I don't know where I heard it, but my favorite review of this game was someone saying that this is the kind of game the old Saints Row would have relentlessly made fun of.
Probably someone in the comments of the first trailer. The only thing that made it look like a Saints Row game is that one of the characters said "Fuck" at one point. Otherwise you could have fooled people into thinking that it was a Fortnite expansion.
The new characters would have been perfect for a like 20 minute long intro heist mission that taught controls and stuff before the real saints show up and blow them up and take the goods. It would have been a solid parody of the shitty reboot movies like Ghostbusters.
At the start of the game I thought the Nahuali or whatever his name was, would be the guy you partner up with and get rid of the other morons to start an empire... He seemed to be more of a saint than anyone else in the game
A very depressing part of Volition's closing that might have been mentioned already, but should still be mentioned just in case, is that it puts the fate of the Saint's Row 2 PC patch that IdolNinja, a huge figure in the Saint's Row modding community, was working on with Volition before he passed away *at best* in jeopardy, at worst essentially throwing away the work this man put in during his last years.
Someone supposedly from Volition came out a while ago saying there was only ever 2 employees working on that patch and Idol may have been one of them or the two were working for him. But I'm sure they got snagged up when things got tough for SR2022. Absolute shame, the whole story. I was an adult when SR launched, but SR2 was still a formative experience to me and I still replay it every couple years
This comment hit the damn nail on the head. The top brass didn't want to make a Saints game, everyone else did. The end result is this abomination that never should have existed. Sad, that Saints Row started as Grand Theft Auto clone and never amounted to anything more than that, even 15+ years later.
@@ofironboundflame5117I wouldn't call it a saints row clone. But took inspiration from it. Because u can only do some much to differ from other games with the same concept. And in my opinion crime games are popular. The irony though is that one of the creators of saints row said they would top GTA and make it more offensive and not give a fuck. But ended up as of now less of all that compared to GTA as of now. Unless GTA 6 ends up topping saints row at being pussies and throwing away the original standards of GTA. I like both titles and grew up playing them. But they are listening and being taken over by the wrong people.
This episode was particularly depressing, although it leaves out the poor PR the game had. Volition's social media accounts were dismissing and outright insulting fans of the original series, saying stuff like how the writing of the older games wouldn't fly today. That pretty much killed any chance the game had to build up goodwill and eventually have some level of fan support.
Right!? Saints Row is a series that lived and died by the will of its core fanbase. It's really not that popular with randos, so they bit the hand that fed them.
That's basically PR 101 för the last few years. Blame everything on your customers, call them -ists and -phobes and assume you'll get new "better" people to replace them. Many companies and entire industries must collaps apparently, before it sinks in that it is a bad way to run PR
With Saint's Row, I cannot stress enough how much I despise the chronic gaslighting of what made 2 great and it's it's identity, it wasn't it's wackyness or being a 'comedy' GTA, it was it's ability to be witty with excellent use of dry humour not a constant reliance of constant gags. It reminds me a lot of when Dead Rising 3 and 4 devs thought that simply dressing your character up in a banana hammock is enough to satisfy the 'quirkiness' threshold whilst missing the entire point of what made the franchise charming.
A Volition member I follow mentioned something especially shitty about the the studio's closure: Embracer happened to shut it down on August 31st. Since it was the last day of the month, that meant none of the employees would have insurance after being laid off. If Embracer waited just one more day, the staff would have had insurance for all of September.
I mean... If it were the rest of the year, that's one thing, but that employee would probably complain no matter what. They could have shut down August 15th and I think that employee would have had only two weeks of insurance. I don't know, at what point does "We don't exist anymore" become a valid excuse, and a month of insurance isn't your biggest concern?
In regards to the first official reveal, the negative reaction wasn't totally because it was a full reboot. When the developers first said they were making a new Saints Row, they championed the fact it would be a "return to the roots." Many fans were expecting it to be more about gang warfare rather than the "friendship" vibe the reveal trailer gave off.
Don’t forget the infamous public relations statement of “if you don’t like it, don’t buy it.” Great move. Great response to criticism. The fact that this needs to be spelled out is ridiculous. That phrase will never win anybody over. Nobody is changing their mind. What was the expectation? “Oh, well now I just /have/ to buy it.” No. Nobody wants to give anyone money after that.
What did they have to do? A lot of early negative reactions I've seen were basically racists complaining the new default Boss was a black woman in the cinematic launch trailer, but calling out racism in "gamers" means you lose even if you are right, silence would basically only leave the complainers and probably whoever did the marketing had to make them say something, *anything* and sure as hell you can't say "sorry, we'll do better" when it's *that* kind of criticism.
I'd actually love to see a What Happened? with Embracer Group. While this tale is still being told, it's so far been a beautiful example of how to screw over dozens of people's livelihoods as well as an industry as a whole by some margin.
What happened is they bought a worthless studio run by morons. This video confirms it was the devs who ruined the franchise. Idiot writers and internal churn led to multiple delays, and crunch time because they missed timelines.
@TheOneTrueChuck You do know for any tragedy to reach the upper executives, there will be a bloodbath in the lower workers. Usually, the correct approach is to wish a slow and steady down fall with plenty of time for everyone to fulfill their exit strategies.
In the time it took to make this video, Volition isnt even the latest casualty anymore, now Crystal Dynamics is facing layoffs too. Embracer group is completely imploding
I’m not sure why they asked for billions just to purchase all these studios and IPs only to try begging investors again when they have no money to actually make the games
Beamdog, the studio behind Baldur’s Gate is also laying people off and “restructuring”. Of course they’re under Embracer Group as well, just like Gearbox Entertainment, Volition and Crystal Dynamics. It’s like the bad gift that keeps on giving.
Even if it came out bug-free, this game was doomed. The garbage story, wholely unlikeable protagonists, and the mindnumbingly insulting treatment of their core audience guaranteed this would not succeed.
The game was being developed into junk and fans were ringing the warning bells early on. Asking for improvement. Volition had the power to listen and course correct. They failed to do so. They are not absolved of fault.
And while the team was busy trying to make the game the best they could due to the circumstences they were in, the community manager was calling people 'terrorists' because they didn't like the direction the game was taking.
Actually it’s because like one mf threatened to shoot her and the Volition offices in an edgy joke (Saints Row Dominatrix AKA Dom) But that was only like one dude and a couple others that went that extreme
@@SOBEKCrocodileGod Painting an entire community as that when only a few people did it, will inevitably turn people against you, especially if you're *the community manager.* In this case, it is one's job to handle the community with nuance and maturity where need be. Something they did not do.
@@thanecawdor1962 I mean a threat like that ain’t something to joke about. The issue is she painted a large amount of people as if they said that shit when it was only a very small few
I mean they actually kind of tried doing just that. Apparently one of the patches took out certain lines. Like when your character just keeps yelling about balls in the beginning of the game. It obviously wasn't enough.
Their reaction to the fanbase not liking what is presented was getting snarky and calling them out, which anyone that saw how DmC went could tell how that one goes as it turns out making the EXISTING fanbase not want to play goes badly.
