“Honestly, I think the franchise is dead, unfortunately,” wrote Stockman on Discord. “I get the sense that Embracer has zero ability to do anything with it. I wish things were different. I tried my best to offer a path forward but they’ve ghosted me.”

Saints Row—the original one—was released all the way back in 2006 as an Xbox 360 exclusive. While still considered a niche entry in the burgeoning open-world urban action game at the time, it grew enough of a fan following to warrant sequels that would go on to become much more popular. Sales of the first Saints Row had also likely benefited from Rockstar Games not having released Grand Theft Auto 4 yet.

The follow-up, simply titled Saints Row 2, would see a much wider multiplatform release, and introduced the series’ penchant for goofy comedy and character customization. It would release in the same year as GTA 4, and while Rockstar’s game would see plenty of critical acclaim thanks to its more serious tone and strong writing and characters, Saints Row 2 would become a haven for fans of the kind of action and tone that was last seen in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Saints Row: The Third—released in 2011—would further up the ante when it comes to comedy, introducing an entirely new city and a story revolving around the Third Street Saints’ rise to power in Steelport. In 2013, Saints Row 4 would essentially become a superhero game, while still maintaining much of the gameplay and tone of its predecessor.

2022 would see an attempted reboot of the Saints Row franchise that, unfortunately, was widely criticized for its repetitive side activities, bad enemy AI, and poor writing. Since then, the series has remained largely quiet.

A report from back in September has indicated that the Saints Row reboot was originally planned to be a full-fledged sequel, picking things up where Saints Row: The Third left off and entirely ignoring the events of Saints Row 4. The game was set to feature many returning characters, including protagonist The Boss, and side characters like Shaundi, Pierce and Johnny Gat, with the primary setting for its open world being Santo Ileso.

Back in November, Stockman had expressed his belief that Grand Theft Auto 6 is going to be “the biggest game, probably of all time.” He went on to note that the only way Rockstar Games could see any real competition for its title is if the studio has a huge misstep.

“If it comes out and it’s terrible, God forbid the industry, oh my gosh, right? It’s E.T. all over again, but worse because of the budgets,” he said. “It’s going to be a complete disaster. I don’t expect that to happen, but, if it is, oh my.”

“The only way for someone to really give them a run for their money is if they have a huge misstep. If it comes out and it’s terrible, God forbid the industry, oh my gosh, right? It’s E.T. all over again, but worse because of the budgets. It’s going to be a complete disaster. I don’t expect that to happen, but, if it is, oh my.”

You can thank Grand Theft Auto Online for that, which Stockman believes has propelled the franchise “beyond just a game” into a lifestyle. Assuming it doesn’t meet expectations, either critically or commercially, that “number two” position will become even more essential than ever.

“The industry is bigger than it’s ever been in the sense that people hunger for games. People hunger for new experiences. I think it’s entirely possible to be a number two; there’s nothing wrong with trying to be a number two if you play your cards right,” said Stockman.

“You don’t go crazy, you be very focused. You don’t look at GTA as a North Star and say, ‘I wanna be that’. You have a clear identity, and this is what you’re trying to do. And you don’t have to be a 100-hour masterpiece, and you just gotta be smart about it.”

Accomplishing this means a “go back to basics” approach, where a title has its own identity rather than trying to directly compete. It makes sense, even if no other developer has been able to accomplish this since the release of Grand Theft Auto 5, which surpassed 220 million units sold. Even Red Dead Redemption 2, Rockstar’s own game, has only sold over 79 million (and the less said about Red Dead Online, the better).

Then again, it launched five years later and has yet to receive a current-gen update. As for Grand Theft Auto 6, it releases on November 19th, 2026, for Xbox Series X/S and PS5, and Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick is feeling confident about the date.

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.

