Storyline Changes (including Gat's Death!)

G

Gondar

I found this interesting little thread recently... apparently it mentions stuff from the strategy guide (which makes sense, those are oft written with some help from developers, and moreso often written before the game is finished due to publication delays).

The story went through many drastic changes over different drafts and scope reduction. Here are some of the biggest changes:

- The Syndicate used to be made up of five actors.

- Oleg wasn't cloned, he was a leg breaker for the Syndicate, who joined the Saints to be with his role model: Josh Birk.

- Gat didn't die, he was captured and you saved him.

- Shaundi had a subplot that explored survivor's guilt and depression.

- Shaundi never appeared in the game at all, instead she was off filming her reality show in Mexico. At the end of the game you wer to see her unwittingly on a date with Killbane without his mask on.

- Viola and Kiki both join the Saints.

- The calamity that caused STAG to roll into town changed multiple times. Originally Killbane set off a dirty bomb that totally cratered Stilwater. - Then it was changed to the Syndicate destroyed Stilwater in the middle of a convention called Saints Con, killing thousands of innocent people as well as Tobias and Laura from Saints Row and Saints Row 2. Next, it was changed to blowing up of the Saints church during Gat's funeral. Finally it ended up as the destruction of the bridge.

- There was a bonus cutscene planned, after the bridge is destroyed, where the Saints are singing a "We Are The Wrold" type song to raise money for Stilwater.

- In one story draft, if you chose to save Shaundi and Viola at the end of the game there was a coda after the closing credits where Shaundi is at Gat's grave. She is upset that the Saints let Killbane get away and have gone back to being celebrities again. She is then recruited by Cyrus and joins STAG.

- Likewise, if you chose the other optoin to kill Killbane, there was a coda after the closing credits where an enigmatic figure was flying into Steelport on a Syndicate jet and the person accompanying him was Johnny Gat.
Click to expand...


Very interesting, huh? It does explain part of why stuff feels a bit squeezed in and rushed. Moreso it does explain a lot of the stuff with Gat, why it felt so arbitrary he died. They were rapidly changing the story, and by the time they made it they just went with whatever they could cobble together. I do note the interesting bit about either losing Saundi to STAG, or Gat returning..
Of course, there's a good chance some of this might suddenly return in the upcoming DLC reworked.. but never know. Even if it never does, it's an interesting little study on how games change during design.
 
The ending would have been great if the thing with shaundi actually happened that would have been a FANTASTIC twist to get everyone pumped for SR4
 
Nah, the SR3 Shaundi killed SR2's Shaundi and took her place. It's like one of those body snatcher things :p

I guess the entire point of the setup as they have it was to remove everyone except for Pierce (why keep him? Continuity I guess?) to have only new people like Oleg and Kinzie and so on. Personally I wish they'd gone with the whole Gat shows up out of the blue. Would make that ending different at least...

The gang is leaving the newsroom after having delivered the city-state ultimatum. As they turn the corner they see a figure in the shadows, pause, then with a quick gesture from the Boss they pull to cover, guns ready. The figure approaches.. then steps out of shadows to show Gat. Boss steps out, and with amazement.. "Johnny GAT? I thought you were dead!"
"Hey, you should know by now it takes a lot more than one plane to stop Johnny Gat."
"Apparently fucking so.. it's good to see you alive."
"Yeah.. so, what happened when I was gone? Where's Shaundi?"
Pause. Boss and Pierce look hesitant, don't quite make eye contact.
"Fuck, really? Did you at least kill the bastard who did it?"
"Yeah, him and his whole army."
"Army? Well that's just fucking great. So, did we at least get something good out of it?"
Pause. "Well, we got our own city-state.."
Gat looks up and over, pauses, considers. Then shrugs. "Well, I guess that's a start."
Gang walks off again, camera from behind, with a trailing off "so a whole army?" from Gat, music coming up before we cut to credits.
 
I get that maybe they want to make a point about characters not having plot immunity, or killing off old characters to "reboot" the series now that they've found their niche in being batshit insane, but I just can't help but feel that killing off Gat was really misguided. Maintaining a strong cast should be more important than making points about human mortality, especially in a series that makes a point of sacrificing 'realism' for 'fun'. Pierce and Shaundi were pretty boring to be around and the cast felt quite weak for much of the game. I also read somewhere that the writer wanted to kill Gat because of how popular he was, and that's just something that goes against my own writing philosophy entirely. Writers should follow their own inner vision and ignore such trivial external matters.

I guess I'm just annoyed because I got to see Gat be awesome for all of, what, 5 minutes? before his sudden offscreen death. And as I don't own a console, those 5 minutes were all I got.
 
Gondar said:
Nah, the SR3 Shaundi killed SR2's Shaundi and took her place. It's like one of those body snatcher things :p

I guess the entire point of the setup as they have it was to remove everyone except for Pierce (why keep him? Continuity I guess?) to have only new people like Oleg and Kinzie and so on. Personally I wish they'd gone with the whole Gat shows up out of the blue. Would make that ending different at least...

The gang is leaving the newsroom after having delivered the city-state ultimatum. As they turn the corner they see a figure in the shadows, pause, then with a quick gesture from the Boss they pull to cover, guns ready. The figure approaches.. then steps out of shadows to show Gat. Boss steps out, and with amazement.. "Johnny GAT? I thought you were dead!"
"Hey, you should know by now it takes a lot more than one plane to stop Johnny Gat."
"Apparently fucking so.. it's good to see you alive."
"Yeah.. so, what happened when I was gone? Where's Shaundi?"
Pause. Boss and Pierce look hesitant, don't quite make eye contact.
"Fuck, really? Did you at least kill the bastard who did it?"
"Yeah, him and his whole army."
"Army? Well that's just fucking great. So, did we at least get something good out of it?"
Pause. "Well, we got our own city-state.."
Gat looks up and over, pauses, considers. Then shrugs. "Well, I guess that's a start."
Gang walks off again, camera from behind, with a trailing off "so a whole army?" from Gat, music coming up before we cut to credits.
Click to expand...
This. This is awesome. ;)
 
The whole thing was a movie, written by Pierce. Think about it:
*He's the one who saves everyone, including the boss, at the armory
*The boss approves of his taste in music now
*He actually tells the boss what to do during the early missions
*Shaundi is a lot less likeable
*Shaundi gets captured twice and killed
*He gets declared mayor

m24 was a different movie written by someone else, in this theory.
 
I love the thought of SR3 being a movie. I liked the game overall, but it's true, Shaundi was treated differently. She completely changed. Where are her drugs and why did they change her voice!? I mean I know why but her old voice was better. She is more grown up, I don't like it. Her face was better in SR2 also I guess Image as Design messed it up. And what ending would they put in SR4, now they could start SR4 with:
Boss: The fuck was that!
Shaundi: Why was I killed off?
Johnny: At least you didn't die after ten minutes of the movie.
Pierce: So you liked it?
Boss: Fuck no!
Shaundi: How about we look at my movie.
Boss: Oh fuck!
 
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