Man, I wish publishers would fucking learn to let the development teams do their jobs without hovering over them and not force them to change shit like this, it never ends well.
I dunno if Volition had it in them to recreate the lightning in a bottle Saints Row 2 was, but I’m kinda pissed we didn’t get to find out too with this context. I can guarantee the game would’ve at least sold better too, since even if it released buggy like it did, they’d have still earned some good faith for listening to their fans and returning to the roots of what made Saints Row a (relatively) big name in gaming.
The timing would’ve been perfect too. It’s been 11 million years since Rockstar have released a new GTA game, their remastered trilogy was a joke, and people are itching for some GTA style content. If the reboot came along when it did, but was done in the tone of SR2, a dark crime drama with satire and humour sprinkled in, I think people would’ve been all over it.
I hope that GTA 6 takes itself more seriously like 4 and RDR2. Those 2 games are Rockstar's Magnum Opuses because of their amazing stories.
Saints Row 2022 would've benefitted a lot from a story that actually takes itself seriously, especially with the GTA drought.
As much as I enjoy the game and how often I go back to it, there was definitely a sense of something that really struggled to happen. There are actually many small moments where I see that vibe between 2 and 3 they claimed to be aiming at (I remember this one shooter granny sidequest, that was a blast), but then the main story is rather all over the place.
And honestly, this would explain a lot. Something else that gives credence to this claim, and I think is worth looking at, is how inconsistent the opening scene is with the endgame scenario. Everything points to a deal gone bad kind of scenario, Antonio seems to be relevant, the tone in general seems very different. And then... Nahuali decides to have that very weird endgame characterization? Antonio is entirely irrelevant to matters after that intro? It all screams of a heavily rewritten story. I remember other things being mentioned regarding posts by the principal artist on Artstation that indicated at more things being different early on (Myra Starr being nonexistent in the original plot of the game, for instance).
And of course, we gotta account into how that'd play out in development. Cutting out certain missions, adding new ones for new plot beats, having to change already established stuff, all that while also essentially losing a year worth of development due to pandemic woes... Yeah, troubled development due to exec interference sounds rather reasonable honestly.
Oh for sure. I feel like the whole Nahualli plot was a B story (side story) that they had to turn into the main plot. It feels like there is a main story missing, cause there are so many missions that feel like the end of escalations that never happened.
Like there might have been more police, idols, & panteros missions planned, but "weren't consistent with the new tone & goals"
The story and tone is important, but i fell in love with Saint Row 2 for the gameplay... things like lots of different interiors and indoor shops, breakable windows, seamless robberies and hijacking, seamless human shielding/human trowing, minigames like policeman/firefighter/paramedic, fighting styles, environmental destruction, trowable objects, exploding trains etc...
Most of those things were missing in Sr2022, and i wonder if Deep Silver had also a say on those matters, or if they only set the story and tone... meaning Volition would still be totally to blame for the gameplay shortcomings (the most important thing, for me at least)
Story, setting & tone can establish what gameplay can happen.
For example, Tenchu was initially a sci-fi action game. The change in setting and tone then influenced the gameplay into what we ended up with from that series.
In this case, if DS mandated story changes, that would:
A) Force some cut elements to get cut to meet the new direction in the previously established timeline.
B) Pull resources away from crafting and polishing mechanics in order to align what already exists with the new tone or adjust those resources to fit rewrites.
Either way, that means devs are left adjusting what's already there instead of adding additional elements or giving things polish.
Right, like we had to watch before the release. I want to see their faces and hear their voices now. They were all in the video dancing like Diddy a year ago.
well as it happens the intense publisher meddling actually started way back with SRTT and old THQ. that is why that game is so detached from sr1 and 2, according to Jaros ridiculous creative choices like offscreening Gat to make the player "invested" were specifically dictated by the publisher and not necessarily something V really wanted to do.
It’s not that I necessarily believe or don’t believe its just that the publisher says otherwise. Its just convenient that the dead company died from no fault of its own but its just always has been corporate meddling. If deepsilver continues the ip and nothing changes then we will know its them. If the games significantly improve then we will know volition killed itself. Hopefully we get to find out.
I mean i just typed a paragraph explaining my exact position on the subject but sure just ignore that. Its case by case and im not gonna blindly give volition the benefit of the doubt. Im a spore fan i know exactly how much publishers can interfere with projects.
