Saints Row: 2022 Reboot

[D9fred95]

19 hours ago, Billy Russo said:

Please be like Saints Row 2 or 3. I tried to play Saints Row 4 and I couldn't deal with all the additional sh*t they added. I really liked the tone and setting of the first few games. It was whacky and cartoonish, but not stupidly overboard. 

Saint's Row 2, not 3. 3's pacing and plot is all over the place.

[Creed Bratton]

If it resembles any of the other titles then I hope it's more like Saints Row 2 than any other. But something new, unique and exciting is probably a better idea. The city is also a key element. Stillwatter was a beautiful city but Steelport was just boring in every way imaginable. They need to pay a lot of attention to how they design the city this time.

[Jason]

I wouldn't be against a new Stillwater built from the ground up, like an GTA SA to GTA V Los Santos type of remake. Still boggles my mind how we went from a great city with tons of variety like Stillwater to the horrible, grey drab that was Steelport. One of the worst open world cities I've ever played in and it was reused for multiple games which is just wat.

 

In terms of story I think a reboot is probably the wisest choice, SR3 and on-going is unrecoverable and there's really no need to sorta jump into a certain point in the timeline and retcon everything after, you might as well just do a cleanslate and start fresh.

[korhan332]

I Hope they continue the original story but I Also hope they kinda reboot the series and reject that everything happened in saints row 3-4-gat out of hell and continue the story where we left off(yep saints row 2 story can be still continued)

but I'm sure they don't do that in gat out of the hell there was one ending that god recreated the earth and agents of mayhem picks that ending and continues it and they are agents now not gangsters but still there isn't a sight of the boss in Agents of mayhem I Think they can reject the agents of mayhem and make the saints visit the stilwater again etc etc 

Edited August 15, 2019 by korhan332

[Commander S]

23 hours ago, Jason said:

Basically, if I can't spray people with poo I aint buying.

 

 

Yup. Sewage trucks, dongs-on-sticks, chucking random people into jet engines - the earlier Saints Row games might have been more grounded in terms of what existed in the world (no futuristic VTOL gunships), but they were still tonally irreverent, and not just an off-brand version of GTA San Andreas.

 

In other words, the later games might have had wacky stuff, but the series always had a wacky core - and I hope the folks at Volition* keep that in mind when working on the new game.

 

*one of whom won't be series creative director Steve Jaros, unfortunately - because when last I checked, he had left Volition after Gat out of Hell, and currently works for Valve. There was a really good interview with him years ago, and I particularly like this bit about how they tweaked the personality of The Boss for III and IV:

 

 "In Saints Row 2 the boss is an unrepentant dick," Jaros said. When he started talking to the lead designer for SR3, they decided to go another route. "He said, 'I don't want the main character to be mean.' Okay, that makes a lot of sense because it was confusing. You can't be total sociopath. You want to like the main character. Instead of being a sociopathic dick, he's going to be a puckish rogue. He's going to be a sassy guy who looks after his people and then you're going to feel better about that. Then we kind of put that energy in that - He's a fun guy to hang around with, kind of an asshole, but he loves his friends and that's what's important."

 

 

Going back and forth between 2 and IV (my favourites in the series), that was the right move, IMO - I definitely enjoyed being on the same page as the characters in IV, whereas moments where The Boss was painted as pretty ruthless just felt uncharacteristically mean. Overall, I'd say the series should ideally sit in the same place as the Deadpool movies - self-aware, indulgent, transgressive in fun ways (while surprisingly nuanced and thoughtful where it counts), and that's more doable when your character is a likeable ass, and not trying to be edgy and 'bad-ass'.

 

Again, full reboot, building on 2's grounding and framework, but with the writing/characterisation more like IV - oh, and 2's level of character customisation, because it's a crime not to be able to choose my character's exact style of socks...

Edited August 15, 2019 by Commander S

[Guest Billy Russo]

3 hours ago, D9fred95 said:

Saint's Row 2, not 3. 3's pacing and plot is all over the place.

I enjoyed 3. It wasn't quite as good as the first two games, but the gameplay was still Saints Row. I don't know what IV was trying to be, but it certainly didn't feel like the same series.

[korhan332]

1 minute ago, Billy Russo said:

I enjoyed 3. It wasn't quite as good as the first two games, but the gameplay was still Saints Row. I don't know what IV was trying to be, but it certainly didn't feel like the same series.

saints row 3 got the balance of 1 and 2 but they ruined it with 4 and later series.

[D9fred95]

1 minute ago, korhan332 said:

saints row 3 got the balance of 1 and 2 but they ruined it with 4 and later series.

