and Deep Silver prioritized the SR2022 Reboot over SR2, and only silence followed the SR2 Rerelease project. It was *supposedly* being worked on a small team inside Volition even after IdolNinja's untimely death, but they never posted any evidence of the project still being alive like a screenshot or a video. Deep Silver kept saying the project is still being worked on but I'd say these are Corporate Speak and there were no real progress.

After Volition's death at the end of August 2023 there has been no completely-official announcement from Deep Silver.
There has been a status update from a SR Discord moderator that said "patch is still ongoing, but there's a possibility that it'll be picked up by another studio", however the moderator is not technically a Deep Silver or a Volition employee so I'd say it is only semi-official, and it is not fundamentally different from what Deep Silver has always said to us.

The only actual rumor regarding the SR2 Rerelease project came from Flippy's video:

https://youtu.be/yawfVO4-_gM?si=QBDbor57evf2Lcgq&t=167

From 2:47, looks like there are budget problems especially for multiplayer/co-op servers, as Steam's servers are costly. Even if by some miracle SR2 Rerelease project gets revived by Embracer Group, we might be forced to see Epic Online Services logo, or have multiplayer/co-op functions completely removed (multiplayer removal is unfortunately quite common for remasters; examples include Crysis, BioShock2, and Mass Effect 3)

Embracer Group, the parent company of Volition and Deep Silver, also have financial problems after their Saudi deal failed, but I hope they are wise enough to revive SR2 Rerelease project. If they release SR2 Rerelease to PC, then port it to Switch, PS4/5, and an Xbox afterwards, they can recover a lot of money and respect. I'm sure there are enough Switch users who played SRTT and SRIV and want to play another entry in the series, and there are PlayStation users who don't have working PS3 anymore but want to play SR2 again, preferably with trophies this time. Even for Xbox, having native version that can run in 60FPS would be better than running old SR2 through backwards compatibility.

I hope Embracer is not dumb.

It's time to let it go, I know it means a lot to you and me but we both know it's dead forever.

We only got emulation now and plus modding the game through emulation is the best and only way of playing Saints Row 2 on PC.

There's no point of looking back at Saints Row 2 PC Patch, I'm sorry but we wasted our time with this.

[Multigun]

The part that makes me mad over everything, is that the companies failed IdolNinja. I don't care that we never get to see the patch ourselves, truly, I don't. What I care about is that IdolNinja wanted this patch done. He literally worked on it in his last good days because that is what he wanted to do.

And that makes me angry. IdolNinja cared more about Saints Row 2 then probably anybody. It makes me feel like we all failed him. He asked that his work be continued and finished, and the companies left in charge after his passing didn't prioritize his last wishes. That is by far the most upsetting thing about all of this.

[RamiroRa]

Originally posted by Multigun:

The part that makes me mad over everything, is that the companies failed IdolNinja. I don't care that we never get to see the patch ourselves, truly, I don't. What I care about is that IdolNinja wanted this patch done. He literally worked on it in his last good days because that is what he wanted to do.

And that makes me angry. IdolNinja cared more about Saints Row 2 then probably anybody. It makes me feel like we all failed him. He asked that his work be continued and finished, and the companies left in charge after his passing didn't prioritize his last wishes. That is by far the most upsetting thing about all of this.

Truly a shame and a tragedy for the community. I hope a way to finish the project resurge and the game can be playable like it was intended.

[scanti]

I would be nice if they released the source code like the did, way back in time, with Freespace 2. I understand that because they outsourced the port to CD Projekt Black there could be legal problems in doing so but it would be nice.

I've started reverse engineering the game again in my spare time. I stopped when they announced they were working on a patch, plus I started to get burnt out on the project. The GTA3 - RE3 project had sort of spurred me into restarting again.

By the way definitely no promises. This is a monumental task and I'm just one guy, who doesn't really know what he's doing, shouting at the void, straining to decipher the echos coming back.

[marcell]

Originally posted by scanti:

I would be nice if they released the source code like the did, way back in time, with Freespace 2. I understand that because they outsourced the port to CD Projekt Black there could be legal problems in doing so but it would be nice.

I've started reverse engineering the game again in my spare time. I stopped when they announced they were working on a patch, plus I started to get burnt out on the project. The GTA3 - RE3 project had sort of spurred me into restarting again.

By the way definitely no promises. This is a monumental task and I'm just one guy, who doesn't really know what he's doing, shouting at the void, straining to decipher the echos coming back.

u our only hope bro