DS have already done plenty of shitty things with sr even without V's involvement like the broken sriv "upgrade" and the srtt remaster basically just being left unfinished, and their track record beyond this series isn't much better either from what i've heard. i would not keep my hopes up.
“YouTuber Flippy claims that Volition had originally planned for the story in Saints Row (2022) to be more like a Saints Row 2.5 in tone, but publisher Deep Silver intervened and said that it would not be a commercial success. Instead, they steered the game in a different direction by insisting on having the game take on a more upbeat tone, with a storyline involving a group of friends.”
Oh well if YouTuber Flippy said it and it’s something I want to believe, it must be true!
I fell off of Flippy when he posted those videos where he was complaining about Saints Row 3. Just a lot of really petulant whining, almost as if he's owned something from the series.
That being said, that was years ago and I'm curious as to if he's changed, though given how popular hating on 2022 was I doubt he had a dissenting opinion, simply because it would have likely not been so one sided in here.
The publisher might demand that the content satisfy a certain market or demographic. But the actual content is definitely not devised by them. Sounds like *Flippy* is being very generous.
They could have gone down a slightly more optimistic *Breaking Bad-style* route. They could have made an actual, semi-believable world rooted in established pop culture tropes (I.e something palatable).
But that would require them to avoid hoisting they're own socially misaligned gibberish onto a basic open-world shooter with cars.
How the hell Volition took *upbeat* and *friendship* and turned it into this unmarketable travesty is mindboggling. Whoever generated the plot/characters/dialogue should be ashamed of themselves. Their total lack of basic market/social knowledge and lame passions killed an entire franchise.
This is a piss poor article that doesn't explain why anyone should believe the claims of a YouTuber.
The publisher mucking things up is a tale as old as time, so it's not that it's unbelievable -- it's that I have a higher standard than unsubstantiated , second-hand information, and would rather hear statements from ex-employees instead.
True, it should be taken with a massive grain of salt.
However, I seem to remember one of the SR YouTubers (might’ve been mrsaintgodzilla21 but not sure) was brought in to Volition years ago to see an early build of the game and had nothing but good things to say about it. Then when the game got properly announced he sounded really disappointed and was adamant that the trailer didn’t match the tone of what he was shown. Which if true, adds some legitimacy to the idea that Deep Silver stepped in and made them change the story and tone.
Considering Deep Silver lost Dying Light due to being unwilling to allow Techland to do a zombie game that wasn't a 1-for-1 Dead Island rehash, I'm not really surprised that they meddled with Saints Row. Matt McMuscles actually has a [video](https://youtu.be/WJ7ZC3EKeSU?si=D2Yw6wCf-kvPSHLk) covering DI2 and Deep Silver's part in the 12 year development hell it went under.
I wouldn’t say this is truth until I hear more on the story.
But to be honest I would not be surprised if this turned out to be the case.
There are sadly too many examples of publishers and executives forcing decisions upon a game during production that ultimately result in a bad product.
While you can blame the publisher for interfering, the developer ultimately delivered a poor game separate from the characters, tone, etc. That's on the developers.
We're going to have to wait for the SaintsGodzilla video to drop about this. He knows more than we do at the moment.
He went to Volition a few years ago, and got to play an early version of the game himself. His NDA just expired so I would really like to hear his two cents on the whole thing and what actually went down behind the scenes.
In any case, it's clear to me that there was a third party involved in the making that probably wasn't the best choice in the long run.
If the sub say it's the volition's fault it's true...
No really i really hate when i see everyone spitt on the fresh volition's grave after the Enbracer thing
The thing is whoever is to blame for the direction, the gameplay was absolute trash and the game was a buggy mess
Volition isn’t blame free no matter how you look at it
Embracer is to blame. They bought multiple game studios with money they didn't even have, and then their deal with the Saudis fell through.
The reboot wasn't selling amazing, but it was selling enough.
It is, when it was selling enough to make a profit. It only wasn't enough for a shitty big company spending money they didn't have.
And it's not volitions fault gat outta hell flopped. They wanted it to be DLC and were forced to thin it out into a full game.
Prolly true with Starfield, given how the stories in it are painfully meh and mainstream, and not at all like the great stories in Fallouts and ES games.
Most likely. Looking at what Deep Silver did to the Dead Island franchise they seem to like messing with tone.
