SPOILERS Saints Row (2022) official info

[3rdStreetSaint 212]

So "real fan" means: love SR1 and SR2, hate SRTT and above, wish Volition bankrupt because the reboot isn't like SR1 or SR2.
Sorry, thats dumb.

You need to understand that fanbase of SR1 and SR2 is really small. It is very loud, you can hear many people asking Voliton "back to the roots" but if you look at numbers... SRTT was the best selling Saints Row game ever. Volition listens, they are aware of oldschool and newschool fans and what they ask for so the tone of the reboot will be something between SR2 and TT. Maybe they won't please both fanbases but at least they're trying to find a good balance.

"Real Fan":
I remember when this was me. When I was unsure about SRTT Remastered, I tried to argue my case about SR & SR2 being way better for a remaster and SRTT was so the wrong choice.

"SRTT Best Seller":
But you can't argue with facts, and I've just been replaying SR, SR2 & SRTT Remastered to prepare for the new Saints Row.

Loved the Campaign for the first two games, but hated the Activities & Diversions. Especially the first game.

Levels 1-4, easy. Levels 5&6, do-able. Levels 7&8... New controller & monitor per every 3 attempts, until I inevitably resort to cheats.

The second game's Activities would have been just as expensive, if not for the infinitely firing rocket launcher courtesy of GOTR, which made most Activities and Campaign missions way too easy... But extremely fun.

But playing through SRTT, it's just... Good. The Campaign is good, the Activities & Diversions are good, the gameplay is... Just good.

No part of the game stresses me out and I can complete everything in the game without it feeling too easy or too difficult.

Thoughts On Steelport:
I stand by my belief that Steelport is just a Lego grid city filled with cardboard box buildings with no actual purpose. But the buildings that are enterable are actually filled with a lot of detail.

If it came to a choice between:

A. Thinning out the overall building count to make most of them enterable/interactable.

Or

B. Cramming the city full of cardboard box buildings with no interactivity at all.

I'd choose A... Every time.

For those who might want clarification on "Cardboard Box" Buildings, I'm referring to "Filler" Buildings that are used to fill a blank space.

Normally I don't have a problem with Filler Buildings, because they still help make the city look and feel like a city. But the difference between Stilwater and Steelport is...

Most of Stilwater's Filler buildings had variety, I never felt like any of Stilwater's locations were too similar.

But I think Steelport was basically just a copy & paste job across the entire city. The houses in Stanfield were exactly the same as the houses in New Colvin. I'm pretty sure Downtown was just made up of 4 slightly different Tower Models. And Poseidon's Palace was just a generic warehouse but with a sign, unlike its Stilwater counterpart which was not only enterable, but also stood out from the surrounding area.


Previous post:
It may only be words on a screen, but boy did those words give me the vibes I was hoping for.

The latest post on SAINTS ROW.com was just what I needed to know.

Character profiles, layered clothing, player height options, full control of how the Saints come to be, etc... This sounds promising, now I just need to see it in action.

I especially want to see some of these customizable strongholds in action.


Edit:
The backdrop on Saints Row.com is really teasing me. It shows the Saints on a road just outside a desert town, but in the background is this huge city that looks just as big as Steelport. If we've got a big city in the centre, and several smaller towns scattered around the outskirts... I can't wait.

 

[jbartosevich]

"Real Fan":
I remember when this was me. When I was unsure about SRTT Remastered, I tried to argue my case about SR & SR2 being way better for a remaster and SRTT was so the wrong choice.

"SRTT Best Seller":
But you can't argue with facts, and I've just been replaying SR, SR2 & SRTT Remastered to prepare for the new Saints Row.

Loved the Campaign for the first two games, but hated the Activities & Diversions. Especially the first game.

Levels 1-4, easy. Levels 5&6, do-able. Levels 7&8... New controller & monitor per every 3 attempts, until I inevitably resort to cheats.

The second game's Activities would have been just as expensive, if not for the infinitely firing rocket launcher courtesy of GOTR, which made most Activities and Campaign missions way too easy... But extremely fun.

But playing through SRTT, it's just... Good. The Campaign is good, the Activities & Diversions are good, the gameplay is... Just good.

No part of the game stresses me out and I can complete everything in the game without it feeling too easy or too difficult.

I stand by my belief that Steelport is just a Lego grid city filled with cardboard box buildings with no actual purpose. But the buildings that are enterable are actually filled with a lot of detail.

If it came to a choice between:

A. Thinning out the overall building count to make most of them enterable/interactable.

Or

B. Cramming the city full of cardboard box buildings with no interactivity at all.

I'd choose A... Every time.