Also, tbf to DmC, ignoring the one off joke from Dante about his hair, which is honestly not that bad in a vacuum, DmC was honestly pretty good with it's only problem that it was being turned into a reboot and not just a separate part of the DMC universe or it's own thing. Meanwhile Saints row could have been it's own thing and it still would have sucked
@@SapphireKnight675 Well, if you're out there calling the game "woke" and wanna blame "DiVeRsiTy" for this game's failure then yeah.. you're an istaphob. Truth hurts. 🤷
Then again, when you have the worst of the worst making the most noise (especially online), it's kind of no surprise why certain creators, companies, etc have such a low opinion on fandoms. Just take big franchises like Star Wars, for example, and how the most obnoxious and frankly toxic members, not only helped ruin a child actor's future career, but essentially played a part in George Lucas selling off the IP to Disney.
the hardcore stans who were spewing thinly veiled bigotry and hatred are in fact losers yes, being a "Fan" of something does not automatically give you cart blanche to act like an entitled gatekeeping elitist dickhead.@@JayBord
@@CrystalDavis-e8iyou respond to every comment even remotely critical of this game or the shot PR it had, seems like you're way more of a loser than anyone who just didn't like the game.
“Some people liked the characters, but others didn’t”. Please point to the people that thought the Millennial Twitter Cringe Crew were good characters? It sounds more like you’re just trying to be fair lol
I disagree, there are ways to make a good story with the current cast and some big changes. But that would require skilled writers... and history is history.
@@DotDusk That is what a rewrite is. They'd have to change everything, from the character designs (Like Eli and Neenah) to their personalities not being just goofy kids, to them actually being gangsters, and not making the Boss act so pathetic and the enemy gangs actually characters. They'd have to redesign the world so it feels like a real narcostate and not whatever that bs is with the giant Larping convention randomly in the story. Get rid of the cat, the boardgames, the waffle makers... a lot needs to be changed.
Flat out insulting their consumers when they're asking for a traditional Saints Row experience really bit them in the rear. They get no sympathy from me.
I mean lets be honest. This saints row game was only the latest bomb that Volition had. Anyone remember Agents of Mayhem? The writing was on the wall for them. I dont know if they deserve as much "good faith credit" as Matt is giving them. Legit, the last 'successful' game they had was Saints 4, and that was straight up a decade ago now.
The first idea they had to continue off from SR4 would be the best choice. They could have had that the Saints used the Time Machine that was in one of the SR4 endings but they needed to build up the gang from scratch which would have returned to the gang fight that SR1 - 3 had.
It'd be a hell of a writing task, but now I'm imagining them doing this over multiple eras. Still, that does sound like an interesting game, with a logical reason why you Lost All Your Prior Stuff.
I saw the teaser trailer and I was happy about them coming back then as soon as I saw the trailer with the "new saints" I was thinking 'oh no' then hearing the creators say they created gangsters you wanted to "invite into your home" I knew it was dead
Isn't that supposed to be a godfather thing? Gangsters I want to invite into my home would be pretty mild mannered, unlikely to be the type to spray an entire downtown sector with a liquid shit septic cannon.
I remember they said shit like "wanting you to relate to the characters", which uhhh, no. They are gangster, we don't want to relate to gangsters, why were you trying to make gang members "relatable".
@@buddygettingnutty8351 Bad take. A gangster is still a human and a well written one can still be relatable. I was able to relate with CJ, Niko, and Franklin and the the elder Vance brother. And to a lesser extent Tommy even.
I was going to say it comes across like they're trying to find ANY excuse to not pay their employees adequately, but that's probably giving them too much credit. They probably ACTUALLY think it's a fair deal, and that's terrifying.
that's been known about for a while now, i remember hearing about it around the time New Vegas came out and missed its target metacritic score due to the game's bugs and crashes at launch essentially, all the things that one just kind of expects from a Bethesda game using the Gamebryo or Creation Engine
@@sofiaciel7599something that is talked about a bit less is the fact that they also had their production budget cut midway through, and they had their release date move to be earlier than they originally were supposed to have when they asked for an extension because they were not too far behind, but they realize they were having some issues. The other thing a lot of people don't like to talk about is that Bethesda deliberately would have other studios that they work with being put in situations that would cause them to rapidly run out of money to try and force them into bankruptcy so they could buy them up. They deliberately try to put obsidian out of business so they could acquire them.
it explains why devlopers complain so much about their game scores. It literally is what ensures they get properly paid or not. Which leaves but devlopers and jounralist in a shitty situlation. No one wants to be resposbile on if someone gets rightfully paid or not based on their opinion on a game.
there was that little thing about the Volition Community Manager calling fans that didn't agree with the new direction "terrorists". That was a fun time.
@@CrystalDavis-e8i even if they were, which I don't care because I'm not american, they're still not terrorists. Only people I saw just wanted to return to classic SR2
Never played a single SR game before but all the stories echoed about this latest entry will definitely make this an intriguing episode. Feeling sorry for all longtime SR fans.
I will try to give a fast recap. SR1 and 2 started as a GTA clone with small scope stories. As GTA grew to be more reasonable and centered in realism, SR found a niche in unrealism. SR2 and 3 formed a huge chasm in the player base as the game was getting more cartoonish and over the top, however it attracted a wider audience due to its quirkiness. During SR4 and Gat out of Hell, the possibility for progression started to exhaust and reboot was necessary. Volition tried to please both generations of gamers by aiming at the middle ground while trying to attract a third more modern audience. They failed. The 1st and 2nd generation fans felt ostracized and the 3rd generation wasn't big enough to sustain the game. This is the story on a conceptual level, the technical problems further cemented the end of the series.
If you want to know how good the writing quality was in the old games despite their "wacky" nature, then look up "Jessica's death scene". Absolutely brutal. It showed how the protagonist really wasn't fucking around anymore and wasn't afraid of doing heinous stuff to send a message. Still sticks with me almost 20 years later. Obviously its far more impactful if you've played the whole gsme leading up to it and gotten to know jessica as a character despite her being the girlfriend of a rival gang's boss. What happened to her was rooouuughhhhh.
Luckily, the original Saints Row games will never get old for those of us who love them. Volition captured lightning in a bottle, then promptly lost it, replaced with some dusty bottle of everclear an intern found in the basement.
@@GeteMachine The original saints row games were nothing like the reboot. I suggest checking them out- they’re wonderful games and have infinite replay value.
I kept hearing its defenders saying "It's not that bad", "Give it a try before you judge it", etc., so I bought a physical copy for $15 on PS5 and it's every bit as bad as people said, if not worse. From the characters, to the storytelling, to the gameplay, to the missions, to the graphics, I couldn't find anything positive about it. The cutscenes looked so cheaply done, too. SR3 did cutscenes a lot better. This game sucked. Quite frankly, Agents of Mayhem is a better game. It looks and plays better.
When the PC version of SR2 came out, it was *incredibly* janky. But behind that jank, there was still a story and characters that made me want to see where the whole thing was going, and some game-play innovations that rewarded persistence. The reboot just didn't have that.
@@channel45853 You ever heard of agreeing with something, but tacking more on? I can count, fucko. It's very clearly a 2/3 out of 10. Edit: Don't be that guy.
I live two blocks from Volition or... what was Volition. I ran a small shop nearby and many of them were customers of mine. Most of them were fantastic people who truly did love the work they did. They had a bit of a hard time "connecting with the kids" but man... they were good folks who'd been in the industry a long time. Everyone who was paying attention knew what was going to happen WAY before the general public and we heard about the folks leaving. It's sad to happen to any studio caught in the mega-conglomerate dumb-assery, but a studio as old and influential as Volition? It's heartbreaking. Special Shout out to all the little local touches they put into SR4 including a recreation of a 40 year old costume shop that closed forever in 2020 so SR4 is the only place to experience it now.
