Red Faction: Crusade

Red Faction: Crusade
Information
Developer(s)	Volition
Cancelled	Around 2010

Alpha screenshot from Red Faction: Crusade, showing the Magnet Gun

Red Faction: Crusade was a canceled Red Faction series game that was originally slated to be the sequel to Red Faction: Guerrilla. What was once being developed as Red Faction: Crusade would later become Red Faction: Armageddon.

Development

While Red Faction: Crusade was never officially announced, Volition developer David Abzug provided a summary of what the game was to entail, and how it fit with Guerrilla.

• Originally, a primary plot point in Red Faction: Guerrilla was that the EDF had been planning to crash the Martian moon Deimos into Mars by use of massive rocket boosters. The idea was that crashing the moon into the backside of the planet (ie. on the opposite side of the planet from the colony) would aid the process of terraforming the planet. As a result of the Red Faction uprising in the game, the EDF made the decision to instead crash Deimos into the colony. In this incarnation of the RF:G story, the Marauders were to "help" the Red Faction foil this EDF plan, but instead effectively duped the Red Faction into sending Deimos hurling off into space, to eventually crash into Earth, causing an extinction level event. RF:G's campaign was to end with the assured destruction of Earth pending.
• Red Faction: Crusade was to take place some time after the events of Red Faction: Guerrilla, and the primary story arc was to involve an Earthling invasion of Mars. The rebuilt makeshift civilization of Earth, angry at the Martians and out for revenge, was to travel to Mars to wage a brutal war against the Martian civilization, with intent to genocide the Martian people.

Cancellation

David Abzug detailed two primary reasons why the concept for Red Faction: Crusade never came to be.

• The RF:G design team decided to fundamentally alter the story of their game to remove the story arc involving Deimos crashing into Earth, meaning the Crusade team had to come up with a new reason for the Earthling invasion of Mars.
• THQ Corporate directed Volition explicitly to include aliens in the sequel to RF:G, and compressed the development cycle substantially.