If you've been waiting years for a new Deus Ex, a proper Saints Row follow-up, or any sign of life from TimeSplitters, here's something that might actually give you hope. Embracer Group has announced it is actively exploring external partnerships to bring some of its most neglected franchises back to life, and it's not just vague corporate language this time.
Lars Wingefors, founder and chair of Embracer, laid this out in an open letter to investors tied to the announcement of a new business unit called Fellowship Entertainment. The unit is primarily built around expanding The Lord of the Rings and Tomb Raider, but Wingefors specifically named Saints Row, Legacy of Kain, Deus Ex, Red Faction, The Mask, Thief, and TimeSplitters as franchises where outside partnerships are now on the table. The implication is clear: Embracer doesn't have the internal capacity to develop new entries in all of these series, so it's looking for studios outside its umbrella to do it instead.
How these franchises got left behind
The backstory here is rough. Each of these franchises has been sitting dormant for years, and in most cases, the circumstances that got them there were messy.
Saints Row is probably the most visible casualty. The 2022 reboot landed with a thud, receiving a lukewarm reception from longtime fans who felt it had stripped out the series' personality. Developer Volition shut down in 2023, and earlier this year, Saints Row 1 design director Chris Stockman publicly said he believed the series was "dead" and that Embracer had "zero ability" to do anything with it. That's a brutal assessment from someone who helped build the franchise.
Deus Ex has its own painful chapter. A new game was reportedly in development at Eidos Montreal for two years after Embracer acquired the studio from Square Enix, only for that project to reportedly be cancelled in 2024 during Embracer's sweeping restructuring. The series has now gone a full decade without a new entry since Deus Ex: Mankind Divided in 2016. Lead actor Elias Toufexis, who voiced protagonist Adam Jensen, has been vocal about his frustration. In a post on X earlier this year, he was blunt: "no Deus Ex because the people in charge are psychopaths."
TimeSplitters got arguably the cruelest treatment. Free Radical Design was reformed in 2021 with several original founders, including Steve Ellis and David Doak, specifically to bring the series back. Fans who grew up with the PS2-era shooter were genuinely excited. Then Free Radical shut down in December 2023, another victim of Embracer's mass restructuring that saw over 900 staff laid off across the company. The game never shipped.
Wingefors did not confirm any specific new games or announce a timeline for partnership deals. This is an exploratory phase, not a greenlight.
What Fellowship Entertainment actually changes
The key here is that Fellowship Entertainment represents a structural shift in how Embracer thinks about its IP library. Rather than sitting on franchises indefinitely while prioritizing its biggest internal projects, the company is now signaling it wants to monetize dormant IP through third-party deals.
That's a meaningful change in posture, even if no deals have been signed. What most players miss in announcements like this is that the real value isn't the press release, it's the signal it sends to developers and publishers who might want to pitch on one of these licenses. A studio that's been quietly developing a pitch for a new Legacy of Kain game now has a clearer door to knock on.
Fellowship Entertainment's primary mandate is still the bigger IP. Crystal Dynamics has two Tomb Raider games in development. Warhorse Studios, the Kingdom Come: Deliverance developer also under Embracer, just confirmed it's working on a Lord of the Rings RPG alongside a new Kingdom Come title. Dead Island 3 is confirmed for the first half of 2028. Metro 2039 is in the pipeline. These are the projects getting internal resources.
The dormant franchises, then, are the side bet. Embracer wants them active but doesn't have the bandwidth to develop them all internally. External partnerships are the answer it's landed on.
What this means for fans waiting on a sequel
Realistically, none of these franchises are getting a new game tomorrow. External partnership deals take time to negotiate, and any studio picking up one of these licenses would then need years of development. The earliest any of this could result in an actual announcement is probably 2027 at the very soonest, and that's optimistic.
But for franchises that fans had essentially written off, this is a genuine shift. Saints Row going from "series is dead" to "actively exploring partnerships" in the span of a few months is a real change, even if it's only the first step. Same for Deus Ex, where the last concrete update was a cancellation.
The franchises Wingefors named have passionate fanbases that have been waiting patiently (and sometimes not so patiently). Whether Fellowship Entertainment can actually convert this intent into signed deals and shipped games is the real question. For now, check out our game reviews to revisit some of these classics while the wait continues, and keep an eye on our gaming guides for coverage as this story develops.