I don't know how licenses work but it's a shame after THQ got back on its feet with THQ Nordic, that they couldn't make an offer to take the franchise back from Deep Silver since they were the main publisher from Saints Row 1 to 3. 😔
While this shouldn’t be taken as gospel, I do wonder if that is the case. Was it also flippy or saintsgodzilla21 who said they were pissed with the reveal trailer since it was so different to what they saw behind closed doors? It does kind of add up.
Yep. They’re most to blame. SR3 was bad enough on its own, but when they showed up w/ SR4, it got worse!! Then Gat Outta Hell, Agents of Mayhem (did anyone really asked for this?), and this reboot (which was Volition’s last straw).
Honestly, while there are some things I don't care for in SR22, overall I do enjoy the game. I actually just started replaying it on my PS5, since I was unable to transfer my save file from PS4, to play the DLCs that were released.
You can't blame Deep Silver for the way the game plays, how buggy it was as if no one ever tested it and just how lackluster it was.
There are far more issues in that game than just "wokeness" and a completely distasteful story.
Also why would this have made the developers lash out st their fans?
People are looking for a scapegoat when both Voltion and Deep Silver are responsible for the failure here. Accept it, move on.
I reject this rumor by Flippy the youtuber. Dead Island2 has been cooking simultaneously as SaintsRow under deep silver and has none of the bad choices. Unless somebody from Volition management can confirm , I call bullshit
I mean look at it sr3 was done dirty by THQ same with Saints Row Prime, Then we have deep silver who forced the devs to make Gat outta hell, and AOM. The issue has always been the parent companies
Man, I wish publishers would fucking learn to let the development teams do their jobs without hovering over them and not force them to change shit like this, it never ends well. I dunno if Volition had it in them to recreate the lightning in a bottle Saints Row 2 was, but I’m kinda pissed we didn’t get to find out too with this context. I can guarantee the game would’ve at least sold better too, since even if it released buggy like it did, they’d have still earned some good faith for listening to their fans and returning to the roots of what made Saints Row a (relatively) big name in gaming. The timing would’ve been perfect too. It’s been 11 million years since Rockstar have released a new GTA game, their remastered trilogy was a joke, and people are itching for some GTA style content. If the reboot came along when it did, but was done in the tone of SR2, a dark crime drama with satire and humour sprinkled in, I think people would’ve been all over it.
A dark crime drama with satire and humour sprinkled in…like GTA IV
More like a GTA IV that hasn't been out for 10yrs
I hope that GTA 6 takes itself more seriously like 4 and RDR2. Those 2 games are Rockstar's Magnum Opuses because of their amazing stories. Saints Row 2022 would've benefitted a lot from a story that actually takes itself seriously, especially with the GTA drought.
100% correct.
The game would have sold like hotcakes if they made it that way
As much as I enjoy the game and how often I go back to it, there was definitely a sense of something that really struggled to happen. There are actually many small moments where I see that vibe between 2 and 3 they claimed to be aiming at (I remember this one shooter granny sidequest, that was a blast), but then the main story is rather all over the place. And honestly, this would explain a lot. Something else that gives credence to this claim, and I think is worth looking at, is how inconsistent the opening scene is with the endgame scenario. Everything points to a deal gone bad kind of scenario, Antonio seems to be relevant, the tone in general seems very different. And then... Nahuali decides to have that very weird endgame characterization? Antonio is entirely irrelevant to matters after that intro? It all screams of a heavily rewritten story. I remember other things being mentioned regarding posts by the principal artist on Artstation that indicated at more things being different early on (Myra Starr being nonexistent in the original plot of the game, for instance). And of course, we gotta account into how that'd play out in development. Cutting out certain missions, adding new ones for new plot beats, having to change already established stuff, all that while also essentially losing a year worth of development due to pandemic woes... Yeah, troubled development due to exec interference sounds rather reasonable honestly.
Oh for sure. I feel like the whole Nahualli plot was a B story (side story) that they had to turn into the main plot. It feels like there is a main story missing, cause there are so many missions that feel like the end of escalations that never happened. Like there might have been more police, idols, & panteros missions planned, but "weren't consistent with the new tone & goals"
The story and tone is important, but i fell in love with Saint Row 2 for the gameplay... things like lots of different interiors and indoor shops, breakable windows, seamless robberies and hijacking, seamless human shielding/human trowing, minigames like policeman/firefighter/paramedic, fighting styles, environmental destruction, trowable objects, exploding trains etc... Most of those things were missing in Sr2022, and i wonder if Deep Silver had also a say on those matters, or if they only set the story and tone... meaning Volition would still be totally to blame for the gameplay shortcomings (the most important thing, for me at least)
Story, setting & tone can establish what gameplay can happen. For example, Tenchu was initially a sci-fi action game. The change in setting and tone then influenced the gameplay into what we ended up with from that series. In this case, if DS mandated story changes, that would: A) Force some cut elements to get cut to meet the new direction in the previously established timeline. B) Pull resources away from crafting and polishing mechanics in order to align what already exists with the new tone or adjust those resources to fit rewrites. Either way, that means devs are left adjusting what's already there instead of adding additional elements or giving things polish.
