The weird, funny & interesting minutiae of Stilwater

[Vinski]

thought it'd be fun to talk about all the interesting small details in this game (or both sr1 and 2) because it's truly something where sr2 shines. I'm not talking about the well known easter eggs like the cabbit or the secret island, or glitches like the Freezer, i'm talking the tiny weird shit. Some examples

one of the absolute funniest for me has always been No Rings Boo Hoo, on the window of the Oring:

i actually asked Volition's tumblr account about it years ago and someone (I'm guessing IdolNinja because Who Else) went through a lot of trouble just to figure out what the meaning behind it was:

Another one that i've never really seen mentioned anywhere is the Bling news article you can see on the newsstands around the city, as well as in the backroom of at least one of the Brass Knuckles (the one in Museum iirc)

is this not the player character from the ps2 era build of sr1 (or Bling Bling in other words) that was shown during the 10th anniversary steam?

and finally, the Rusty Scissors billboard in sr1. now sr2 doesn't have hair salons anymore but V still reused it (you can see it in Projects) the fact that there's a billboard for a completely nonexistent service always felt unusual to me as basically every texture of this type in the game is linked to some kind of content: maybe it's for a location, or features a phone number, etc.

there's a bunch of other stuff i'd love to list but i don't wanna make this post overly long. maybe some of these have even come up and have been explained during a stream or in a tweet or something, but i feel like stuff like this rarely gets actually properly documented and discussed

 

[Singa]

Nice finds, the second one is particularly interesting.

 

[Vinski]

Nice finds, the second one is particularly interesting.

the Bling Bling one definitely made me do a double take when i saw it in the game after watching the stream ages ago. like the texture is so tiny i keep second guessing myself but i think the resemblance is definitely there. i'm pretty sure the texture wasn't used in sr1 either, but i'd have to recheck it's been a while

honestly i'd love it if V revisited the ps2 build at some point or at least released some higher quality video or screenshots or something, it really feels like the holy grail of interesting obscure sr content to me

 

[Vinski]

this is a more obvious one and honestly more of a "regular" easter egg where the meaning will relatively easily open up to your average player (who's played sr1 that is), but most of the stuff in Playa's shithole crib in sr1 is also in the abandoned hotel at the start of sr2, in Boss' room.

Spoiler: lots of comparison pictures

there's the table with the broken leg:

the coffee table with the Killer Dolphins comic:

the bed:

this plant:

and even the weird Beginnings poster above the sofa:

the floor textures are also the same. the only thing missing that i'd consider major is the Forbidden Passion poster above Playa's bed in sr1, which was a great loss to both them and us all

ignoring the fact that i'm pretty sure the room in the hotel looks the same before and after Boss and Johnny take the place over, you could easily read some story significance into this. who saved Boss' stuff? it had to be Johnny right? it's interesting how sr2 really doesn't highlight details like this at all, even though it definitely feels very purposeful

 

[Vinski]

i hope it's ok that i keep posting stuff i've found like this. also would love to see what others have found

this one's actually in the sr wiki as well but i discovered it on my own a while back and thought it was really cool and has some interesting implications. in sr2 while listening to the Mix, you can sometimes hear this bit between songs:

Audio link that hopefully works

Darius: You’re live on The Mix! What do you wanna hear?

Caller: What I want is for you sheep to wake up from your consumerist slumber! What I want is for these corporate whores to be subservient to the people! What I want is for the Leaders of Progression to bring real change to Stilwater!

Darius: Oookay… here’s some Tears for Fears up next on The Mix!

Leaders of Progression was a military punk themed gang concept Volition considered for sr2, but ended up scrapping in favor of the Sons of Samedi (the wiki says it was just a name change but these are completely different concepts). V has shared concept art of them in the past (link), and at least i learned the name of the gang from their 2015 GDC presentation on vertical slices (link).

so the implication is that the group is actually operational in Stilwater in some form, even if they missed their chance at being a "proper" faction. i feel like the idea adds surprisingly lot to the city even if they really only exist in theory, i could easily see these guys as more of a minor faction with no real reason to actively target the Saints (hell if anything i bet they were stoked about Boss going after Ultor)

 

[Vinski]

here's some smaller ones

the police station in the Row in sr2 is full of all kinda curious detail, but this one little easter egg i haven't seen mentioned as often. in Troy's office, there's a glass case in the corner with three figures in it:

the woman is actually Laura's sr1 model, and i'm pretty sure the guy on the ground is Marvin, the one sr1 drug trafficking npc who didn't return in sr2. the cop model doesn't ring a bell for me though

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less of a secret or an easter egg but the Stilwater Hall of Industry statue has a typo on it, it's Stiiwater with two I's(, bitch). the postcard unlock thing for the neighborhood features a whole different statue in its place, with Stilwater spelled correctly.

