With the Saints Row franchise now essentially being on ice due to the commercial and critical failure of the 2022 reboot, a new video has surfaced giving us a glimpse into what the title could have potentially been. The hour-long video, which you can check out below, comes courtesy of YouTuber mrsaintsgodzilla21, and goes into their visit to the offices of now-defunct developer Volition back in 2019. As for the timing of the video – three years after the reboot’s release – the YouTuber noted that the time-frame in the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) they had to sign during their visit was finally over.
In the video, the host discusses their visit to the studio, and how they got to play an early build of the game that was originally set to be titled Saints Row Cinco, indicating its position as the fifth mainline entry in the franchise. The story of the game would seemingly ignore the events of Saints Row 4, which essentially started off with the destruction of Earth. Instead, Saints Row Cinco would pick things up where Saints Row The Third left off, albeit while also ignoring the death of Johnny Gat.
In the planned sequel, the story would revolve around the Third Streets Saints – including the player character The Boss, as well as returning characters like Shaundi, Pierce and Johnny Gat, setting up a new headquarters for the gang in Santo Ileso. The host of the video notes that the tone for the game was described as being 20 percent inspired by the over-the-top silliness of Saints Row The Third, and 80 percent inspired by the more grounded gameplay and events of Saints Row 2. Development on Saints Row Cinco had been quite far along, with characters like Pierce even having some voices recorded for them.
However, the planned sequel hit a major snag when Deep Silver was acquired by THQ Nordic. This led to the new publisher – THQ Nordic – forcing a complete rework of the in-development Saints Row game. Under this new leadership, Volition would have to come up with entirely new concepts, complete with heavy restrictions on character dialogue. Despite being a game about a criminal gang, THQ Nordic’s directions involved certain swear words being off the table for characters. One of the concepts Volition went back to THQ Nordic was a complete reboot of Saints Row, albeit with returning characters. This was also rejected.
A general theme of the video indicates that the leadership at THQ Nordic had a fundamental misunderstanding of the Saints Row franchise. Many of the gameplay and story elements that were present in the previous games – like the ability to take a person hostage to be used as a body shield in a gun fight – being rejected for being “too violent”.
Aside from this, there was also quite a bit of planned content for the Saints Row reboot which was eventually cut. This content included intricate gameplay systems, like players being able to take over entire parts of the city and enacting laws, like dress codes. An intricate talent tree was also planned which would offer the player three distinct trees to level up through – wealth, fame, and muscle – as well as a system for opening up new business in the city.
The Saints Row reboot is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. The title was only able to sell 1.7 million copies as of May 2024, and earlier this year, Saber Interactive CEO Matthew Karch referred to the franchise as being not feasible financially.