Their mistake, which is as old as time, is to have old people trying to "connect with the kids". That's why this game has such terrible writing, which sounds like a satire/insult of Generation Z.
@@OwlLock189no, it’s self aggrandizing Millennial shit that doesn’t realize it’s horribly cringe The dogshit attempt at relating to people born from 95-08 (Gen Z) is that Millennials still think how they acted 10 years ago is funny and cool
@@LeviathanSteamworks I love these kinds of comments... mainly because they try to be wholesome for no apparent reason and most likely a lie , and if this comment is true then its pointless do you expect these people to simply come to your store and start yelling and breaking things , Every developer loves what they're working on its the hire ups that takes the decisions though and you just having a store nearby doesn't mean anything you don't know whats going on truly in the workplace!
Maybe if they listened to the fans criticisms after the reveal instead of getting on Twitter and posting "haters gonna hate" and completely downplaying it it may have done better. I mean what did they expect? Everybody hated the characters and tone of the game and they did absolutely nothing to address it.
From what i had seen of the story/writting, nothing but a rewrite would have fixed the game. It is unfortunate that they can shut down due to things outside of their control though.
Sounds like a rewrite is what destroyed it. Just a soft reboot following SR4 and Gat Out of Hell would probably have sold decently with fans, instead the writers and staff decided to not only destroy their own setting, they mocked fans and threw away any good will they had.
a full rewrite might have fixed the story. sure as shit wouldn't have fixed all of the gameplay issues, or polished out the myriad of bugs and performance issues at launch.
My brother play-tested this game and said that he obviously was trying to go hard in the open world (blowing shit up, shooting everyone, and causing all around chaos) he said the developers came in and asked him to cool it basically. Lol. He said all the NPCs would t-pose and glitch into the ground when killed. He said one of the ending questions they asked was "how would you feel if this game was released in its current state?" Apparently, they did release the game in that current state. 😂
Years ago, I was about 25 or so hanging out on my buddy's floor. I was in a bad place, lost alot of my family, it was messy and hard to cheer me up. He always played games on his pc on his tv and I watched him, basically just background noise. He turned on his TV and picked up his controller, and about 5 mins later I was fuckin GLUED to the TV. He didnt make a big deal about it before I noticed, he wanted me to see it for myself as opposed to trying to set up the experience. It was the first time I ever heard of Saints Row, and it was Saints Row 3. He started a new game knowing how I would react. We played all night. Jumping out of helecopters to Kanye's Power gives me goose bumps. Im a firm believer that day was the day I turned my depression around, so I have a very special place for SR.
I like how they just never considered going back to the roots of 1 and 2 like the fans have been asking since 3. Goes to show that they really didn't care about the fans at all, they wanted new ones
They did though, it was Deep Silver that ruined the reboot. Volition wanted to make SR2.5 and bring back old characters like Dex but Deep Silver wanted everything gone and remade.
@@cuntohaireno they got sick of being called a GTA clone. Besides the third and fourth game doesn't have the spraying poo on property It is like ignoring the fact that San Andreas had adult toys you could use on NPCs along with flowers. Saints row doesn't even have that
In Jamaica, there are hundreds of abandoned/unfinished houses and buildings. What happens is people/companies get enough money to start the project but then can't get more to finish. That's what gaming has become. Just an ocean of shitty, unfinished "AAA" games.
Outta curiosity, was there a reason you didn't mention the actual group BEHIND the Embracer deal? Because I don't think they ever actually kept it a secret beyond that very first announcement. To those unaware, it was a firm called Savvy Games.... a firm in Saudi Arabia, with backing by the Saudi Government. Embracer caught a lot of heat when that got formally announced because people were naturally concerned about the company's values being influenced by a particularly brutal borderline-theocractic government with a history of mass scale human rights violations. Given Embracer is one of many to fall into ESG nonsense, this was quite possibly the stupidest idea imaginable. The deal probably DID fall through due to games like SR2022 that were, in some cases literally, "violently left-leaning" and were wholly antithetical to the values of the Saudi regime. So basically, Embracer didn't JUST make the ridiculously absurd blunder of banking on money from a single deal to save them from an excess of over-purchasing studios that now needed to be funded, but they decided to go with the ONE option that presented itself that had a high likelihood to be foundationally incompatible with what they wanted to do. It's be like making a deal to save your company, then announcing you're going to make a game about how much you love Atheism and how much you hate God, and then being surprised when your would-be-business partner, Vatican City, suddenly gets back to you and says "Yeah I don't think we're interested anymore."
@@Reynsoon ideology based investment check blackrock and larrry fink in particular talking about how he's dumped billions into "changing how people think" (spoiler this was a stupid plan and he's gained nothing from it)
@@mrcontrarian1416Sants Row 22 is supper left leaning my god one of the main characters is a vegan trying to create a post capitalist classless society what did you need the final boss to be sentient capitalism for you to know notice
Eliminating cancer is the obvious choice simply because it's way way easier. After all, we know what causes world hunger. There's a lot of random cancer types that we can't do much of anything about.
BUT you can also choose to help under-developed countries; "Feeding the Hungry" is intended as making them self-sustainable, also solving problems like political instability and massive migrations. We can choose to ignore first-world problems for once. Not to mention, we would free the funds we use to subsidize aids to those countries and reroute them to cancer research! 😁😁
Some guys from Volition did a guest lecture in one of my classes in college. They showed some footage from the punisher game that got them an original A-rating for the game the first era submission.
The story of Volition is a sad one for sure but I think people blame the publisher a bit too much at times. Deep Silver is certainly responsible for most of the troubles on this production but Volition already was having issues even trying to get concepts out the door. It was very clear that much of their creative staff that helped SR2 happen had left and with GTA5 kind of stealing their thunder, they were shackled to a franchise that was loosing steam and with Agents Of Mayhem being a halfhearted attempt to branch out, the writing was on the wall long before THQ’s collapse.
If the bugs were the only problem with Saint's Row. The game was just unlikeable all around. And the marketing was directly attacking people instead of trying to sell the product. They made themselves unlikeable to the public in every corner they could.
It's very unfortunate that marketing branches are often largely divorced from the people making the product and often resented by those people. I used to work in product development and the thing we resented about the marketing teams were that if the product was a big success they'd get the vast majority of praise and if it didn't? Clearly that's the development teams fault. I feel bad for any product screwed over by shitty marketing, because the people making it rarely have any control over how the product is sold to people.
I had to pause when he quoted that some people liked the characters amd others didn't. While the statement is going to be technically true about anything, these characters struggle to have even 1 dimension, self-aggrandising hypocrites written as underdogs but not capable of failure, vehicles for humour too safe to land. Trailer reaction too. When I saw it live, I had no idea it was Saints Row until the title came up at the end. The designs are simply incorrect for the world. I was praying that somehow we'd be playing what turned out to be (the) Los Panteros.
The absolute PR disaster that was sr's social media certainly didn't do the game any good. Regardless of what happened with Embracer group, Volition only have themselves to blame for the game's failure
They insulted the fans for having concerns of the game, changed all the brands that made the humor great in the first games, Epic exclusive as well. Not saying it could have been saved if it was on Steam day one. but I would have supported it! now they want to bring it to steam a year later and still charge full price while it was free on PS+. It sure didn't end well for them.
