The Saints Row franchise has seen a lot of growth and change over the years. It started as a Grand Theft Auto clone that soon divulged into a wild open-world mayhem simulator. Saints Row: The Third was where the series saw its first large innovation as the story became complete mayhem and filled to the brim with humor. Then, Saints Row 4 took it to the next level by giving players superpowers, and Saints Row: Gat out of Hell brought players to hell. The series went completely off the rails, and a reboot will help fix that.
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The Story of the Saints Row Franchise
The story of Saints Row began in 2006, introducing the fictional city of Stilwater where players could create their own character. The player-character joined the 3rd Street Saints and helped them rise to prominence by combating different rival gangs of the city. The story was told in three separate arcs depending upon what rival gang the player chose to go after. It was very similar to Grand Theft Auto, and was often compared to that since both series told the story of gang warfare in an open-world sandbox.
Two years later, Volition released Saints Row 2 which brought players back to Stilwater with a story and mini-games that took a more comedic tone to differentiate itself. The story picked up right where the first one ended, and had the customizable player-character start in a coma. When they woke up, they learned that the 3rd Street Saints had been disbanded and all of their territory had been taken by new gangs and corporations. Players had to rebuild the Saints and retake the city they called home.
In 2011, Saints Row: The Third released and signaled a complete shift in the franchise. The 3rd Street Saints had become household names, going from a street gang to a media empire. Many of the members had even become pop culture icons. The game brought players to the city of Steelport after members of the gang got stranded, and there they had to take on the Syndicate and S.T.A.G. The tone of the game could be described as wild mayhem filled with adult humor, and the game delivered a fun sandbox that players spent hours in.
Two years later, Deep Silver published Saints Row 4, which took the franchise to the next level. It was originally going to be DLC for Saints Row: The Third, but was quickly turned into its own standalone title. In the story, the 3rd Street Saints are elected President of the United States, but are soon kidnaped by an alien empire called the Zin. They are thrust into a Matrix-like simulation of Steelport and given superpowers as they fight to break free and save their friends. The story and concepts of this game were a far cry from where the series began, and the Grand Theft Auto comparisons were nonexistent.
The most recent game in the series was 2015’s Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell. It served as a standalone expansion for Saints Row 4, and was the only game in the series that put players in control of its side characters. Players took Johnny Gat or Kenzie Kensington into hell to save the player-character from Satan. The game utilized superpowers once more, but this time the powers had demonic and angelic properties. The map was called New Hades, and was a version of hell that players could run rampant throughout. This served as an epilogue to the events of Saints Row 4, and thus a conclusion to the Saints Row franchise.
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A Saints Row Reboot Cleans Up the Series
Saints Row started with street gang warfare and became an adventure into Hell. While it was fun to experience this descent into madness, which has garnered a huge following, it is very difficult to go back to the basics. Deep Silver and Volition really only had one option for where to take the series: a reboot.
The upcoming Saints Row reboot will bring players to Santo Ileso for a more simple gang warfare storyline. Players will be controlling the boss once again as they try and take the city from three different criminal gangs, introducing brand-new characters such as Neenah and Kevin with seemingly no overlap from the other Saints Row titles. While many fans were not happy about the idea of leaving Gat, Shaundi, and Pierce behind, it is likely for the best.
Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell showed the world how wild the franchise had become. It served as the final straw for many fans who had no interest in where the series has gone, or at least those had not turned it off after Saints Row 4. People have wanted the series to return to its roots and deliver a game in the same vein as Saints Row and Saints Row 2, but the ever-evolving story put developers into a corner. It is very difficult to justify the characters going from fighting Satan back to being a simple gang, so developers chose to take the easier route and reboot the franchise.
Players who were put off by later Saints Row adventures may return to the street-level crime story and the series will be able to start the story off fresh, distancing itself from the superpowered mayhem of previous entries. While the Grand Theft Auto comparisons will undoubtedly return, the Saints Row franchise may be better for it.
Saints Row will release on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on August 23, 2022
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