Embracer Group has been the big bad in the gaming industry, cutting jobs left and right and even shutting down studios, and while we knew this meant games were canceled, it still doesn’t make the knowledge a new Red Faction could’ve been a reality. The game was only in the visual prototype phase, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have gone further.
In 2023, developer Fishlabs was working internally on two different projects — Project Black and Project White. The latter project was a game based on IPs Embracer already owned, according to a Rock Paper Shotgun report. In November 2023, it even had an elaborate pitch involving cosplay, which apparently went over well, but the project itself was halted with a 50-50 split. After the project was rejected, upper management instructed Fishlabs to fire almost all staff not tied to existing, active projects.
The new Red Faction would’ve been set 100 years after 2009’s Red Faction: Guerrilla on a “more terraformed and colorful Martian world,” complete with new and redesigned locations. It would have also featured a female protagonist following in the footsteps of past characters by taking part in the underground workers revolution. That isn’t to say it would’ve lost its roots, far from it even.
Based on the report, the Project White team still wanted to place an emphasis on the building destruction. That said, it was also aspiring to expand things with potential of differing play styles and a more “open-ended” feel akin to an immersive simulator. Unfortunately, though, we’re likely never to see the Red Faction series ever again.
