Saints Row: Drive By canned for PSN and XBLA

THQ has confirmed the cancellation of Saints Row: Drive By, a PSN and XBLA off-shoot of thefarcical GTA-esque crime title that was set to precedethe full-onSaints Rowsequel later this year.

Rumors of Drive By's demise began after fans found the game listed as canceled on the LinkedIn profile belonging to Scott Rogers, the creative manager for THQ’s Core Games, Digital Games Group and Kids and Family Groups divisions. Today, the studio confirmed via Joystiqthebite-sized projecthad indeed been dropped for PSN and XBLA, saying, "We are not developing Saints Row: Drive By."

Back in 2010, THQ's head of core games Danny Bilsontrumpeted the downloadable titleas a new direction for the franchise, explaining, “It's going to be a different. We actually changed the design and are doing something more unique... we wound up feeling the game we were building was too much like a section of Saint's Row that you could play in Saint's Row. Now we've come up with a new design with a completely original game mechanic and we're building out something that supports Saint's Row with that.”

At the time, Bilson hinted the 3DS might be getting a piece of the action. THQ declined to comment on whether or not it still plans on carrying through with a Saints Row off-shoot for Nintendo's handheld.

Seeing as Saints Row: Drive By has been on THQ's docket for half a year, there's a small chance a 3DS version is still on the table. There's also the chance chunks of Drive By might be absorbed into the official sequel. We'll keep an eye out for it when Saints Row 3 is released this Fall.

[Source:Joystiq]

May 5, 2011

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