THQ: New Red Faction Coming Fiscal 2011, Saints Row Fiscal 2012

A new Red Faction is in development for a planned fiscal 2011 release, said THQ CEO Brian Farrell in a post-earnings release conference call today, apparently switching the shipping periods for the next entries in Volition's two main franchises, Saints Row and Red Faction. Previously, THQ had said Volition would ship a new Saints Row game in fiscal 2011, which begins April 1, 2010 and ends March 31, 2011, and would ship a new Red Faction game the following fiscal year, but it now seems that plan has been reversed. After an analyst asked for clarification, Farrell reiterated that the new Saints Row is a fiscal 2012 title. That schedule means the new Red Faction is expected to launch within 21 months of its predecessor. Red Faction: Guerrilla, the Mars-set action series' third entry, was released this past June. The new Saints Row, on the other hand, is slated to launch between 30 and 36 months after Saints Row 2, which hit stores in October 2008. Farrell explained that the open-world urban action of the Saints Row franchise is a particularly complicated type of game development that faces high-quality competition -- implying Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series. He said THQ has been with the success of the series, which has surpassed 5 million units sold in total.