For those who might want clarification on "Cardboard Box" Buildings, I'm referring to "Filler" Buildings that are used to fill a blank space.

Normally I don't have a problem with Filler Buildings, because they still help make the city look and feel like a city. But the difference between Stilwater and Steelport is...

Most of Stilwater's Filler buildings had variety, I never felt like any of Stilwater's locations were too similar.

But I think Steelport was basically just a copy & paste job across the entire city. The houses in Stanfield were exactly the same as the houses in New Colvin. I'm pretty sure Downtown was just made up of 4 slightly different Tower Models. And Poseidon's Palace was just a generic warehouse but with a sign, unlike its Stilwater counterpart which was not only enterable, but also stood out from the surrounding area.


Previous post:
It may only be words on a screen, but boy did those words give me the vibes I was hoping for.

The latest post on SAINTS ROW.com was just what I needed to know.

Character profiles, layered clothing, player height options, full control of how the Saints come to be, etc... This sounds promising, now I just need to see it in action.

I especially want to see some of these customizable strongholds in action.


Edit:
The backdrop on Saints Row.com is really teasing me. It shows the Saints on a road just outside a desert town, but in the background is this huge city that looks just as big as Steelport. If we've got a big city in the centre, and several smaller towns scattered around the outskirts... I can't wait.

I honestly thought SRTT was the strangest choice for a remaster. I had no interest in it until it was free on Epic.

But after playing it.... I still don't get it. Of all the SR games, the third is the one that holds up the best. 1 has no PC port, so you only get to play if you have an old school xbox. For those that have one that didn't self destruct, that's cool I guess. But a proper, modernized PC version of it would be amazing!

As for SR2, okay, there's a steam port that was poorly done, and it's age was really showing. You almost NEED the gotr mod, it's not as stable as 3 or 4, and trying to drive with the original digital-only controls after playing any modern game really makes you wonder how you did it back in the day.

So, 1 or 2 would have been PERFECT for a remaster.

Graphically, SRTT was the best. SRIV went a bit too far with.... well everything, but here I'm just talking about graphics. They did so much to keep you in that "It's a simulation" frame of mind, that it seems more like a step back than a step forward. And GOH... I just have no love for that game, at all.

 

[3rdStreetSaint 212]

1 has no PC port, so you only get to play if you have an old school xbox.

I have seen just about everyone on this forum say this at some point, so let me set the record straight.

The first original Saints Row may have only been made for Xbox 360, but it is absolutely backwards compatible for Xbox One and Series X/S.

I just finished my run of Saints Row on the Series X myself. So I don't know why everyone still thinks it's only playable on the 360?

 

[LeMecha]

Came back on the forum after 8 years just to post my unsignificant opinion:

I can spend hours just to describe how SR2 was my most favorite open world despite its many flaws.

I don't get the strong reactions after the reboot's trailer came out. I always prefer gameplay over CG trailers but the things revealed looked fine to me. The quirky vibe from the cast isn't that unusual compared to SR2.
Do people remember about how Carlos was a frail, unconfident lieutenant? How Shaundi was a stoner girl who can't fight much? How Pierce like to sing along on "So Sick" by Ne-Yo during a car chase? How Gatt had to clean up blood in his living room and awkwardly dump a corpse in the garbage bin? Saints Row always had some sort of goofyness in its character writing. I feel there's also willingness to go for an underdog dynamic and it makes sense to me.

Anyway, like many have noticed in this thread, it seems like the reboot is somewhere between SR2-SR3 and I'm all for it. SR3's been very disappointing to me mostly because the game lacked content and Steelport's environments had little variety. SR4 got better but became a superhero game with Steelport as backdrop again.

There's also the idea that the Reboot won't be as "edgy" than past installments and it's so easy to make unfavorable assumptions. If "edgy" is synonymous to dick/gimp jokes then I'm fine with getting rid of that. The giant purple dildo was fun for 5 minutes and was glad I had the choice to switch it with the spiked bat for the rest of my SR3 playthrough.

I hope Volition will stick to their guns because changing plans at the final stretch is recipe for disaster and risking to please nobody with a glitchy mess. At this point there's no way (yet) to know if the game is going to be good, I sure hope it will check all the boxes on what made SR2 so great while improving on the rest... it sure been a long time I got (cautiously) excited about a Saints Row release.

 

[TheBlueGuys]

I have seen just about everyone on this forum say this at some point, so let me set the record straight.

The first original Saints Row may have only been made for Xbox 360, but it is absolutely backwards compatible for Xbox One and Series X/S.

I just finished my run of Saints Row on the Series X myself. So I don't know why everyone still thinks it's only playable on the 360?

I have the entire Saints Row franchise on my Series X/S, including Gat out of Hell and Agents of Mayhem. All are playable. I agree, I don’t know where this is coming from.

