On April 6th, 2021, E3 announced it would be returning in an all-access format with a wide number of developers already partnered. Among the confirmed attendees are Koch Media, the developer and publisher behind game franchises like Metro, Saints Row, and Dead Island. The game developer recently announced that it would be partnering with Starbreeze on Payday 3 and DLC for other titles, but fans are hoping for big news at this years conference. With rumors about the different games in development by Koch Media and its subsidiaries, the upcoming announcements might not be too difficult to figure out.
Koch Media is a large company that has control over any number of IPs, so in reality this announcement could be any one of those. However, E3 isn't exactly the place for indie games by themselves, so it can be expected that whatever Koch has in store will be a AAA title that is worth the "stage time," or whatever the comparative is this year. With Dead Island 2 being trapped in developmental purgatory since 2014, and no new story from a Saints Row since 2015 except for being confirmed in 2019, this would be a perfect year to announce either title.
RELATED: All the Companies Confirmed for E3 2021 So Far
The next Saints Row game will be the first new entry since Gat Out of Hell was released in 2015, and fans are eager for a game that is more faithful to the series' roots. Saints Row 5, or whatever the next game is called, was confirmed in 2019 and according to rumors has been in development since at least 2017. There was an apparent leak that claimed the next Saints Row title would be a sequel to Saints Row: The Third and would focus on the Saints as an infamously large organization. Supposedly, the events of Saints Row IV and Gat Out of Hell will end up taking place on a TV show. The player would be an underdog taking down the gang from the inside.
Unfortunately, this was shut down by a Deep Silver PR manager on Twitter. That being said, the next Saints Row will need to go back to its roots of focusing on the Saints organization, while still introducing plenty of customization and gameplay options on the same level of Saints Row 4. Just because the large part of the leak was wrong doesn't mean the themes won't be the same. It would be natural to assume that the Saints have become an international organization after defending against the alien invasion, if the game is not retconning the fourth title like the leak suggested, and the player will likely play a character on one end of that power spectrum.
Dead Island 2 has been in development for so long that some people who pre-ordered it in their teens have gone on to start families. In all seriousness, it seems like a game that might never get released, despite Deep Silver confirming that Dead Island 2 is still in development. It's been seven years since its official announcement at an E3, and it has switched nearly as many developers. Here's hoping that 2021 is the year that zombie fans finally get some news. Koch Media also owns the popular Risen and Homefront series, and it's been a pretty long time since any of those titles released as well.
There is no sense in getting our hopes up before the actual event comes, as other developers have disappointed fans via poor E3 showcases in the past. That being said, the all-access E3 2021 feels like a new and unique opportunity to get out all of the big news, demos, and more to every fan that can reach it across the world. While gamers will have to wait another couple months before they hear what Koch Media has to say, the signs might be pointing at a big announcement that is worth the wait.