Red Faction receives a rating from the ESRB, leading fans of the shooter franchise to suspect that the title is going to see a re-release on the PS4 soon.
Even though the Red Faction franchise started life out as a failed sequel to another shooter, the series gained some serious love when it was first released. Combining an interesting setting of future Mars with destructible environments, the franchise offered something unique for players at the time. Now, it looks as though the series is likely to to find a whole new generation of gamers as its audience.
It certainly seems like there are plans in place for Red Faction to get released on PS4. The first game in the series has been rated by the ESRB, with rights owner THQ Nordic putting the game up for rating. Red Faction has been given a rating of M for Mature.
This is not the only case of games from the franchise being put up for rating by THQ Nordic. Last month, Europe's PEGI rating system issued ratings for both Red Faction and Red Faction 2, giving fans hope of either a remastered release or a re-release on PS4. With the addition of the ESRB rating for the first game, fans can perhaps expect the second to follow suit, and it definitely looks like THQ Nordic has something in the pipeline for the dormant series.
Whether this turns out to be a remastered release, a simple port to PS4, or some kind of collection remains to be seen, but with fifteen years since the original game's release, now would be a good time for THQ Nordic to reintroduce gamers to the series. After all, the publisher has been busy with re-releases of other classic games from the old THQ library, such as Destroy All Humans.
THQ Nordic picked up numerous intellectual properties from the now-defunct publisher, after THQ auctioned off the rights to its franchises following its bankruptcy. THQ Nordic, which was previously known as Nordic Games, has been playing the waiting game for many of the licences it purchased, but now it seems as though the company is stirring to life. The publisher confirmed that it had 23 games in development earlier this year, so there is bound to be some surprises to come.
Fans of Red Faction will be hoping that the potential re-release of the game will rekindle some sort of interest in the franchise as whole. The series ended on a weak note with the launch of Red Faction: Armageddon, with a poor commercial reception effectively killing the series. There's perhaps a glimmer of hope that Red Faction could find a second chance under a new roof, or at the very least have its legacy prolonged for another generation of consoles.