 

[3rdStreetSaint 212]

The quirky vibe from the cast isn't that unusual compared to SR2.
Do people remember about how Carlos was a frail, unconfident lieutenant? How Shaundi was a stoner girl who can't fight much? How Pierce like to sing along on "So Sick" by Ne-Yo during a car chase? How Gatt had to clean up blood in his living room and awkwardly dump a corpse in the garbage bin? Saints Row always had some sort of goofyness in its character writing. I feel there's also willingness to go for an underdog dynamic and it makes sense to me.

Glad I'm not the only one who instantly thought about this upon seeing the new cast.

New Running Gag:
The way Volition are putting a lot of emphasis on Kevin known for being shirtless, makes me think that this is gonna be some kind of running gag throughout the game.

Kind of like Shaundi's obsession with sombreros, and Luz's outdated shoe collection.

 

[TheBlueGuys]

Something tells me Kevin and Eli are gonna be butting heads with strategy.

Kevin: “Let’s be loud and chaotic about it!”
Eli: “Nooo, we gotta plan this out to the nth degree!“

Basically think of it like when Pierce laid out a plan of stealth and assassination in Saints Row 2, but Johnny Gat was all, ‘man, fuck that. Let’s just go in guns blazing.’

I just hope we can choose which strategy we want to follow.

 

[Kanonite]

Something tells me Kevin and Eli are gonna be butting heads with strategy.

Kevin: “Let’s be loud and chaotic about it!”
Eli: “Nooo, we gotta plan this out to the nth degree!“

Basically think of it like when Pierce laid out a plan of stealth and assassination in Saints Row 2, but Johnny Gat was all, ‘man, fuck that. Let’s just go in guns blazing.’

I just hope we can choose which strategy we want to follow.

Yeah. Going off his file, Kev seems like a hybrid of Gat and 2's Shaundi, being the loud and chaotic one of the group while also being the extroverted people person with connections.

 

[linkfire12]

There's also the idea that the Reboot won't be as "edgy" than past installments and it's so easy to make unfavorable assumptions. If "edgy" is synonymous to dick/gimp jokes then I'm fine with getting rid of that. The giant purple dildo was fun for 5 minutes and was glad I had the choice to switch it with the spiked bat for the rest of my SR3 playthrough.

Yeah I never found that aspect of SR3 funny or particularly entertaining, but simultaneously Agents of Mayhem had a lot of unfunny writing that missed the mark. The studio has demonstrated good writing in the past (and despite being essentially a standalone expansion pack 4 had a lot of excellent character moments), but how the writing ends up is definitely one of my biggest concerns.

There is a huge difference between crude humour, which is totally fine, but isn't inherently funny or clever, and actively stifling or self censoring based on supposed moral prejudices and biased sensibilities. If they censor the character creator, for example, that will be disappointing to me.

As is thoroughly demonstrated by the modding communities and fandoms for The Sims, Bethesda Games, VRchat, Cyberpunk, Final Fantasy, and various art communities, there is a huge audience of women who are incredibly supportive of sex positive character portrayals, and there is a strong potential market looking for good character customization in gaming that has been severely under-served.

I'm totally fine with a change in tone in regards to the style of humour and crude jokes, not because there is anything inherently immoral about that, but just in the hopes of good writing, characters and fun storytelling. But I will definitely be saddened if the new title has regressed in its portrayal of sexuality and its exploration of mature elements of the cityscape and world building, because essentially every triple A game in the last two generations doesn't treat their consumers like adults.

 

[TheBlueGuys]

OK, so here’s what I’m gathering from what I read in the new info we got:

• We, the Boss, have some military training and we don’t like being told what to do. Sounds fair.

• Neenah loves cars and really wants to get away from the gang life, but remains due to loyalty to her crew. This is interesting. Maybe she’s with the Saints to exact vengeance on the Los Panteros? Maybe she figures the Saints will help her escape in the long run? This confirms my theory that she’s more or less gonna die. She has the ‘fallen gangbanger reformed’ thing written all over her. All that’s needed is Stand Unshaken playing as she dies in the rain after a gunfight.

• Kevin is part of the Idols when we meet him. OK, so something happens along the way that gets him booted out.
-> Theory A, we actually fight him when he’s in the Idols but then EVENT happens and he drops his flag and joins us.
-> Theory B, he is an informant spying on the Idols for us but EVENT happens and he switches allegiance.
-> Theory C, he’s betrayed somehow and joins us out of vengeance.

• Eli is an entrepreneur seeking to start a business and he doesn’t care who gets hurt If it suits him. Very Dane Vogel of him, I think.