Koch Media CEO Klemens Kundratitz said that there's "no doubt" that the next game in the Saint's Row franchise to ship in 2013.
Speaking with Gamesindustry International, Kundratitz elaborated on the thinking behind the company's recent purchase of the publishing rights to both the Saint's Row franchise and Metro: Last Light from now-defunct publisher THQ. Koch Media made overwhelming $28.1 million bid for two nearly complete games, as well as ownership of Saint's Row: The Third developer Volition. Given the tenuous status of the entire THQ catalog, the release status of these games had been unclear for the past few weeks.
The next Saint's Row game, which could potentially be called Saint Row 4 or Saint's Row: The Fourth, was fast-tracked by THQ last year. THQ president Jason Rubin instructed Volition to use the content from Enter the Dominatrix, a Downloadable add-on for Saint's Row: The Third, as the seed for developing a new title. Considering the pending announcement of Sony and Microsoft's next-gen consoles, both of which are expected to launch in 2013, it makes sense that game with core development built for current consoles would hit stores sooner rather than later.
Kundratitz says he's confident that the company, a relative unknown before releasing 2011's Dead Island, is capable of sheparding the development of multiple high-profile projects. "With Dead Island, for the first time we had a global success. One thing leads to the next, and after Dead Island to go a bigger step further, it's not something we don't know enough about." said Kundratitz. Moreover, the CEO said that the two games are "exactly what we [Koch Media] wanted," and considers both the Saint's Row series and Metro: Last Light "a perfect fit" for the publisher.