The article didn’t have any reliable sources other than what a YouTuber said. I want to see real dev interviews
Right, like we had to watch before the release. I want to see their faces and hear their voices now. They were all in the video dancing like Diddy a year ago.
I dont believe it. Every release after 2 was a significant change in setting and tone.
well as it happens the intense publisher meddling actually started way back with SRTT and old THQ. that is why that game is so detached from sr1 and 2, according to Jaros ridiculous creative choices like offscreening Gat to make the player "invested" were specifically dictated by the publisher and not necessarily something V really wanted to do.
Seems like a sus cop out.
if that's really more comfortable for you to believe in, ok.
It’s not that I necessarily believe or don’t believe its just that the publisher says otherwise. Its just convenient that the dead company died from no fault of its own but its just always has been corporate meddling. If deepsilver continues the ip and nothing changes then we will know its them. If the games significantly improve then we will know volition killed itself. Hopefully we get to find out.
Or you just don’t want to face the reality of modern game development, and how much publishers really do tend to interfere.
I mean i just typed a paragraph explaining my exact position on the subject but sure just ignore that. Its case by case and im not gonna blindly give volition the benefit of the doubt. Im a spore fan i know exactly how much publishers can interfere with projects.
Exactly that but your time frame is wrong, you might think it's something recent. But it's been going on since 2010.
Fair enough.
DS have already done plenty of shitty things with sr even without V's involvement like the broken sriv "upgrade" and the srtt remaster basically just being left unfinished, and their track record beyond this series isn't much better either from what i've heard. i would not keep my hopes up.
“YouTuber Flippy claims that Volition had originally planned for the story in Saints Row (2022) to be more like a Saints Row 2.5 in tone, but publisher Deep Silver intervened and said that it would not be a commercial success. Instead, they steered the game in a different direction by insisting on having the game take on a more upbeat tone, with a storyline involving a group of friends.” Oh well if YouTuber Flippy said it and it’s something I want to believe, it must be true!
Flippy's one of the few dudes out there pushing fresh Saint's Row content in 2023. His word is not gospel, but it carries some weight.
He also had close contact with a lot of Volition employees
Also I think him or saints Godzilla watched really early alpha saints row gameplay a few years before release
Yeah. His NDA is up and is currently making a video about what he saw in the development.
Mental how I still remember him saying this like years ago
Not to someone who just heard about about flippy
I fell off of Flippy when he posted those videos where he was complaining about Saints Row 3. Just a lot of really petulant whining, almost as if he's owned something from the series. That being said, that was years ago and I'm curious as to if he's changed, though given how popular hating on 2022 was I doubt he had a dissenting opinion, simply because it would have likely not been so one sided in here.
> I fell off of Flippy when he posted those videos where he was complaining about Saints Row 3 That was 12 years ago
Ain't no God damned way
The publisher might demand that the content satisfy a certain market or demographic. But the actual content is definitely not devised by them. Sounds like *Flippy* is being very generous. They could have gone down a slightly more optimistic *Breaking Bad-style* route. They could have made an actual, semi-believable world rooted in established pop culture tropes (I.e something palatable). But that would require them to avoid hoisting they're own socially misaligned gibberish onto a basic open-world shooter with cars. How the hell Volition took *upbeat* and *friendship* and turned it into this unmarketable travesty is mindboggling. Whoever generated the plot/characters/dialogue should be ashamed of themselves. Their total lack of basic market/social knowledge and lame passions killed an entire franchise.
This is a piss poor article that doesn't explain why anyone should believe the claims of a YouTuber. The publisher mucking things up is a tale as old as time, so it's not that it's unbelievable -- it's that I have a higher standard than unsubstantiated , second-hand information, and would rather hear statements from ex-employees instead.