@@mokinokaro yeah, it was just a chain of a lot of things. Sure, the steam issues probably had minimal effect. But the issue still stands on how they didn't care about the fans at all
The ending of 4 showed everything to be a movie, and I am still wondering how people just assume they have to continue from that. Just make one where Gat gets sick of the corporate Saints and starts new. That was never off the table, but Volition bungled it and now they are gone.
@@ryutenken1I agree or actually make a reboot with close ties to the first two games. The first two were a perfect balance of being serious and goofy. Imo SR3 is the start of the franchises downfall. I still enjoyed it but I didn't like the direction they were going with it.
That lead into Agents of Mayhem. Agents of Mayhem was the second soft reboot of the Saints Row franchise, as it slid in after the reboot end of Gat Out of Hell in the timeline, which talks about Brimstone and has Johnny Gat as a cop. Saints Row The Third was the first soft reboot. The original idea for Saints Row (2022) was to reboot based on the time machine that was referred to at the end of Saints Row 4. Other than the end credits images gag of the characters using the time machine, they never refer to it again in Gat Out of Hell.
I'd like to see a video on A Hat In Time. It's a great example of one dedicated and talented team working hard and overcoming all sorts of problems. There were characters scrapped, endings scrapped, an entire world scrapped, a Wii U version that vaporised, a controversy about one of the voices, and yet it still released and fucking ruled.
A HIT was so good that after buying the PS4 version and beating it I got the PC one as well, with it's level mods there was so much more hours of content added. And to think that a meme of the main character dancing to vibe music is what got me interested.
@@fruitjuice225 As far as I remember, for the longest time they were planning a Wii U version, but as development drew on, it became increasingly obvious that a Wii U version wasn't do-able. I swear they shared pictures of a janky as hell early Wii U build that makes it very clear why they pulled the plug on that.
One of the problems was when so many people voiced how they didn't like the direction they went with after the trailer was announced and some gameplay showed. The company just weren't listening and labelled all the people who didn't like it as 'trolls' and 'haters'
I don't feel sorry at all for Volition's shut down. The game had no direction at first, and when they found one, not only was it universally panned, but the PR team went out of their way to insult the fans of the original and anyone complaining about this direction, and brag about those fancy E3 awards that meant nothing in the end. They did this to themselves.
That’s sort of the crappy thing about it, that really was their best. Times are changing and the developers and people in charge nowadays are not of quality.
It's amazing how poorly the Volition social media handlers tank any goodwill toward this remake, to go against the old fans, and potential buyers has to be one of if not *the* worst ways to go about customers They didn't fully dig their own grave, they received the shovel from Embracer but they decided to keep digging, shout out to the writing and character team!! you guys did a horrible job
With several restarts under the development’s belt, that’s bound to happen. Duke Nukem Forever ring a bell? And it sounds like they kinda had to stick with the narrative Embracer was giving them. Not much choice if you wanna stay at your job for the meantime.
It wasn't only that The first trailer already gave major hints of "How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?" energy with those character designs. And it all got worse over the course of the game... its seen to be this companys are hiring writters from twitter.
I liked how the anonymous developer blamed the publisher because "people couldn't preorder it" and not that they didn't make something people wanted to preorder.
It sounds like development was just generally hell. Adding a preorder bonus on top of that with so much crunch would make it worse. Of course it’s the publisher’s fault. They can delay the damn thing!
Exactly. When I heard the trailer had come out, I was excited for more Saints Row. Then I watched the trailer, and decided I wasn't going to preorder it. Nothing I saw after that gave me any reason to change my mind.
@@acem9947 You can throw Red Faction Guerrilla in there too. I’m replaying it since it came out in 2009 and forgot just how much fun it is to blow everything up.
As a saint row fan. This felt seeing your best friend that you grew up with and loved so much turn into the worst version of themselves years later. I know this saying is old but it really is like that. So saddening 😢
The writing was still bad, and no amount of time could've fixed it. Just overall bad decisions on the story and character side of things. Obviously the rest of the game had problems, as did the studio and bigwigs who had a stranglehold on the money, but even if the game worked perfectly and the plot was improved, it would not have saved the terrible writing and characters. NO ONE in their right mind thought this game had redeemable writing, and it wasn't because of employee turnaround or time constraints.
To be frank, even without the bugs and lack of polish the game was still cringe. I liked Saint Row 2 and Saint Row 3 for different reasons. If they could of merged the characters/environment of Saint Row 2 with some of the fun elements of Saint Row 3, I think people similar to "Bugthesda" could of forgiven them for having a buggy game. It wasn't like past Saint Row games didn't have their own issues. Issue is, we didn't get that. We got something that comes off as cringe, characters are terrible, story was meh. Even the main villain the most interesting person in the game was just terrible in the end, as his motives were stupid and made no practical sense during the final stages, final stages which should be among the best stages, now ruined by a villain with terrible motivations. Don't even get me started with the gameplay elements. The fact that Saint Row 3, 4 and SW2022 still have terrible gunplay yet some how Saint Row 2 using guns was some how more fun... still after all these years is an insult.
I kind of like the idea of a bunch of 20 to 30 something working stiffs going into a life of crime and finding themselves in over their head facing off against arrival gangs and the police. Sounds like a really compelling narrative. Too bad that's not what this game was.
IMO, SR3 was the “jumping the shark” moment of the entire franchise. After that it just seems that Volition became rather hesitant about going back to the more grounded style of 1 and 2. 2 was Volition’s absolute peak. They clearly wanted to compete against GTA4 and their ads showed.
I agree; SR3 was Volition's foot in the door into stuff like laser guns, super powers, alternate reality, aliens, clones, computer simulations, celebrity worship, and cringe humor. Don't get me wrong; SR3 is hella fun, but it was here where the franchise began sliding off the rails. SR4 was absolute garbage, IMO.
@@Kwaj There are no aliens in SR3. You're thinking of SR4. Also, SR2 already had some things that were SR3-esque. Sunshine literally uses voodoo magic on you to ragdoll your character. Ultor Exposed has you digging up corpses that were experiemented on by Ultor (pre-cursor to zombies) and Corporate Warfare is ok until the last mission where you fight ninjas and mimes. We're talking ninjas.. that teleport with smoke bombs and mimes that spawn out of a limo like it's a clown car. Not that I disagree with you. I do think SR3 and especially 4 went way too far but it's important to remember that SR2 wasn't a super grounded realistic game.
@@theobell2002 True, but I said SR3 was the door that Volition used to get into the abject absurdity that we'd see in SR4, which was pretty much a SR3 expansion pack. SR2 did have its quirky moments. The voodoo magic of Mr. Sunshine is fine because it seems to fit well with his character, and we only see it that one time. Other stuff like jumping from helicopters into skyscrapers and the things you mentioned are far out there but not enough to detract from the game as a whole like say... projecting your subconscious into a computer simulation to fight a giant demonic avatar with wings and a broadsword. Or getting plastic surgery to impersonate a military officer for the purpose of infiltrating an aircraft carrier. lol WTF Volition? SR1 is the most grounded and organic game of the series, and I think it tells the best story in the best way. IMO, no other SR game comes close to the characters, dialogue, and progression that SR1 pulled off.
@@Kwaj I don't think confirming voodoo magic to be real in the Saints Row universe is fine at all. I think having a gang which believes in voodoo magic is fine but giving Sunshine actual supernatural powers is going too far. That little scene always bugs me. I wish it didn't exist.
"Some people liked the characters..." ...Who? Who honestly, genuinely, without a hint of irony, or without being compensated to do so in some way, liked _ANY_ of the characters in the reboot?
