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Former Volition dev Christopher A. Stockman was recently interviewed by ESports Insider about all things Saints Row. He believes he knows what the studio should have done for the reboot.
While Stockman worked on the original 2006 game, he had long left Volition by the time of the reboot. Stockman had also moved on to new companies and game genres. Today, he makes VR games under his own company.
A Brief Review Of The Saints Row Reboot
The original Saints Row distinguished itself from the PlayStation 2 / Xbox Grand Theft Auto games in two ways. It launched as an Xbox 360 exclusive in 2006, two years before Grand Theft Auto IV. That also made it the most high-profile open-world game of its type at the start of the seventh generation of game consoles.
It also delivered on the promise of online multiplayer before Rockstar could do it. Saints Row’s online was limited to a few multiplayer game modes, a far cry from Grand Theft Auto Online. Ultimately, though, Volition was the innovator in this front.
As we now know, the Saints Row reboot was actually supposed to be a direct sequel continuing the original story. It would have deemed the events of Saints Row IV and Gat Out Of Hell as non-canonical, and continued the story from Saints Row 3.
Volition would go on to reboot the story completely, replacing the long beloved cast in the process. Some fans believe that these changes, which toned down controversial elements, was the main issue. But this was symptomatic of a larger issue.
Between investigations from YouTubers Matt McMuscles and mrsaintsgodzilla21, the biggest issue was that Volition sputtered in the development process itself.
Volition had ambitious ideas to expand the IP once again. However, they would find themselves throwing away and restarting work several times over as these grand ideas wouldn’t work.
Here’s What Chris Stockman Would Have Done
Stockman shared his thoughts on the failed reboot to Esports Insider:
When I found out that they were rebooting Saints Row, I spoke to an old friend of mine who was my old boss for Saints Row 1.
He was the producer, and I was learning about what they were doing, and I thought, man, this is a terrible idea.
What is it trying to be? You’re rebooting it, but why are you rebooting it? There’s a lot of characters in the series that people love. It wasn’t Saints Row at all.
Just call it something else at that point. There’s a level of expectations for a Saints Row game, and they missed the mark on all of them.
What I would have done was to take the franchise back to the 70s and do a period piece, a prequel of how the gangs from the first one started.
You’re running around with a crew of teens that ended up as the main characters for the first game. You could really go all in on the 70s theme with big Afros, bell-bottoms, and the music of that whole period.
I’d have taken it into a different direction so you’re not competing with the modern-day GTA games. You’re zaggng when everyone else is zigging, so to speak.
There’s no doubt Stockman’s idea of a 1970’s era Saints Row has a lot of promise too. But good ideas ultimately have to be executed well to become good games. It seemed that Volition really had taken things too far in Saints Row IV and no longer had a way to pull everything back.