It really did not. SR2 had a good balance of seriousness and goofy antics whereas SR3 was largely wacky from start to finish. Even the more serious scenes are brought down by the mood whiplash of the story where you get stuff happening back to back like "Shaundi's dead, insert Marvel Helicarrier here" or "goofy infiltration mission as Cyrus, martial law is declared". In SR1 & 2 the wacky stuff was mostly regulated to side activities with the main story staying mostly consistent. SR3 is 50% wacky, 50% serious which makes the story hard to take seriously.

[Commander S]

59 minutes ago, D9fred95 said:

It really did not. SR2 had a good balance of seriousness and goofy antics whereas SR3 was largely wacky from start to finish. Even the more serious scenes are brought down by the mood whiplash of the story where you get stuff happening back to back like "Shaundi's dead, insert Marvel Helicarrier here" or "goofy infiltration mission as Cyrus, martial law is declared". In SR1 & 2 the wacky stuff was mostly regulated to side activities with the main story staying mostly consistent. SR3 is 50% wacky, 50% serious which makes the story hard to take seriously.

 

 

Yeah - for some reason, III basically decided to have a more 'Saturday morning cartoon' look and feel, with stuff like STAG basically being SHIELD (particularly the '90s cartoon version). Say what you like about IV, but at least all the Matrix/They Live stuff actually went somewhere in terms of story and the like, rather than just 'Saints Row is comicbook-y now'. It's like how the Vice President Keith David stuff in IV has a point and a payoff, while Mayor Burt Reynolds in III is just "look, it's Burt Reynolds doing familiar Burt Reynolds stuff!"

 

In other words, III was where Volition opened the Pandora's Box of 'Quirky!™' - and considering IV was made quickly/cheaply out of recycled SR3 assets and stuff originally meant as SR3 DLC, it's not like the fourth game was ever in a position to alter anything in a substantive way. Heck, it's a small miracle that SR4 was such a good game, under the circumstances.

 

Still, neither SR3 nor SR4 suddenly patched in flying cars/motorcycles with missile launchers after launch, so it could be worse! 

 

 

...with that said, I really wouldn't be adverse to the idea of 'Saints Row Online' coming as part of the new game...

Edited August 15, 2019 by Commander S

[The N. Bellic Man]

This is very good news. I was just recently playing these games and hoping that they will make a new game. One thing people often forget when they say that Stilwater is better than Steelport is that not only is Stilwater more varied and better as a city it's also much more alive. Steelport citizens really must be simulation bots that they were in IV. There is tons of dialogue and actions/activities that peds are performing in 2 and almost none in later games. Also their dialogue actually makes sense. They're complaining about the rain when it rains and commenting on recent events and so on. And when there is some mayhem or action going on their actions are more varied if not always realistic.

 

"Volition is deep in development of a brand-new Saints Row game" claims THQ Nordic in their report to investors. So, next year is quite possible.

[Zello]

I hope we can get s Saints Row 1 and 2 remaster down the line but I doubt it.

[El Penguin Bobo]

Am I the only one who actually liked SR3? I didn't play SR4 yet, and SR1 looks outdated and I heard it has serious performance issues.

 

Anyways, I hope to see more info on this new Saints Row game. Maybe they can do a mix of 2 and 3. Expecting a trailer soon.

[The N. Bellic Man]

^ I kind of agree. At least it can be seen in a way you describe it. I initially also saw it like that. But I think that wackiness of the characters kind of make it more fun. And it also softens the impact of the violence and sexual content that the series contains. I mean it could be hard to make some things that happen especially in 2 with more matured or artistically sophisticated touch. It could be done, but then again it could be much more troubling to some and create an unwanted scandal. Also if you look deep in the story of SR2 it's actually at least as hard hitting or poignant when it comes to politics as R*'s games. With wackiness they are getting away with it more easily. Plus most of the people don't actually realize the deeper meaning of SR2, which implicates that if Volition wanted to hide their message they succeeded. That being said I don't think that SR3 or games that came after are trying to be more than just parodies that can be seen as video games counterpart to Mad magazine excluding some rather clever meta moments.

 

And of course, it's about resources. Volition simply don't have money to compete with R*, so they have to do their own thing. And I think that game reviewers and gamers that constantly labeled SR1 and 2 as GTA clones probably pushed them further in that wacky direction. But what is pathetic is that R* is actually borrowing some of their stuff in GTA Online and is getting away with it because new audiences love that stuff.

 

But yeah, if Volition could make a game like SR2 with more realistic and aesthetic look and physics it could be a GOAT game when comes to crime genre.

 

Edit. originally this post was after Mister Pinkerton's post and the arrow indicated that. So, those who read this after the two topics merged should realize that the whole post is answer to the "These look like characters from a bad soap opera or some some cheesy Hollywood dance-off movie" thing. I should've used quote.

Edited August 16, 2019 by The N. Bellic Man
topic merging

[The N. Bellic Man]

SR3 was good but not great. I especially liked better shooting mechanics.