1. Duke Nukem Forever (2011)

Absurdly long development times are perceived as harbingers of doom nowadays, and 2011’s Duke Nukem Forever serves as the poster boy of such a perception. Development spanned 15 years for Duke Nukem Forever, and it’s still in the Guinness Book of World Records today for that reason. Not releasing an entry in over a decade will no doubt poison a franchise, but the game’s quality also failed to garner optimism for ole’ Duke. For one, Forever’s design was outdated without actually, you know, being good. The pacing tries to ape Duke Nukem 3D, but falls on its face due to the lack of viscerality the former had and the incredibly repetitive level design. Duke Nukem Forever soured players with its cringy humor too, yet I believe it could’ve been charming if some creativity was put into it. Remember how cool it was to run into a corpse of Luke Skywalker in Duke Nukem 3D? Or the unique visual aesthetics of levels like the “Escape From LA” stage to the 2001 Monolith on the moon? Duke Nukem Forever failed to use its raunchy referential charm in creative and fun ways, leading to a boring time embarrassingly cringing at the screen for many players.

2. Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Another 4th game in the respective series with a troubled dev cycle was Dragon Age: The Veilguard. While The Veilguard didn’t bomb quite as hard as Duke Nukem Forever, its tone is similarly to blame for its meager performance. Unlike the gritty (and very bloody in the case of Origins) realistic medieval tone of the previous Dragon Age games, The Veilguard is lit up in bright purples and sanitized almost like an ‘E for everyone’ title at times. Even the enemy designs lean in the cartoony direction with dragons that hardly instill any sense of fear or urgency. But it’s the awkward writing and dialogue that really disappointed a lot of fans. Instead of working you way through an origin story through blood, sweet, and tears, your character is just instantly accepted as ‘the hero’ of the narrative. Teammates rarely argue with you and often feel more like cheerleader social workers than elite warriors. At least the combat feels satisfying, but many have lamented the series distancing away from RPG mechanics since Inquisition, and The Veilguard is the series at its most streamlined and RPG-lite.

3. Mirror’s Edge Catalyst

Unlike Duke Nukem Forever or The Veilguard, Mirror’s Edge fans don’t mind a return to the series in the style of Catalyst. The main reason Mirror’s Edge has been dormant since 2016 is because DICE and EA have been focusing almost exclusively on reviving the Battlefield franchise. And thanks to recent gaming trends of big companies not giving small series’ a chance, it’s unlikely we’ll see another Mirror’s Edge title. But Catalyst didn’t exactly do everything right. The story was incredibly bog-standard, with characters that fell flat for a majority of players. The main reason to play the game was the excellent parkour movement, and that’s something Catalyst opened up substantially thanks to its more open structure. However, many locations felt copy-pasted, adding a sense of bloat that didn’t exist in the first game. Catalyst is still recommended by fans of the short-lived series, but its bump in quality from the first game, as well as DICE being busy elsewhere, doesn’t leave a lot of room for a series return.

4. Bionic Commando (2009 reboot)

Bionic Commando’s gritty 2009 reboot effectively killed the franchise due to a paltry 27,000 US units sold in its first month. Capcom’s top brass criticized the outsourced dev team for being difficult to work with, affirming their hesitancy to outsource overseas that would reverberate throughout the company for years. We previously cited Bionic Commando as an example of nonsensical story twists in games, and for good reason. This reboot is laughably campy despite its attempt at high stakes grit. The dude’s arm is his wife for crying out loud. But it wasn’t just story that players couldn’t take seriously, it’s also the janky movement with the arm rope slinging and the average shooting and combat mechanics. I’m glad the Bionic Commando reboot exists, if for the memes and campy ‘B-movie’ quality alone, but it also helped convince Capcom to shelf the series, and that’s a shame considering how iconic the original 2D titles were.

5. Saints Row (2022)

It’s been three years and I still haven’t encountered anybody who likes the Saints Row reboot. On paper, the ingredients for a decent Saints Row experience are there. But the exucation is severely half-baked. The open world design is uninspired with a plethora of repetitive side missions. Even the humor is disappointing, something the series always differentiated itself with. Saints Row was always known as the more goofy GTA, with well-written gags and scenarios that managed to get a chuckle out of gamers. But the reboot is anything but that, going for a more serious tone in-between jokes that fall flat on their face. Seeing how poor sales were and the terrible critical reception, it’s very unlikely we’ll see a new Saints Row anytime soon.

6. Lost Planet 3

Lost Planet 3 is undoubtedly the black sheep of the series. It’s the only entry developed by an outsourced western team, it didn’t heavily feature mechs in combat, and was panned by critics and the fandom alike. If relegating mechs to a minor role wasn’t enough of blow to fans, the repetitive side missions, bland level design, and less fluid combat sealed the deal. At least you’re still fighting Akrids in a snowy environment, but besides that, the game is hardly recognizable from the past two entries.