Shill critics or the dumb milennia audience the game tried to appeal to. Even old fans ABHOR, and SCORN whatever-the-fuck that weren't Johnny Gat, Pierce and Shaundi.
I don't know where I heard it, but my favorite review of this game was someone saying that this is the kind of game the old Saints Row would have relentlessly made fun of.
Probably someone in the comments of the first trailer. The only thing that made it look like a Saints Row game is that one of the characters said "Fuck" at one point. Otherwise you could have fooled people into thinking that it was a Fortnite expansion.
The new characters would have been perfect for a like 20 minute long intro heist mission that taught controls and stuff before the real saints show up and blow them up and take the goods.
It would have been a solid parody of the shitty reboot movies like Ghostbusters.
I think you're thinking of critical nobody
this new saints row was made by people who only lived on twitter in a nutshell and no one who lives on twitter is even "cool".
At the start of the game I thought the Nahuali or whatever his name was, would be the guy you partner up with and get rid of the other morons to start an empire... He seemed to be more of a saint than anyone else in the game
"We're looking for writers, what can you do?"
"School debt jokes"
"YOU'RE HIRED"
How about them student loans?! HAHAHAHAHAHA
@@rowleyryan9025" CaPiTlIsM" am I right my fellow millennials.😂😂😂
@@rowleyryan9025 I don't know about you, but I want to play a video game that reminds me how shitty my life is. Perfect escapism there.
So annoyed these "haha, being poor, amirite?" Jokes that have plagued Hollywood are bleeding into video games now like with this and forspoken
Eh I found them funny and relatable.
“Some liked the new characters and others didn’t” really undersells how many DIDNT like them
Rarely anyone liked these characters. Many people were hoping that these new characters will get the sweet relief of death
I’ve genuinely never seen a single person say they were well crafted characters.
no nazi troll some people did like the characters i'm one of em.
nah plenty of people liked them, Twitter is not real life jackass@@Yoshixandir
@@CrystalDavis-e8iBait used to be believable.
A very depressing part of Volition's closing that might have been mentioned already, but should still be mentioned just in case, is that it puts the fate of the Saint's Row 2 PC patch that IdolNinja, a huge figure in the Saint's Row modding community, was working on with Volition before he passed away *at best* in jeopardy, at worst essentially throwing away the work this man put in during his last years.
@@lumirairazbyte9697 Wow Voltion and Embracer really played themselves.
This hurts my heart... I was really rootin' for IdolNinja, and hoping that someone would have been able to continue where he left off.
@@TKBoldThe world refused to change.
Someone supposedly from Volition came out a while ago saying there was only ever 2 employees working on that patch and Idol may have been one of them or the two were working for him. But I'm sure they got snagged up when things got tough for SR2022. Absolute shame, the whole story. I was an adult when SR launched, but SR2 was still a formative experience to me and I still replay it every couple years
uncultured svine @@Dionaea_floridensis
The biggest problem with this game outside of technical issues is the overwhelming sense of shame that it clearly bears regarding its own past.
@@heroncolby2842shame yah this whole game reeks of being embarrassed of the franchise
This comment hit the damn nail on the head. The top brass didn't want to make a Saints game, everyone else did. The end result is this abomination that never should have existed.
Sad, that Saints Row started as Grand Theft Auto clone and never amounted to anything more than that, even 15+ years later.
@@Lobsterwithinternetthey even got rid of the dildo bat
@@ofironboundflame5117I wouldn't call it a saints row clone. But took inspiration from it. Because u can only do some much to differ from other games with the same concept. And in my opinion crime games are popular. The irony though is that one of the creators of saints row said they would top GTA and make it more offensive and not give a fuck. But ended up as of now less of all that compared to GTA as of now. Unless GTA 6 ends up topping saints row at being pussies and throwing away the original standards of GTA. I like both titles and grew up playing them. But they are listening and being taken over by the wrong people.
shame my ass troll
So... at one point, they wanted to make a realistic, down-to-earth story... that was completely off-the-wall and swarming with magic robots?
So they're proactive, huh?
Sounds like FLCL
And you should win things by watching!
Reminds me of that scene from the Simpsons when they were asking for ideas for Itching and Scratchy...
@@Wolfknight16
Reiner Wolfcastle: "That's the joke."
This episode was particularly depressing, although it leaves out the poor PR the game had. Volition's social media accounts were dismissing and outright insulting fans of the original series, saying stuff like how the writing of the older games wouldn't fly today. That pretty much killed any chance the game had to build up goodwill and eventually have some level of fan support.
Right!? Saints Row is a series that lived and died by the will of its core fanbase. It's really not that popular with randos, so they bit the hand that fed them.
your pfp looks like a mii of the postal dude
That's basically PR 101 för the last few years. Blame everything on your customers, call them -ists and -phobes and assume you'll get new "better" people to replace them.
Many companies and entire industries must collaps apparently, before it sinks in that it is a bad way to run PR
Don't forget they straight up called their fans terrorists
Exactly, they were fighting a losing battle from the start.....why they thought it was a good look to be fighting with your fanbase I don't know
It wasn't just a bad Saints Row game, it was a bad game in general
With Saint's Row, I cannot stress enough how much I despise the chronic gaslighting of what made 2 great and it's it's identity, it wasn't it's wackyness or being a 'comedy' GTA, it was it's ability to be witty with excellent use of dry humour not a constant reliance of constant gags.
It reminds me a lot of when Dead Rising 3 and 4 devs thought that simply dressing your character up in a banana hammock is enough to satisfy the 'quirkiness' threshold whilst missing the entire point of what made the franchise charming.
oh please it was not "gaslighting" at all nazi troll, DR3 and 4 were awesome and plenty charming fool.
Galighting is a made up concept, doesn't exist
I think the poop spraying minigame flies in the face of that.
@@EvilDoresh exactly, like it or not a reboot was pretty much the only way left to go at this point.
genuinely. everyone rides 3's dick but it was already downhill from there. 2 was the best one
A Volition member I follow mentioned something especially shitty about the the studio's closure: Embracer happened to shut it down on August 31st. Since it was the last day of the month, that meant none of the employees would have insurance after being laid off. If Embracer waited just one more day, the staff would have had insurance for all of September.
FYI when you get fired you do not get to keep your insurance till the end of the month. It stops immediately
@@megadeth-1a885
COBRA?
Healthcare Insurance tied to your job lmao. What will America think of next!
That sucks so much, jesus
I mean... If it were the rest of the year, that's one thing, but that employee would probably complain no matter what. They could have shut down August 15th and I think that employee would have had only two weeks of insurance. I don't know, at what point does "We don't exist anymore" become a valid excuse, and a month of insurance isn't your biggest concern?
Something tells me that the Embracer Group will be frequently showing up on What Happened going forward.
So basically Saint Row is like the bootleg version of Saint Row?
Exactly!
It's essentially an Ouroboros at this point
It is the personification of the guy riding a bicycle while putting a stick in the front wheel meme.
@@samtheactualkenku6205the pokemon or the digimon ?
@@black-fenrir35 the mythological serpent
In regards to the first official reveal, the negative reaction wasn't totally because it was a full reboot. When the developers first said they were making a new Saints Row, they championed the fact it would be a "return to the roots." Many fans were expecting it to be more about gang warfare rather than the "friendship" vibe the reveal trailer gave off.
friendship is fine
Exactly
Aparently not, since the game sucked ass and the story was infuriating.
@@unverifiedbiotic nah game and story were good.