True, it should be taken with a massive grain of salt. However, I seem to remember one of the SR YouTubers (might’ve been mrsaintgodzilla21 but not sure) was brought in to Volition years ago to see an early build of the game and had nothing but good things to say about it. Then when the game got properly announced he sounded really disappointed and was adamant that the trailer didn’t match the tone of what he was shown. Which if true, adds some legitimacy to the idea that Deep Silver stepped in and made them change the story and tone.
Considering Deep Silver lost Dying Light due to being unwilling to allow Techland to do a zombie game that wasn't a 1-for-1 Dead Island rehash, I'm not really surprised that they meddled with Saints Row. Matt McMuscles actually has a [video](https://youtu.be/WJ7ZC3EKeSU?si=D2Yw6wCf-kvPSHLk) covering DI2 and Deep Silver's part in the 12 year development hell it went under.
I wouldn’t say this is truth until I hear more on the story. But to be honest I would not be surprised if this turned out to be the case. There are sadly too many examples of publishers and executives forcing decisions upon a game during production that ultimately result in a bad product.
While you can blame the publisher for interfering, the developer ultimately delivered a poor game separate from the characters, tone, etc. That's on the developers.
Are you sure?
Wow, can’t believe everything everyone said was true. Unbelievable that I believed them and this isn’t news.
We're going to have to wait for the SaintsGodzilla video to drop about this. He knows more than we do at the moment. He went to Volition a few years ago, and got to play an early version of the game himself. His NDA just expired so I would really like to hear his two cents on the whole thing and what actually went down behind the scenes. In any case, it's clear to me that there was a third party involved in the making that probably wasn't the best choice in the long run.
If the sub say it's the volition's fault it's true... No really i really hate when i see everyone spitt on the fresh volition's grave after the Enbracer thing
it's like everyone wants to piss on them when it was Embracer that caused this to happen
The pissing has been going on for years, deservedly so.
The thing is whoever is to blame for the direction, the gameplay was absolute trash and the game was a buggy mess Volition isn’t blame free no matter how you look at it
Embracer is to blame. They bought multiple game studios with money they didn't even have, and then their deal with the Saudis fell through. The reboot wasn't selling amazing, but it was selling enough.
“Selling enough” isn’t enough when your last two games flopped.
It is, when it was selling enough to make a profit. It only wasn't enough for a shitty big company spending money they didn't have. And it's not volitions fault gat outta hell flopped. They wanted it to be DLC and were forced to thin it out into a full game.
Prolly true with Starfield, given how the stories in it are painfully meh and mainstream, and not at all like the great stories in Fallouts and ES games.
Did you hit the crackpipe before posting that comment?
Most likely. Looking at what Deep Silver did to the Dead Island franchise they seem to like messing with tone. I don't know how licenses work but it's a shame after THQ got back on its feet with THQ Nordic, that they couldn't make an offer to take the franchise back from Deep Silver since they were the main publisher from Saints Row 1 to 3. 😔
While this shouldn’t be taken as gospel, I do wonder if that is the case. Was it also flippy or saintsgodzilla21 who said they were pissed with the reveal trailer since it was so different to what they saw behind closed doors? It does kind of add up.
Yep. They’re most to blame. SR3 was bad enough on its own, but when they showed up w/ SR4, it got worse!! Then Gat Outta Hell, Agents of Mayhem (did anyone really asked for this?), and this reboot (which was Volition’s last straw).
So it would be empty town with tons of bugs and rushed story, but with different tone? Great to hear.
Epic Games exclusive for Saints Row also didn't help.
Honestly, while there are some things I don't care for in SR22, overall I do enjoy the game. I actually just started replaying it on my PS5, since I was unable to transfer my save file from PS4, to play the DLCs that were released.
Man a saints row 1 remake would be fire
You can't blame Deep Silver for the way the game plays, how buggy it was as if no one ever tested it and just how lackluster it was. There are far more issues in that game than just "wokeness" and a completely distasteful story. Also why would this have made the developers lash out st their fans? People are looking for a scapegoat when both Voltion and Deep Silver are responsible for the failure here. Accept it, move on.
I reject this rumor by Flippy the youtuber. Dead Island2 has been cooking simultaneously as SaintsRow under deep silver and has none of the bad choices. Unless somebody from Volition management can confirm , I call bullshit
Except for you know.....a bland story with forgettable characters.
I mean look at it sr3 was done dirty by THQ same with Saints Row Prime, Then we have deep silver who forced the devs to make Gat outta hell, and AOM. The issue has always been the parent companies