Deep Silver Volition, LLC

Deep Silver Volition, LLC was a development studio owned by Plaion and (re)named after its Deep Silver label.

The studio was established as Volition, Inc. in November 1996 in Champaign, Illnois (USA). Initially it was a part of the development studio Parallax Software. After making Descent II, Parallax decided to split up its offices in Champaign and Ann Arbor (Michigan) into two separate companies. The Ann Arbor office became Outrage Entertainment and the one in Champaign became Volition. Both companies shared technologies, message boards and even had a common online matchmaking service, called PXO. The Volition staff was lead by Michael Kulas. In the early years the studio focused entirely on games in the space combat Freespace series.

In 2000, Volition, along with its PXO service, was acquired by THQ. The studio then made very different types of games, such as the Summoner RPG series (2000-2002) and the licensed action game The Punisher (2005). In those years the studio became especially known for the Red Faction action games (2001-2011) and the Saints Row series (2006-2022). THQ also acquired the other Parallax studio Outrage Entertainment in 2002, renaming it Outrage Games, but closed it in 2004 after contributions to the PC version of Red Faction II.

In August 2012 THQ canceled InSane, the game Volition had been working on with movie director Guillermo del Toro. The rights were returned to the director. Following the closure of parent company THQ in January 2013, Volition was sold to Koch Media for 22.3 million dollars and became Deep Silver Volition. The first game released under that banner was Saints Row IV (2013). Koch Media did not acquire the rights to the Red Faction and Summoner franchises, as those were sold to Nordic Games GmbH.

In 2014, the company was led by Dan Cermak and had circa 300 employees. On 27 September 2017, it was announced that 30 people were laid off after the disappointing performance of Agents of Mayhem, including general manager Dan Cermak. In October of the same year, Jim Boone returned as studio development director.

On 23 August 2022, the company would release their final game, Saints Row (2022), to middling reviews and a negative reaction from the fanbase. On 17 November 2022, the company was moved from the Plaion operating group of Embracer Group to Gearbox Software. The company was closed on 31 August 2023. Later in the year, part of the former Volition staff founded Shapeshifter Games.