Why Every Saints Row Sequel Should Be a Reboot
1,132With the release of the new Saints Row reboot, we decided to take a look back at the Saints Row franchise and discuss the controversy behind the tonal shifts from Saints Row 2, to Saints Row the Third, to Saints Row IV, to Gat Outta Hell, and all of that could have been avoided if every Saints Row game was just a reboot.
CORRECTION: Saints Row (2022) was published by Deep Silver. We're sorry for the inconvenience. IGN regrets the error.
While Saints Row was mostly a well-received GTA clone, Saints Row 2 represented a significant tonal shift from the first. There’s an increased emphasis on customization, it’s more colorful, and it gets pretty silly. That silliness was deliberately and unabashedly amplified in Saints Row 3. The premise of Saints Row The Third was self-aware: the Saints had made the leap from a street gang to a lifestyle brand that had its own energy drink. They’d sold out. Saints Row The Third (and subsequently Saints Row The Third Remastered) COULD have been a reboot, but instead, it painted itself into a corner. It simultaneously saw the return of familiar characters from the first two games, but it also raised the stakes to unrecognizable heights.
Johnny Gat’s narrative arc is the perfect example of a fan-favorite character, whose story went off the narrative rails. Fans of his who were genuinely invested in him as a character and bummed he was killed off, a spinoff (Gat Outta Hell) where he goes to hell to fight Satan and performs musical numbers seems more like rubbing salt in the wound than a make-good.
Saints Row 4 took the formula to even greater heights- literally. Adding superpowers to Saints Row gameplay further accelerated the shift from its earlier entries - leaping tall buildings in a single bound is a ton of fun, mechanically. Less fun is the mental leap required to reconcile why this series about gang bangers suddenly involves superpowers and aliens.
All of this could have been avoided if Saints Row took the same narrative approach Rockstar did with the GTA Games. GTA 5 is a wholly separate story than GTA 4 and thus carries none of the narrative baggage of the previous games. The same goes for Far Cry. Far Cry 3, Far Cry 4, and Far Cry 5 all have different stores, that are for the most part completely unrelated. While the gameplay stays similar across the franchise, it still allows the devs to take huge tonal leaps with entries like Far Cry Primal and Far Cry Blood Dragon.
The point is that maybe it's a good thing this new Saints Row 2022 game isn’t Saints Row 5. What makes Saints Row great is all that crazy Saints Row gameplay. And As long as they keep that the new Saints Row could be on the right track.
For more on Saints Row:
Saints Row Review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ivpdy1SQyA
Saints Row: Performance Review PS5 vs Xbox Series X|S vs PC vs Xbox One X
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBSRq8EEw6c
Saints Row: Pain, Pranks and Potty Rides
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3BhCqVQ4vQ