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this graphic in Downtown changes according to the time of day.

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there's this painting in the Suburbs Expansion, in a backyard facing the lake:

why it's Playa, still wearing green!

 

[Vinski]

today i return to this thread because i would like to talk about the traffic signs in sr2 Stilwater. you may or may not have noticed that these signs have icons indicating the kinds of stores or services you find in that district or neighborhood, such as this one for Stilwater U:

there is indeed a Scratch That, the clothing store Stilwater U Gift Shop and a Charred Hard Burgers in the district.

some signs however have icons that go unused on the map, such as the signs for the airport. there's not only the blue shirt icon for mid-range clothing stores that was already left unused in sr1, but an entirely unique icon featuring a plane:

then there are signs that are just inaccurate, featuring stores that don't exist in that location in the final game. one of these is for Mission Beach in Saint's Row, which has an icon for a weapon store:

while some of these signs might have ended up featuring wrong icons in the final game just because the district/neighborhood borders or maybe even the store locations were shifted around after these textures were created, there is no weapons store anywhere in Saint's Row. the nearest one is a Brass Knuckles in the Barrio.

if you look at the Row in this sr2 beta map i've scanned in the past though:

there's the weapons store, in Mission Beach - it was in the plans but never implemented.

Elysian Fields is a similar case, with its sign listing a weapons store that's only on the beta map with a question mark next to it (also there's the blue clothing store icon again)

a couple other more interesting details i noticed are in the northeast, where untitled signs in Downtown (pointing towards Museum) and Museum (pointing to the Marina) feature a tattoo parlor and a jewelry store that don't seem to exist anywhere in that direction. these ones aren't even on the beta map.

i think the fact that they included all this information on the signs at all is already interesting and yet another example of the honestly staggering amount of meticulous detail Volition put into this game, but now that they're no longer accurate they also offer some potentially new insight into how Stilwater looked during that specific time during development. maybe there's even more weird stuff to be found on these.

 

[Singa]

Speaking of shop signs and detail that went into the world, I really love this area of the map in Quinbecca.

It is called the Quinbecca Strip and is full of stores, some enterable ones and others purely for worldbuilding purposes.

All the shops have signs in front of them that correlate to the business you will find in the buildings,

The business' name is also on the back of the building to let delivery drivers know which door to bring wares to.

I also love the extra text you find on many buildings in Stilwater, giving more detail to the type of business that is supposed to be in the building.
Also a special shoutout to the Zin that travelled back in time to open a flower shop here.

 

[pxthighnoobs21]

Thats the reason i still Find some great details in SR2 especially my character talk with all pedestrian in Stilwater i found that they really have different voiceline.... SR2 still worth it until now... Some great details i found in round square mall before you owned it.. in notoriety 5 Masako chase you inside the mall with ATV and it looks like all NPCs Are gone its like Masako Team told them to go outside there's crazy leader of the saints making chaos inside the mall...

 

[Vinski]

ooh Quinbecca is tons of fun, the Zinnia one also gave me a chuckle back in the day when sriv came out. one of my fave details is probably the IAD interior which is reused from sr1, it was originally a Shear Intensity in High End Retail. i really miss the hair salons in sr2 because i think they added a lot to the city, i'm glad Volition at least found new use for those assets

also i've always been super curious about the Ribs For Her Pleasure building in the area:

it's interesting they decided to bring back one of the inaccessible restaurants from sr1 but it's just this one building, with that pseudo-interior too - it kinda looks unfinished and it makes me wonder if they were planning on actually making it usable at some point. but maybe it was just because Charles Shaughnessy did the radio ad for the place in sr1, and Volition ended up choosing him for one of the Boss voices in sr2 or something.

the casting agency with the FUZZ light cone right next to it also reminded me of something. Chris Stockman talked about city design and activity light cone placement in the context of sr1 Stilwater in this old dev diary:

"After the general layout was done, we started doing a more detailed map which included road layout, buildings, bodies of water, etc. This took quite some time seeing as we were working on our story simultaneously (and core game structure) and wanted the map to include stores, activity locations, mission-related buildings, etc. We moved a lot of stuff around (much to the chagrin of our city artists) to balance out the city, making sure there wasn't one area with more interactive structures than the other."

it seems like this was something that also plagued sr2 Stilwater somewhat with one of the more blatant examples i've found being Asazong, the shoe store Luz works at

the light cone for the activity is in Marina, in front of a building called Bittern Place, but Asazong itself is actually a store outside the mall in High End Retail: