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New Saints Row reboot gameplay looks much the same as old Saints Row, just prettierI don’t know what any of us expected
I don’t know what any of us expected
It’s been about eight months since I first hada hands-off sneak peekat the new and about-to-be-rebootedSaints Row, and six since we’ve heard it was beingdelayed to August this year. With its late summer release fast approaching, Volition recently showed off a larger chunk of some actual gameplay to press in another remote preview session. It looks almost exactly like what you’d expect it to look like: a fun open world game where you shoot people and smash cars into other cars.
Barring any catastrophic eventualities where this game actually ends up being just a load of bugs propping up other bugs in a fluorescent trenchcoat, I feel almost 100% confident in saying to you that this will be an enjoyable product when it comes out. But I also should be honest and say that the gameplay I saw has congealed into the same kind of sticky morass and blurred whirling lights in my memory as my first all-night benders. It’s a big collage of colours and explosions, and words like “cops”, “switch car” and “plan”, leaving a general impression of fun but, so far, few specifics in its wake. And to be even more frank about it all, I can’t think of a nailed on reason why any of it has to be a Saints Row game.
SAINTS ROW – Like a Boss – Ultimate Customization Trailer (4K)Watch on YouTube
SAINTS ROW – Like a Boss – Ultimate Customization Trailer (4K)
There are a couple of key differences to nuSaints Row, the first being that you have theoretically seamless drop-in/drop-out co-op. “The game is complete, all playable, all facets of the game - open world, critical path - in untethered two player co-op. In terms of progression, all the content is is dialled up, you got a buddy, so it’s not going to be as easy as it would be on one,” confirmed creative director Brian Traficante, who explained that co-op partners earn and share rewards.
The dominant colour I’ve seen so far in Santo Ileso is orange, and it feels different to the grey of Stilwater, and certainly more alive. I want to explore it much more than I did any other Saints settings, and I maintain that Santo Ileso looks like the most interesting part of Saints Row so far. Artist Danielle Benthien commented that “the city itself is alive even when you’re not in certain areas. There’s always things to see,” adding that Santo Ileso is like “the fifth friend” in your gang. I think my favourite thing from this preview were the sculptures and statues. There’s a lot of weird art in SI, and describing them sounds like a weird dream you had once. In the desert I saw a giant fork. It was stuck tines-down, like the dropped cutlery of a god.
In the business of playing the game, of course, Santo Ileso is the playground. Around it you will find ‘discoveries’, little mini-opportunities like the armoured trucks full of money. Then, in a reference to the new and improved Gen-Z origin story this time, you get Side Hustles. While for many of us this is embroidery or Twitch streaming at weekends, in Saints Row these are repeatable missions you can keep doing to get money and XP. The one in the demo was called Riding Shotgun, where you defend a getaway driver after a robbery. The preview made it look like the driving combat is much improved on previous entries in the series - way more stable, way more cinematic, way more enjoyable, and that can be no bad thing.
This touches on what I’m noticing more and more about Saints Row, which is a very slight tension between this new game, and the old Saints Row. Traficante said that “we were very happy with the story we told in the previous stance and for us, we we’ve closed that chapter and accomplished the things we wanted to do.”
But in almost the same breath he said that the biggest challenge with this reboot is “to make sure it’s more than just a spiritual successor, that itisa Saints Row game tried and true” with “all the things you’ve come to know and love about playing Saints Row.”
Later on principal designer Damien Allen said, “I’m honestly amazed at how much it feels like an SR game,” and Bernstein (who came in well after development had started) said, “Everything I saw was like, ‘My God, that’s Saints Row.’ Like this is what, as a Saints Row fan I want to see out of a new Saints Row game.” Writer Jennifer Campbell also added, “I’d say like the humour is definitely a lot closer to SR3. I don’t think we get as dark as SR2 got in certain places.”
So is that chapter closed? Because you talk about that chapter a lot, is what I’m saying. But obviously, of course you fuckin' do, because you called this game Saints Row!
This Saints Row is a new game. It’s made with more modern design sensibilities than you’d get in 2006. You can select different abilities and perks to equip to give you, for example, fire resistence if you’re going into a fight against some Panteros, who burn things a lot. Weapons get signature ability upgrades, too, and the HUD is pretty customisable with scaling elements up or down, or changing colours. UX designer Kenzie Lindgren said that “it’s definitely the most accessibility [options] that we have ever had in a Saint’s Row game. And I’m very excited to show people exactly what we can do with that customisation, we have a lot of difficulty options that come into play, we have a lot of options for like helping with motion sickness, hearing disabilities, visual disabilities, even some motor disabilities as well. We have full integration with Tobii [eye tracking] software that is coming to our game.”
At the same time, though, it doesn’t feel like the stuff you’ll be doing in nuSaint’s Row is going to be fundamentally different. There’s still a lot of old Saints Row stuff that keeps elbow nudging me in the face. There’s the mandatory check list of wacky weapons - the showcase one for this preview being the Thrust Buster, a kind of wild-card explosive football (as in American, not fut). “You can run around and attach it to people directly like you’re doing a hand-off, or you can throw it from afar,” said Allen. “It can even stick on vehicles and send then flying.” There are also over 100 emotes in this game, which I think is more emotes than I can express in real life. And heck, even though the old chapter is definitely, 100% closed, we still have that Insurance Fraud you loved back then, don’t you worry! It’s nottoodifferent, is the thing. It’s still that thing you like.
On the other hand, I can’t see any compelling reason itshouldn’tbe a Saint’s Row game either, so fuck it, I guess. The Saints are dead. Long live The Saints.