@@CrystalDavis-e8ibro, are you high?
This sounds like a MASSIVE failure of management.
Don’t forget the infamous public relations statement of “if you don’t like it, don’t buy it.” Great move. Great response to criticism.
The fact that this needs to be spelled out is ridiculous. That phrase will never win anybody over. Nobody is changing their mind. What was the expectation? “Oh, well now I just /have/ to buy it.” No. Nobody wants to give anyone money after that.
And here I thought 'Don't like, don't read' was just for fanfic descriptions to avoid negative reviews.
What did they have to do? A lot of early negative reactions I've seen were basically racists complaining the new default Boss was a black woman in the cinematic launch trailer, but calling out racism in "gamers" means you lose even if you are right, silence would basically only leave the complainers and probably whoever did the marketing had to make them say something, *anything* and sure as hell you can't say "sorry, we'll do better" when it's *that* kind of criticism.
@@det.bullock4461 You put quotes on the wrong word, it should be on "racism".
it's a fair point though nazi troll.
idiot@@Qaianna
I'd actually love to see a What Happened? with Embracer Group. While this tale is still being told, it's so far been a beautiful example of how to screw over dozens of people's livelihoods as well as an industry as a whole by some margin.
What happened is they bought a worthless studio run by morons. This video confirms it was the devs who ruined the franchise. Idiot writers and internal churn led to multiple delays, and crunch time because they missed timelines.
Not sure if "by some margin" you mean "in order to gain some margin of profit", which is probably the case as well
@TheOneTrueChuck You do know for any tragedy to reach the upper executives, there will be a bloodbath in the lower workers. Usually, the correct approach is to wish a slow and steady down fall with plenty of time for everyone to fulfill their exit strategies.
And yet I still trust them more with the Deus Ex IP than I trust Squeenix. I hope the current dumpster fire doesn't take Embracer down completely.
@@DotDuskAre you seriously lecturing someone on the “correct approach” to hoping a company fails?!
Wow. Just wow.
Saints Row 2022 is a masterpiece example of self-destructing mediocrity.
How dare you say such a thing! Mediocrity deserves to be held to a better standard! 😂
the whole franchise was mediocre at its best
@@zac-1but but... saints row 2 tho
@@zac-1i bet you only played gat out of hell
@@zac-1you clearly must have been one of the people screaming back when sr1&2 came out that the game was nothing but a "gta clone"
This game is a prime example on how NOT to reboot a game series.
all they had to do is make it like sr2 what a bunch of retards going against the fans and thinking you will be successfull it doesn't work like that!!
This one, and the Bomberman reboot
no nazi troll
nah this one is good@@brendanboomhour7606
It’s an example on how not to make a video game
In the time it took to make this video, Volition isnt even the latest casualty anymore, now Crystal Dynamics is facing layoffs too. Embracer group is completely imploding
They gambled on a deal that wasn't finalized.
I’m not sure why they asked for billions just to purchase all these studios and IPs only to try begging investors again when they have no money to actually make the games
Beamdog, the studio behind Baldur’s Gate is also laying people off and “restructuring”. Of course they’re under Embracer Group as well, just like Gearbox Entertainment, Volition and Crystal Dynamics.
It’s like the bad gift that keeps on giving.
We NEED a sequel, this is grade A prime time WhaHappun material
@@original__gmebvy The team behind a rather controversial remaster of the Bioware Baldur's Gates. Certainly not Larion.
Even if it came out bug-free, this game was doomed. The garbage story, wholely unlikeable protagonists, and the mindnumbingly insulting treatment of their core audience guaranteed this would not succeed.
Imagine you’re a developer trying to make a good game while your games Twitter is screaming at fans and belittling them. God that’s gotta be a downer
That'd be sad if the game was at least decent.
The twitter was fine
The Twitter was shit
@@darthgamer9861yeah harassing people them is why yall got the replies from them
The game was being developed into junk and fans were ringing the warning bells early on. Asking for improvement. Volition had the power to listen and course correct. They failed to do so. They are not absolved of fault.
And while the team was busy trying to make the game the best they could due to the circumstences they were in, the community manager was calling people 'terrorists' because they didn't like the direction the game was taking.
Actually it’s because like one mf threatened to shoot her and the Volition offices in an edgy joke (Saints Row Dominatrix AKA Dom)
But that was only like one dude and a couple others that went that extreme
@@SOBEKCrocodileGod Painting an entire community as that when only a few people did it, will inevitably turn people against you, especially if you're *the community manager.*
In this case, it is one's job to handle the community with nuance and maturity where need be. Something they did not do.
@@BhazorThat doesnt sound like it meets the Brandenburg standards at all. So just an edgy joke... in line with the classic franchise
@@SOBEKCrocodileGod "If school shooters exist everyone must be a school shooter" Logic
@@thanecawdor1962 I mean a threat like that ain’t something to joke about. The issue is she painted a large amount of people as if they said that shit when it was only a very small few
Man, i remember interacting with the Volition twitter, and the way they responded to fans was terrible
some fans were being bigoted shitheads and deserved being shit on
I don't think they could've patched that horrible story and writing.
I mean they actually kind of tried doing just that. Apparently one of the patches took out certain lines. Like when your character just keeps yelling about balls in the beginning of the game. It obviously wasn't enough.
@@FormalGibble"one of the funniest jokes in the game" said a developer.
Their reaction to the fanbase not liking what is presented was getting snarky and calling them out, which anyone that saw how DmC went could tell how that one goes as it turns out making the EXISTING fanbase not want to play goes badly.
Also, tbf to DmC, ignoring the one off joke from Dante about his hair, which is honestly not that bad in a vacuum, DmC was honestly pretty good with it's only problem that it was being turned into a reboot and not just a separate part of the DMC universe or it's own thing. Meanwhile Saints row could have been it's own thing and it still would have sucked
@@SapphireKnight675 Well, if you're out there calling the game "woke" and wanna blame "DiVeRsiTy" for this game's failure then yeah.. you're an istaphob. Truth hurts. 🤷
"Haters gonna hate"
Then again, when you have the worst of the worst making the most noise (especially online), it's kind of no surprise why certain creators, companies, etc have such a low opinion on fandoms.
Just take big franchises like Star Wars, for example, and how the most obnoxious and frankly toxic members, not only helped ruin a child actor's future career, but essentially played a part in George Lucas selling off the IP to Disney.
"I don't like a thing"
"You're wrong"
Name a more iconic pipeline to PR nightmares
Did not help that game that the people working on Saints Row kept attacking the customer base!
Almost every minute I spent playing this game I was wishing the old saints would randomly show up and kill these new characters.
@@Apul549COPE
Yeah, me too. I still wish that
That may have redeemed the game a tiny bit since these characters sucked. What’s worse is they killed the song love shack since they sang it horribly
not me nazi troll
You missed out on the “haters gonna hate” twitter incident
not worth covering those people were losers
@@CrystalDavis-e8i yes the fans of the game are losers, clearly they didn't understand how to make a good video game like Saints Row(2022).
the hardcore stans who were spewing thinly veiled bigotry and hatred are in fact losers yes, being a "Fan" of something does not automatically give you cart blanche to act like an entitled gatekeeping elitist dickhead.@@JayBord
@JayBord yeah the people who complain about wokeness and diversity are lovers and don't deserve to be listened to
@@CrystalDavis-e8iyou respond to every comment even remotely critical of this game or the shot PR it had, seems like you're way more of a loser than anyone who just didn't like the game.