7. Crackdown 3

I’m not going to pretend that the Crackdown series was a household name worthy of GOTY discussions or anything, but the first two titles showed a lot of promise for the arcady GTA/Saints Row alternative. Crackdown 2 in particular was just a ton of fun to let loose and enjoy the bonkers open-world mayhem in. And the third game had a lot of hype leading to release, with none other than Terry Crews starring as the main city-destroying protagonist. But even longtime fans couldn’t find much to enjoy with Crackdown 3. The world map lacked variety, basically feeling like the same three nighttime city blocks copy/pasted throughout. The missions and gameplay don’t do much to make up for level design either, forming a repetitive loop of basic tasks over and over again. There’s not even anything fun to collect; with ability orbs comprising the majority of world secrets. I don’t even think Crackdown 3 would be appealing if it released decades ago; it’ll be a miracle if we see another entry any time in the near future.

8. The Order: 1886

Everyone talked about the life-like graphical fidelity of The Order at the time of the PS4’s launch. It was the defacto tech demo game for the console for good reason, showcasing impressive lighting and texture details. But hardly anything noteworthy could be said about any other aspect of the game. I can’t in good conscious call The Order a bad game; it’s just that it wasn’t much of a game to begin with at the asking price. The campaign takes around six hours to complete with little more than some collectibles to warrant further play sessions. It’s not just that it’s brief though, the content is somewhat superficial with its many quick-time events and bog-standard cover shooting. It’s one of those games that’s fine to rent for the story and setting, but you’ll forget about in a couple weeks. While The Order never developed into a series, it was initially planned to be one, with a sequel on the docket until the studio, Ready At Dawn, shuttered in 2024.

9. Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days

Finally, we have the controversial cult classic, Kane & Lynch 2. This game was bound to have mixed reviews from its inception. Despite how it appears, Kane & Lynch 2 is a highly unconventional art piece of a game. The camerawork is intentionally amateurish and, at times, nauseating, in an effort to simulate cop cams or body cams. Plenty critics called out the camera as terrible and superficial, but it’s also the element that appealed to its fans the most. It’s really the five hour campaign and repetitive cover shooting that resulted in the general poor reviews and lackluster sales. And with IO Interactive moving on with their enormously successful Hitman games and upcoming James Bond title, it’s unlikely Kane & Lynch will get another opportunity to gain a following beyond that small cult classic crowd.

Players like to be rewarded with additional story, characterization, and fun upgrades upon discovering more of the open world, not another checkmark on a map. The Witcher 3‘s world is huge, but players don’t complain about it being bloated because it’s filled with unique landmarks and interesting side quests around every corner.

These 10 games even manage to disappoint the casual collectathon fan with their uninspired locales and boring terrain, proving that games need to do more than merely populate the world with objects. Here are 10 more open world games in recent years that have suffered from bloat.

Forspoken

Like other games on this list, Forspoken had a ton of potential leading up to its release. We first saw glimpses of it with the impressive next-gen demo when the PS5 was announced but the final result was severely lacking. The best thing about the game, its versatile and engaging parkour, isn’t facilitated well by the open world.

For one thing, there’s entirely too few things to do in the magical world of Athia. What’s more, there’s an absence of ‘magic’ to capture the imagination in the world, consisting of empty rolling hills dotted with repetitive activities as it is. What hinders the empty exploration further is Frey’s constant quipping and complaining. If you’re not keen to hear constant quips and snarky complaints over the course of several hours of empty, though fun, world traversal, you’re not going to have a good time in Athia. After critical and commercial failure, the studio was shuttered.

Rise of the Ronin

Team Ninja’s design identity lives and breathes by its dense and action-packed linear nature, so naturally, the decision to go open-world in their next samurai game was ambitious for the team. Being the first open world game from the studio, Rise of the Ronin doesn’t falter too hard, but it could’ve been better within a more streamlined structure.

