Deus Ex, Legacy of Kain, Saints Row are 'underleveraged brands' that will be 'activated,' IP rightsholder says

Some of gaming's most iconic franchises and brands could make a resurgence in gaming form or in other ways.

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Embracer Group is splitting up into two companies, and one of them, Fellowship Entertainment, will have a treasure trove of dormant game IPs. Now the organization says they want to activate franchises like Deus Ex and Saints Row for new projects, including games and other opportunities.

The new group is called Fellowship Entertainment, a so-called "steward" that will lead the future of some of the most recognizable video game properties on the market, including Lord of the Rings, Tomb Raider, Metro, Kingdom Come, and Dead Island. There's also what the organization calls "the vault," which includes older brands like Deus Ex, Saints Row, TimeSplitters, Thief, Red Faction, Legacy of Kain--some of which haven't been dusted off for quite some time.

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"Imagine a strong room of IPs, underleveraged brand equity that we intend to activate through remasters, new game treatments, reimaginings, and adaptation and licensing.

"The fans waiting for those franchises are real, and they've been patient. We hear that. Activating even a handful of these properties creates meaningful, incremental value, and it's something that we are actively working on."

From the sound of it, Fellowship may mostly be interested in third-party development of these kinds of games, which makes sense considering Volition, the studio behind Saints Row, isn't even around any more.

That being said, gamers may not want to get their hopes up because a recent Deus Ex game was cancelled by Eidos-Montreal. The project had been in development for 2 years.

Also, Deus Ex is technically not all that dormant because there's a new project in development in the series, albeit it's a remaster of the first game.

The same is true for Legacy of Kain, which got a sequel remaster collection in 2024, and a new 2D action game called Legacy of Kain: Ascendance was also released earlier this year alongside a remastered version of Defiance.

So that leaves Saints Row and Thief, the former having not been touched since the disastrous Saints Row V and the latter having fizzled out after a 2014 release from Eidos-Montreal and then-owner Square Enix.

In any case, Fellowship Entertainment did confirm that both Eidos-Montreal and Crystal Dynamics are working on new games that are in concept phases of development, and it's unclear what these projects may be. Given the group's positioning of these prestige studios, it seems unlikely that they would make a big-budget return to the Deus Ex franchise and resurrect the previously-cancelled project.

Fellowship Entertainment Companies

1. 4A Games
2. Crystal Dynamics
3. Dambuster Studios
4. Dark Horse Media
5. Eidos-Montréal
6. Fishlabs
7. Flying Wild Hog
8. Gunfire Studios
9. Middle-earth Enterprises
10. Redoctane Games
11. Warhorse Studios