 

At least my version of SR1 performs quite well (probably better than ever) on Xbox One X, but some missions and the graphics really feel outdated.

[Jason]

2 hours ago, El Penguin Bobo said:

Am I the only one who actually liked SR3?

It was a lot of fun, SR4 less but that was also fun, but it lacked the charm that made the first two so good (IMO of course).

 

SR3 had it's moments but the whole Saints vs mega crim organisations, military etc sh*t that started pulling from sci-fi got a bit wat.

 

SR1-2 had bags of character and personality where as, to me, SR3-4 felt like them cramming memes and sh*t in cause the devs thought they were hilarious. I mean stuff the big purple dildo (lolwut) and the Japanese game show host mascot thing that they keep trying to force like he's some iconic character or something. What also left a bad taste in my mouth with SR3 and 4 was them inflating the mission count with activities, there's a mission in one of the games (SR4 I think) that was literally a cutscene, but it was counted as a main mission.

[Corndawg93]

This makes me happy, Agents of mayhem was a giant waste of time 

[B Dawg]

9 hours ago, Commander S said:

"In Saints Row 2 the boss is an unrepentant dick," Jaros said. When he started talking to the lead designer for SR3, they decided to go another route. "He said, 'I don't want the main character to be mean.' Okay, that makes a lot of sense because it was confusing. You can't be total sociopath. You want to like the main character. Instead of being a sociopathic dick, he's going to be a puckish rogue. He's going to be a sassy guy who looks after his people and then you're going to feel better about that. Then we kind of put that energy in that - He's a fun guy to hang around with, kind of an asshole, but he loves his friends and that's what's important."

 

Going back and forth between 2 and IV (my favourites in the series), that was the right move, IMO - I definitely enjoyed being on the same page as the characters in IV, whereas moments where The Boss was painted as pretty ruthless just felt uncharacteristically mean. Overall, I'd say the series should ideally sit in the same place as the Deadpool movies - self-aware, indulgent, transgressive in fun ways (while surprisingly nuanced and thoughtful where it counts), and that's more doable when your character is a likeable ass, and not trying to be edgy and 'bad-ass'.

Funny, that's what I liked the most about The Boss and Saints Row 2 as a whole. The protagonist felt like a proper boss. I definitely wouldn't mind another protagonist just like that in a much more polished sequel.

Edited August 16, 2019 by B Dawg

[Mister Pink]

9 hours ago, The N. Bellic Man said:

I mean it could be hard to make some things that happen especially in 2 with more matured or artistically sophisticated touch.

You could be right. 

 

And I don't want to be a Debbie-downer. It's because I want to like it. I want it to succeed. I just wish the visual style appealed to me more. The graphics don't have to be great. Just more appealing design. 

 

That said, I'll keep an eye on this. I love city-based open world crime games and I'll be excited to see where this goes. 

Edited August 16, 2019 by Mister Pink

[Zello]

21 hours ago, Mister Pink said:

He says in the video "it's time to get on the hype-train because Saints Row is coming back!"

 

You think this is a nod to Saints Row 1 and 2 days? Is that what he means? 

 

I could never get on board with Saints Row. I mean I had a couple of titles and enjoyed them but I just didn't like the art direction. Even in Saints Row 2. I just thought all the characters were corny looking. Like the bouncer of club with those "tribal" tattoos up the arm. That's what's their vision of "cool" whereas Rockstar's is vision of "cool."

 

Look at this. These look like characters from a bad soap opera or some some cheesy Hollywood dance-off movie where a dancer from the hood moves to Hollywood to realize his dreams and finds it hard to gain acceptance from his peers maybe because he's gay and maybe because he's from the hood. But in the end he does a super dance move and wins over the hearts of his dance troupe. 

 

 

 

Even San Andreas homies look more menacing and realistic.....

 

 

 

 

I hope to see a Saints Row that's can be goofy as f*ck but at least make the characters more believable looking and less bad dance-off movie like. 

That's pretty much Steve Jaros. Even if he's no longer with Volition his love for cheesy CW dramas made it's way into Saints Row.

[Mister Pink]

14 minutes ago, Zello said:

That's pretty much Steve Jaros. Even if he's no longer with Volition his love for cheesy CW dramas made it's way into Saints Row.

Interesting. So he was the creative director.  

 

Yeah, I had to check what CW was and I saw their programming list. Atrocious to say the least. It all makes sense now.  

 

OK, so he's gone over to Valve. That's interesting. I wonder what direction the series will go. It could go two ways. The next person is a visionary and takes the series in a new direction but at the dismay of core fans. OR... they try emulated Jaros' vision but not quite nailing it as it's imitation and not quite matching to Jaros' vision. 

 

I'm kinda more interested now. 