The refined action combat the team has been known for helps the formulaic world activities feel a bit more fun than they otherwise would. This is the third game on the list to feature dozens of bandit camps in its large world, but there’s also genre mainstays like watchtowers, and … cats to pet across mid-19th Century Japan, okay at least that’s kind of charming. Still, the lack of organic environmental discovery, unlike, say, Ghost of Tsushima’s waypoint wind, and a more empty and boring world map than other games within the space, keep Rise of the Ronin from reaching the potential set by its unique time period and deep combat. Hopefully, the developers will keep on investing in this IP, because there is potential here and a Rise of Ronin 2 could be a genuinely great game.

Biomutant

Unlike Gotham’s largely samey environments, the open world in Biomutant is rather diverse and visually unique across biomes. But visual distinctness between the six tribal regions  is where Biomutant’s open world stops being impressive – unless you enjoy the busywork of clearing checklists, that is. Completing the many outposts, resource towers, ruins, and fast-travel signpost rewards you with little while being but it’s as shallow as it is repetitive.

But the combat and quests don’t really do anything interesting to accommodate the rote world activities, firmly solidifying Biomutant as a quintessential ‘mid’ game. It’s unremarkable, but not bad per se, and when multiplied by the huge open world and all its repetitive activities, makes for a lot wasted time one could have spent in more meaningful game worlds. Biomutant is a prime example where a stong investment doesn’t always result into a meaningful product.

Gotham Knights

If rote repetition is the death knell of open worlds, Gotham Knights feels oddly lifeless for a city meant to be in constant crisis. All of the positives of the Arkham games, save some of the third-person combat DNA, is gone with this game. Sure, there’s some fun stealth sections to be found within the story chapters, but a majority of the game’s content is beating up the same thugs and solving copy-pasted crimes throughout Gotham to grind towards Knighthood progression.

Players can typically look past a bit of padded grinding if the world feels alive and responsive, but Gotham also fails on that front. Alleyways are mostly empty, civilian traffic is practically non-existent, and the city doesn’t evolve or react to story advancements or a recently liberated borough. At least the game looks really nice with its lighting. Gotham oozes atmosphere on a superficial artistic level despite the lack of liveliness and organic activities. Gotham Knights does have its shining moments, but very few of them have to do with the open world structure. Honestly, at this point, we just need a new Batman Arkham, not to mention the disaster that was Suicide Squad.

Just Cause 4

While Biomutant can’t reasonably be considered bad by any means, Just Cause 4 certainly can. The only thing I’m uncertain about is if this game suffers more on the story or exploration axis because it sucks at both. First and foremost, there’s just way too many patches of nothingness in the game world, resulting in terrible activity density.

At least Rico’s versatile grappling hook can be played around with to traverse the boring environments because it’d be downright sleep-inducing to go anywhere in this game otherwise. Accommodating the poor map design is a total absence of a minimap or radar. I mean, come on, an open-world game with no way to track points of interest at-a-glance, and one with such a bloated and empty world at that, is inexcusable. The missions and side activities are also far less creative and interesting than previous Just Cause titles, and the game crashes pretty often. You know what, I can’t even point the main blame on the open world, Just Cause 4 is just plain bad. It’s amazing how the series shifted into a complete free fall after Just Cause 2. Such a massive shame!

RAGE 2

Rage 2 is another game on this list that certainly isn’t altogether bad; its open world design just kinda feels tacked on to extend game time. Avalanche studios used Id Software’s wonderful gunplay tech to craft a fast and fun gameplay. Shooting in Rage 2 feels fast paced but with very lackluster and repetitive map design, its potential is severely diminished. There’s hardly any reason to spend time checking off side activities due to the drip-fed upgrades that players are rewarded with. This is thanks largely to a pretty early plateau in the upgrade tree, which maxes out your character pretty quick.

And without any meaningful side stories or lore to discover out in the wasteland, exploration is largely an exercise in repetition. The rapid pacing of the gunplay also just isn’t well suited for the wide swathes of land, something a more densely populated map could’ve remedied a bit.  It’s a shame Rage 2 faltered on the open world front. A synthesis between Id gun mechanics and the open world chaos of Just Cause 3 set within a Mad Max-esque setting seem like a dream come true. But Rage 2’s world is largely average and is enough to pull down the game’s otherwise fun gameplay and traversal mechanics. It’s unlikely we will ever see a new RAGE game and that’s such a disappointment.

