Oiran girls - early concept of Steelport gangs

[Fan of Saints]

First off, look at those concept arts from “The Art Direction of Saints Row: The Third” presentation released on Volition's site.

They show early concept of gangs in Saints Row: The Third. We can see early version of Deckers and Morningstar but... There are no Luchadores. Instead, we see some four girls.

Who are those? Well, here's another picture with very early Steelport map.

Do you see this district controlled by Oiran? It's actually a cut gang, most likely replaced by Luchadores later. There's also a brief mention of it on Saints Row Wiki, in trivia section on Viola DeWynter page:

Originally, Viola and her sister Kiki were Japanese twins called Natsuko and Yukako, nicknamed Suki and Yuki for short. They led their own all-female gang - "Oiran" - to contrast with the original Morningstar concept of an all-male gang. The two gangs were merged to streamline the story, and the DeWynters were made Caucasian to avoid the stereotype of "badass Asian chicks that are subservient to an older man".

(there were also links to forum posts by Steve Jaros in references [1, 2] but they don't work anymore)

Then I found another thing - Viola is actually named 'suko' in several files. Here are screenshots from 'spawn_info_ranks.xtbl' and 'homies.xtbl' files:

That'd confirm this info from Saints Row Wiki. Let's sum it up:

• Viola and Kiki were supposed to be Asian twins running their own female gang called Oiran. According to IdolNinja, it was mainly involved in prostitution.
• Luchadores (and whole Syndicate, most likely) wouldn't exist at all.
• Morningstar would be all-male gang. According to IdolNinja, it was mainly involved in arms trafficking.
• Deckers would be, as seen on concept art, some punks stuck in the 80s.

It also appears that Genki Girls were inspired by Oiran gang members as they look quite similar to them. Take a peek:


It's a really interesting alternative, what do you think of this?

EDIT: Here's some new info from IdolNinja:

That girl gang were actually going to be handling the prostitution ring in Steelport and Morningstar would have been strictly weapon dealers. There's actually an H style building in the city that was supposed to be theirs with each tower representing male-female.

 

[ThatsMe]

Hmmm
Translating "Suko and Suki" Into polish is something great....

 

[Fan of Saints]

Admixon found this screenshot on DeviantArt. It has been published by someone called Ahriman503... Not sure if it's some kind of mod or Photoshop but it surely looks interesting.
http://ahriman503.deviantart.com/art/Saints-Row-3-Oiran-gang-537693153

 

[ThatsMe]

propably a mod

 

[Fan of Saints]

Hey, let's create Beta Mod for Saints Row: The Third! We could replace Luchadores with Genki Girls and DeWynter sisters, maybe change their textures a bit and replace all names with Oiran.

 

[ThatsMe]

Hey, let's create Beta Mod for Saints Row: The Third! We could replace Luchadores with Genki Girls and DeWynter sisters, maybe change their textures a bit and replace all names with Oiran.

sure

 

[[V] IdolNinja]

That girl gang were actually going to be handling the prostitution ring in Steelport and Morningstar would have been strictly weapon dealers. There's actually an H style building in the city that was supposed to be theirs with each tower representing male-female. There's a whole bunch of backstory about it that I want to do a future article about with Principal Artist Frank Marquart.

 

[Fan of Saints]

That girl gang were actually going to be handling the prostitution ring in Steelport and Morningstar would have been strictly weapon dealers. There's actually an H style building in the city that was supposed to be theirs with each tower representing male-female. There's a whole bunch of backstory about it that I want to do a future article about with Principal Artist Frank Marquart.

Thank you so much for response! I updated the OP with new info. Can't wait for this article!
Also, may I ask about Deckers? What they were supposed to be? And at what point Oiran got replaced with Luchadores?

 

[[V] IdolNinja]

Thank you so much for response! I updated the OP with new info. Can't wait for this article!
Also, may I ask about Deckers? What they were supposed to be? And at what point Oiran got replaced with Luchadores?

I don't know offhand, but I'll make sure that gets addressed when I put that article together.

 

[3bertrand1993]

Speaking of gangs here's some interesting concept art for the Steelport PD, a Saints Grunt, the Luchadors as well as the Three Way Mission

We see what appears to be Sheriff Deputies\State Police, Security Guards, Riot Cops and Light SWAT officers.

Another interesting piece of concept art showing off the mission Three Way, a beta default Male Boss, a Morningstar grunt with a full head of hair, a Luchador in tactical gear, a cut Saints grunt, an armor-less Minigun Brute, an early AR-55, and early version of the Krukov and what appears to be early concepts of Kinzie and Pierce.

An early version of the Hispanic Saints grunt that was used as a placeholder for the cops. We also see this npc using a Tombstone shotgun and an unmarked squad car. (What's rather interesting is that you can edit the spawn settings for the Peacemaker so it spawns without any police decals)