The snarky smug responses they made to fan criticism certainly didn't earn them much favor.
“Some people liked the characters, but others didn’t”. Please point to the people that thought the Millennial Twitter Cringe Crew were good characters? It sounds more like you’re just trying to be fair lol
Saints Row 2022's story is beyond salvage, they would need a complete rewrite to even make any improvement matters.
I disagree, there are ways to make a good story with the current cast and some big changes. But that would require skilled writers... and history is history.
@@DotDuskI agree, nothing is above fixing when it comes to writing
It's a classic case of millennial writing, borderlands 3 was one of many games that suffered from it as well.
@@Dionaea_floridensis 🧯😷 don't inhale too much at once. This one is medical grade.
@@DotDusk That is what a rewrite is. They'd have to change everything, from the character designs (Like Eli and Neenah) to their personalities not being just goofy kids, to them actually being gangsters, and not making the Boss act so pathetic and the enemy gangs actually characters. They'd have to redesign the world so it feels like a real narcostate and not whatever that bs is with the giant Larping convention randomly in the story. Get rid of the cat, the boardgames, the waffle makers... a lot needs to be changed.
This game definitely deserved a "What Happened?" video. Especially with the recent news that the studio has now closed.
To literally no one’s surprise
And nothing of value was lost.
Flat out insulting their consumers when they're asking for a traditional Saints Row experience really bit them in the rear. They get no sympathy from me.
Well, that's what you get when sitting on your high horse while talking down to and treating paying customers and fans like shit.
Deep Silver allegedly did this. I want to know what happened to that SR2.5.
I mean lets be honest. This saints row game was only the latest bomb that Volition had. Anyone remember Agents of Mayhem? The writing was on the wall for them. I dont know if they deserve as much "good faith credit" as Matt is giving them. Legit, the last 'successful' game they had was Saints 4, and that was straight up a decade ago now.
What happened? The devs insulted the original series fans and writing and tried to "update" the franchise to be "better"
The endcredits thank the Redditmoderators. That should tell you enough about the attitude the devs had towards the fans.
Lmaoo did they actually? The reddit mods who removed any criticism of the game lol, that's fuckin funny.
@@realCyng Reddit mods AND Discord mods
@@Dionaea_floridensis It is. The best part is that posts mentioning it on the Reddit page have also been removed.
@@Dionaea_floridensisit's true check end credits
so what nazi troll?
The first idea they had to continue off from SR4 would be the best choice. They could have had that the Saints used the Time Machine that was in one of the SR4 endings but they needed to build up the gang from scratch which would have returned to the gang fight that SR1 - 3 had.
It'd be a hell of a writing task, but now I'm imagining them doing this over multiple eras. Still, that does sound like an interesting game, with a logical reason why you Lost All Your Prior Stuff.
Orrr a hybrid remake fusing the story of SR1 and 2
I saw the teaser trailer and I was happy about them coming back then as soon as I saw the trailer with the "new saints" I was thinking 'oh no' then hearing the creators say they created gangsters you wanted to "invite into your home" I knew it was dead
Lol, hadn't hear that one.
Gangsters I'd invite into my home? The Buttercream gang?!
Isn't that supposed to be a godfather thing? Gangsters I want to invite into my home would be pretty mild mannered, unlikely to be the type to spray an entire downtown sector with a liquid shit septic cannon.
I remember they said shit like "wanting you to relate to the characters", which uhhh, no. They are gangster, we don't want to relate to gangsters, why were you trying to make gang members "relatable".
@@buddygettingnutty8351 Bad take. A gangster is still a human and a well written one can still be relatable. I was able to relate with CJ, Niko, and Franklin and the the elder Vance brother. And to a lesser extent Tommy even.
@@buddygettingnutty8351he is shirtless we don’t know why wasn’t that also a quote?
Biggest flop of the year every body saw coming
Man I never realized companies would tie bonuses to Metacritic scores. Thats straight up fucked
I was going to say it comes across like they're trying to find ANY excuse to not pay their employees adequately, but that's probably giving them too much credit. They probably ACTUALLY think it's a fair deal, and that's terrifying.
Imagine not getting a christmas bonus because a fucktard from IGN didn't know how to escape an Alien.
that's been known about for a while now, i remember hearing about it around the time New Vegas came out and missed its target metacritic score due to the game's bugs and crashes at launch
essentially, all the things that one just kind of expects from a Bethesda game using the Gamebryo or Creation Engine
@@sofiaciel7599something that is talked about a bit less is the fact that they also had their production budget cut midway through, and they had their release date move to be earlier than they originally were supposed to have when they asked for an extension because they were not too far behind, but they realize they were having some issues. The other thing a lot of people don't like to talk about is that Bethesda deliberately would have other studios that they work with being put in situations that would cause them to rapidly run out of money to try and force them into bankruptcy so they could buy them up. They deliberately try to put obsidian out of business so they could acquire them.
it explains why devlopers complain so much about their game scores. It literally is what ensures they get properly paid or not. Which leaves but devlopers and jounralist in a shitty situlation. No one wants to be resposbile on if someone gets rightfully paid or not based on their opinion on a game.
there was that little thing about the Volition Community Manager calling fans that didn't agree with the new direction "terrorists". That was a fun time.
well some were Jan 6th supporters soooooo
@@CrystalDavis-e8i even if they were, which I don't care because I'm not american, they're still not terrorists. Only people I saw just wanted to return to classic SR2
@@headspaceastronaut "terrorist supporters" maybe fits the bill better? i'm not in ISIS i just think they're pretty cool ya know
@@headspaceastronaut well you should care nazi troll and yes that are terrorists moron.
@@spht9ng exactly my point
Never played a single SR game before but all the stories echoed about this latest entry will definitely make this an intriguing episode. Feeling sorry for all longtime SR fans.
I will try to give a fast recap.
SR1 and 2 started as a GTA clone with small scope stories. As GTA grew to be more reasonable and centered in realism, SR found a niche in unrealism. SR2 and 3 formed a huge chasm in the player base as the game was getting more cartoonish and over the top, however it attracted a wider audience due to its quirkiness. During SR4 and Gat out of Hell, the possibility for progression started to exhaust and reboot was necessary. Volition tried to please both generations of gamers by aiming at the middle ground while trying to attract a third more modern audience. They failed. The 1st and 2nd generation fans felt ostracized and the 3rd generation wasn't big enough to sustain the game. This is the story on a conceptual level, the technical problems further cemented the end of the series.
If you want to know how good the writing quality was in the old games despite their "wacky" nature, then look up "Jessica's death scene". Absolutely brutal. It showed how the protagonist really wasn't fucking around anymore and wasn't afraid of doing heinous stuff to send a message. Still sticks with me almost 20 years later. Obviously its far more impactful if you've played the whole gsme leading up to it and gotten to know jessica as a character despite her being the girlfriend of a rival gang's boss. What happened to her was rooouuughhhhh.
Luckily, the original Saints Row games will never get old for those of us who love them. Volition captured lightning in a bottle, then promptly lost it, replaced with some dusty bottle of everclear an intern found in the basement.
@@austin..... Its still under a publisher that only sees it as a cash-grab and not a product for its fans.
@@GeteMachine The original saints row games were nothing like the reboot. I suggest checking them out- they’re wonderful games and have infinite replay value.