Mafia III

The original studio behind the first two Mafia games merged into Hanger 13 for Mafia 3. Hanger 13’s debut game lacks a lot of the charm and density the previous games had, going for a quantity over quality approach. The territory control system quickly becomes repetitive, with little variation between districts. The world itself, a fictional version of New Orleans, also lacks intriguing landmarks and unique stuff to do within it. It’s just a shallow and hollow open world all-round.

At least the story and atmosphere somewhat make up for it; however, repetitive side objectives are often mandatory to progress the main plot, harming that aspect as well. Here’s hoping the Hanger 13 has learned from their first game and refined Mafia: The Old Country’s Italy into something more engaging.

Saints Row (2022)

In a lot of ways, the 2022 reboot of Saint’s Row feels like a first draft of a game from a decade ago. It’s got the basic elements to make a classic Saints Row experience, but hardly any of the creativity, charm, or polish. Where previous Saints Row games made exploring and causing mayhem unpredictable and fun, this reboot turns every open world activity into a chore.

Criminal Ventures are just one example of this; once you do your first couple insurance fraud busts and repo jobs, you’ve pretty much seen done them all. The world does little to encourage curiosity either, considering how empty and vacuous it feels. What’s really a shame is the lack of charm across the whole experience, thanks in part to the odd incongruent meshing of attempted wackiness with serious drama, resulting in an experience that falls flat in the end. This release, more or less, has killed Saints Row.

Crackdown 3

Out of all the games featured on this list, Crackdown 3 reigns supreme when it comes to boring environments. We all wanted to explore a dark sci-fi city in the sequel, but the city’s repetitive building designs make exploration feel stale and uninspired. It’s one of those games where the asset reuse is so glaringly obvious that it significantly detracts from the experience. But it’s not just the bland environments of the city that hurt the open world experience, mission and enemy variety is severely formulaic too. What puts the nail in the coffin is the paltry rewards for doing open world activities.

You’re mostly just collecting ability orbs after completing activities or exploring environments with no interesting lore or customization. And of course, Crackdown 3 commits the major sin of mandating side content to progress the main story, this time in the guise of collecting intel for regional boss fights. At least there’s the charm of playing as Terry Crews throughout the formulaic experience, but even that wears thin pretty quickly. With Microsoft cancelling projects left and right, the future of Crackdown seems like it’s done and dusted.

Need for Speed: Payback

Need for Speed: Payback is a game I still kind of enjoy playing to this day, but it’s not to experience the exploration or anything. No, it’s the superb vehicle selection and customization which is the main draw of the game, but even that can be had in the better NFS maps that Heat and Unbound facilitate. Payback’s fictional map is quite large and spread out, but it features no police chases outside of scripted events.

Instead of hiding from cops and making an intricate escape through a dense downtown route, you’re just collecting stuff and starting events on the map. This makes Payback’s map the least dynamic and least designed for racing than any of the modern-era NFS titles. Fortunately, a lot of great Need for Speed games were released since then, so let’s hope this continues into the future.

“They were so expensive for what they were,” Karch said, referring to the Saints Row games. “They didn’t know what they were building. They didn’t have any real direction. It couldn’t last. And so, who’s going to fund them for the next game after that disaster?”

For some context, Saints Row as a series had historically reinvented itself quite a few times. While it originally started off as a crime drama game in the vein of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, with its third release, Saints Row was reinvented into more of a lighthearted game where more focus is put down to the player having fun thanks to wacky situations they find themselves in.

Saints Row 4, on the other hand, turned into essentially a superhero game, with the player having access to various superpowers that they could then use to fight off an alien invasion. 2022’s Saints Row was an attempt at a reset button, with the game aiming for a middle ground between the original Saints Row and the zanier Saints Row The Third.

Karch also spoke about how the level of investment required for the Saints Row game didn’t directly translate into appropriate returns. While he acknowledges that keeping developer Volition would have been nice, he also noted that it wasn’t financially feasible.

“It would be nice in an ideal world for everyone to have a job,” Karch said. “But games with nine-figure budgets are making eight figures in revenue and that’s dooming a lot of developers.”