Edited August 16, 2019 by Mister Pink

[Legomanarthur]

1 hour ago, B Dawg said:

Funny, that's what I liked the most about The Boss and Saints Row 2 as a whole. The protagonist felt like a proper boss. I definitely wouldn't mind another protagonist just like that in a much more polished sequel.

Same, that's actually one of the reasons I was so invested in the story. The boss was focused and ready to f*ck sh*t up. A character like that also led to some pretty badass moments which in my opinion are only present in Saints Row 2. I wouldn't mind getting another ruthless protagonist for the next installment/reboot either.

[Slappy212]

Excellent! Please make it a continuation of SR3. Everything after that is trash. 

[KarimNTerr]

Really enjoyed SR2 when it came out, but the other ones have never been appealing to me. Also agree with @Mister Pink here, that looks like a cheesy breakdance movie cast, not gangstas, what the hell!

[AmigaMix]

Although I liked the quality of life changes and most of the activities SR:TT brought, and while SR IV was extremely fun (and pretty well written for what it was),

I'd like to see them take a look at the things which made SR 2 so amazing.

 

The detailed and interactive environment (the reactivity in general, really), the unique NPCs, the amount of customization, and just the general vibe are but a few things which come to mind when I think of the unique traits of,

what I and many others consider to be, the best Saints Row game (Well, that and the awful PC port).

 

The "hoodlum-formula", while not essential, also better lends itself to a more "immersive" type of game...

 

 

' looking forward to it!

Edited August 17, 2019 by AmigaMix

[Nintendo Thong Tuna]

I'm skeptical about the new SR honestly, SR2 was a lightning in a bottle, SR3 went overboard with the wackiness but even ignoring it I disliked the boring map and all the gameplay changes, and I'm willing to bet that even if the new one is more grounded, it's gonna pay lip service to the first two games at most and it's still not gonna retain all the gameplay elements that I loved, but with the change of management, who knows.

[Ivan1997GTA]

Maybe the next game in the SR series is gonna take place in the 1970's, either as a prequel or a reboot of the franchise, showing how the Vice Kings came to power, similar to a concept that I've made on DeviantArt.

[Zello]

3 hours ago, Ivan1997GTA said:

Maybe the next game in the SR series is gonna take place in the 1970's, either as a prequel or a reboot of the franchise, showing how the Vice Kings came to power, similar to a concept that I've made on DeviantArt.

That'd be cool to see. Ever since the end of SR1 with that picture of Julius with Benjamin King I've wanted them to do a prequel.

 

 

Though with how far gone the series is now IDK if they'd do it. Also one of the main things about the series character customization would be limited since you wouldn't be able to create your own character you'd be playing as Julius instead but then again they did do Gat out of Hell where you played as Johnny Gat so anything is possible. I could see something working in between Saints Row 1 and 2 when the boss was in the coma and you get to play as Carlos's Brother/Sister though a lot would have to be retconned.

 

EDIT: Read your concept and playing as someone working with Julius and King sounds awesome 

Edited August 22, 2019 by Zello

[silly_nate]

There’s a lot of wishes I have for this one 

I want it to take a lot from SR2. 

- Varied map. (rich areas, beaches, suburbs, trailer parks, forest, etc.) Doesn’t have to be back in Stillwater but I would welcome a return if it’s expanded on 

- lots of clothing & accessory stores (on thin ice, rags to riches, sloppy seconds, let’s pretend, branded, etc) and unique stores like the museum, cavern & university gift shops

- real life weapons instead of the sci-fi ones from SRIII. (Not opposed to the sci-fi ones I just want both. SRIV had good balance with that but the whole theme of IV was sci-fi so the realistic ones felt out of place minus the first mission) 

- purchaseable & customizable safehouses. I want to be able to buy a crack house and have it blinged out and buy a luxury apartment and have it look run down and cheap. 

- anything as a melee weapon. 

- loads of interiors. Hospital, pdhq, restaurants, gas stations, random office buildings, church, prison, etc. 

- secret locations 

 

I also want it to take a few things from III 

- genki activities & vehicles 

- airstrike 

- military base 

- basically all the crazy & whackiest vehicles if I’m being honest. Even the witch broom and that human carriage Zimos was pulling 

 

this is all I can think of off the top of my head but I wouldn’t doubt it if there’s more (especially from SR2) that I would like to see return and/or expanded on 

 

also, The Boss, Gat, Shaundi & Pierce need to come back. It won’t be a Saints game without them.

 

[sabitsuki]

Bring back the store opening-closing times and ability to crack safes and pawn goods from saints row 1 and itll be awesome

Edited September 17, 2019 by DownInTheHole

[The N. Bellic Man]

Saints Row 2 will get a new patch on PC which contains the DLC and it should also fix all the bugs and so on. Considering that the current version is pretty bad, to put it mildly, this is a very good news. And it's also free.