“The days of throwing money at games other than maybe the GTAs of the world is over,” Karch continued. “It’s over. This business needs to mature. If it doesn’t, the whole business is in trouble. Unfortunately, that means layoffs.”

While an attempt was made to bring the Saints Row franchise back with a bang with a reboot of the series in 2022, the title ended up being a financial flop. Back in May 2024, reports popped up indicating that only 1.7 million copies of Saints Row (2022) had been sold. The poor performance of Saints Row amidst the general chaos surrounding the Embracer Group ultimately led to developer Volition getting shut down in 2023.

“This past June, Embracer Group announced a restructuring program to strengthen Embracer and maintain its position as a leader in the video game industry,” said Volition in a statement back in 2023. “As part of that program, they evaluated strategic and operational goals and made the difficult decision to close Volition effective immediately.”

For more details about 2022’s Saints Row, check out our review. Also check out the details surrounding a rumoured pitch for Saints Row 5 that would have featured the classic cast returning, including characters like Johnny Gat, Shaundi, and Pierce.

METAL GEAR – METAL GEAR SURVIVE

You’d think that Konami couldn’t have given the Metal Gear franchise a worse sendoff than it did with the troubled launch of MGS5 and the acrimonious departure of series mastermind Hideo Kojima, but the company decided to follow up on those disasters with another major screwup. That came in the form of Metal Gear Survive, an abomination of a survival game with mindless, repetitive mechanics, uninspired design, and an unimaginable misuse of a beloved IP. Metal Gear Survive isn’t mainline, of course, and as such easily ignorable- which is good, because that’s exactly what you should do with it.

Going by the LinkedIn page, Stevenson worked at Volition from May 2022 until the studio’s closure in 2023. Commercial performance of Saints Row seemed to have been disappointing enough that Volition was shut down back in 2023.

While Saints Row title was essentially a reboot for the entire franchise, featuring an entirely new set of characters in a new setting, and with a different mood and theme when compared to its predecessors, rumours from back in November indicated that the game was originally going to feature older characters returning.

According to these rumours, characters like Shaundi, Dex, Aisha, and Johnny Gat were planned to return in the game, before the pitch was turned down by Deep Silver in favour of the reboot.

Saints Row (2022) sold 1.7 million units. pic.twitter.com/yoLZU9ckxF

— Timur222 (@bogorad222) May 15, 2024

In a recently published video, YouTuber mrsaintsgodzilla21 has claimed that developer Volition’s original plan for Saints Row 5 was to focus on characters from older instalments in the series, with Johnny Gat, Shaundi, Pierce, Dex, and Aisha intended to return as the Saints.

The developer allegedly intended to appeal to both new and old series fans with a tonal balance that would have seen the game telling a more grounded story while also have some over-the-top moments. As per the video, the game’s tone would have been 80% similar to Saints Row 2, and 20% to Saints Row: The Third. Apparently, the game was also going to have a mission designed by community modder Mike Watson – who passed away in 2021 – that would have allowed players to kill Dex.

Though that was reportedly Volition’s plan for the game for a “decent portion” of its development, it ultimately did not align with what publisher Deep Silver had in mind for the series’ next instalment, leading to the original plan being scrapped and replaced with a complete reboot.

Earlier this year, Volition was shut down as part of Deep Silver parent company Embracer Group’s internal restructuring program. In the aftermath of the studio’s shuttering, Deep Silver confirmed that Saints Row would continue with other studios.

While it remains to be seen whether the full suite of Volition’s IP will continue to have a future going forward, two of them certainly will in the form of Saints Row and Red Faction. The same was confirmed by Deep Silver – the publisher of both franchises – in a Twitter message following up on the announcement of Volition’s closure.

“Our thoughts go out to everyone at Volition, past and present,” Deep Silver wrote. “We’re incredibly grateful for their unforgettable work on Saints Row and Red Faction, whose IPs will live on at PLAION.”

Incidentally, it was announced by Embracer Group earlier in 2023 that by next year, three of its publishing labels will be merged into PLAION, with Deep Silver being one among them.

Our thoughts go out to everyone at @DSVolition, past and present. We're incredibly grateful for their unforgettable work on Saints Row and Red Faction, whose IPs will live on at @PLAION https://t.co/15PKDs2kpc

— Deep Silver (@deepsilver) September 1, 2023