What happened was hiring writers from tiktok
I kept hearing its defenders saying "It's not that bad", "Give it a try before you judge it", etc., so I bought a physical copy for $15 on PS5 and it's every bit as bad as people said, if not worse. From the characters, to the storytelling, to the gameplay, to the missions, to the graphics, I couldn't find anything positive about it. The cutscenes looked so cheaply done, too. SR3 did cutscenes a lot better. This game sucked. Quite frankly, Agents of Mayhem is a better game. It looks and plays better.
When the PC version of SR2 came out, it was *incredibly* janky. But behind that jank, there was still a story and characters that made me want to see where the whole thing was going, and some game-play innovations that rewarded persistence. The reboot just didn't have that.
I dont think people realize saying "not that bad" isnt a good defense since it still means it is bad lol
Agents of Mayhem wasn't terrible.
It wasn't good, mind you
But that's like a 5/10 game
This, this is like a 2/3
@@1stCallipostle2 out of 3 is a better score than 5 out of 10
@@channel45853 You ever heard of agreeing with something, but tacking more on?
I can count, fucko.
It's very clearly a 2/3 out of 10.
Edit: Don't be that guy.
I live two blocks from Volition or... what was Volition. I ran a small shop nearby and many of them were customers of mine. Most of them were fantastic people who truly did love the work they did. They had a bit of a hard time "connecting with the kids" but man... they were good folks who'd been in the industry a long time. Everyone who was paying attention knew what was going to happen WAY before the general public and we heard about the folks leaving. It's sad to happen to any studio caught in the mega-conglomerate dumb-assery, but a studio as old and influential as Volition? It's heartbreaking. Special Shout out to all the little local touches they put into SR4 including a recreation of a 40 year old costume shop that closed forever in 2020 so SR4 is the only place to experience it now.
Their mistake, which is as old as time, is to have old people trying to "connect with the kids". That's why this game has such terrible writing, which sounds like a satire/insult of Generation Z.
@@OwlLock189no, it’s self aggrandizing Millennial shit that doesn’t realize it’s horribly cringe
The dogshit attempt at relating to people born from 95-08 (Gen Z) is that Millennials still think how they acted 10 years ago is funny and cool
@@OwlLock189 Agree. If you're gunna try to "connect with the kids" you need to hire "the kids" to help out.
@@LeviathanSteamworks I love these kinds of comments... mainly because they try to be wholesome for no apparent reason and most likely a lie , and if this comment is true then its pointless do you expect these people to simply come to your store and start yelling and breaking things , Every developer loves what they're working on its the hire ups that takes the decisions though and you just having a store nearby doesn't mean anything you don't know whats going on truly in the workplace!
@@madduckling4436shit like this makes me believe gamers just want to be bitter and hateful, like really fucking badly
Maybe if they listened to the fans criticisms after the reveal instead of getting on Twitter and posting "haters gonna hate" and completely downplaying it it may have done better.
I mean what did they expect? Everybody hated the characters and tone of the game and they did absolutely nothing to address it.
From what i had seen of the story/writting, nothing but a rewrite would have fixed the game. It is unfortunate that they can shut down due to things outside of their control though.
Sounds like a rewrite is what destroyed it. Just a soft reboot following SR4 and Gat Out of Hell would probably have sold decently with fans, instead the writers and staff decided to not only destroy their own setting, they mocked fans and threw away any good will they had.
Even a rewrite would’ve only partially fixed the game
@@SOBEKCrocodileGod well, a game can survive by having a bad story, or bad gameplay. They can't not have both.
@@SOBEKCrocodileGodneeded a whole overhaul.
a full rewrite might have fixed the story. sure as shit wouldn't have fixed all of the gameplay issues, or polished out the myriad of bugs and performance issues at launch.
My brother play-tested this game and said that he obviously was trying to go hard in the open world (blowing shit up, shooting everyone, and causing all around chaos) he said the developers came in and asked him to cool it basically. Lol. He said all the NPCs would t-pose and glitch into the ground when killed. He said one of the ending questions they asked was "how would you feel if this game was released in its current state?" Apparently, they did release the game in that current state. 😂
Big part of it, volition lost sight of what made SR so successful. Then said "if you dont like it fuck off" then people fucked off and it failed
The fact it started development in 2017 and this is what we got is absolutely crazy.
Gorilla shit crazy
I'll never understand why Volition thought it was a good idea to turn the Saints into annoying millennial hipsters.
god that early idea sounds so much better than what they went with
You could not pay me enough to play this game for 50-60 hours a week. That QA team needs a raise
Came out for "PS Plus". Didn't even bother to try it 🤮
Years ago, I was about 25 or so hanging out on my buddy's floor. I was in a bad place, lost alot of my family, it was messy and hard to cheer me up. He always played games on his pc on his tv and I watched him, basically just background noise. He turned on his TV and picked up his controller, and about 5 mins later I was fuckin GLUED to the TV. He didnt make a big deal about it before I noticed, he wanted me to see it for myself as opposed to trying to set up the experience. It was the first time I ever heard of Saints Row, and it was Saints Row 3. He started a new game knowing how I would react. We played all night. Jumping out of helecopters to Kanye's Power gives me goose bumps. Im a firm believer that day was the day I turned my depression around, so I have a very special place for SR.
I like how they just never considered going back to the roots of 1 and 2 like the fans have been asking since 3. Goes to show that they really didn't care about the fans at all, they wanted new ones
no lying nazi troll
They wanted to sniff their own farts and make up pronouns.
@@cuntohaire burn in hell worthless nazi catch u next tuesday, they/them pronouns exists deal with it loser, i'm guessing you failed English class LOL
They did though, it was Deep Silver that ruined the reboot. Volition wanted to make SR2.5 and bring back old characters like Dex but Deep Silver wanted everything gone and remade.
@@cuntohaireno they got sick of being called a GTA clone.
Besides the third and fourth game doesn't have the spraying poo on property
It is like ignoring the fact that San Andreas had adult toys you could use on NPCs along with flowers. Saints row doesn't even have that
I hope the writers of this game never get another chance to stink up another game franchise in the future.
In Jamaica, there are hundreds of abandoned/unfinished houses and buildings. What happens is people/companies get enough money to start the project but then can't get more to finish.
That's what gaming has become. Just an ocean of shitty, unfinished "AAA" games.
I played this to 100% on stream when it released and it was one of the most brutal gaming experiences I've ever had... and I speedrun The Quiet Man!
you have the right to just stop if it is too painfull.
That type of self harm isn't healthy, you can always talk to someone whenever you want.
Literal Poochy main characters. Our characters are cool, take our word for it.
At least you can our stupid story in the quiet man. Saints row is painfully bad.
Playing the game sounds like cruel and unusual punishment
They mocked their fans and didnt listen to them.
Who would have thought fans wouldnt buy it?
S O F T
@@ONIMOT100C R I N G E
@@Frankenstein0617 S O F T
As for me?
C H A D
I disagree that they mocked fans of Volition, at most they mocked fans of Saints Row
@@darthgamer9861 Sit down, lil bro
Outta curiosity, was there a reason you didn't mention the actual group BEHIND the Embracer deal? Because I don't think they ever actually kept it a secret beyond that very first announcement.
To those unaware, it was a firm called Savvy Games.... a firm in Saudi Arabia, with backing by the Saudi Government.
Embracer caught a lot of heat when that got formally announced because people were naturally concerned about the company's values being influenced by a particularly brutal borderline-theocractic government with a history of mass scale human rights violations. Given Embracer is one of many to fall into ESG nonsense, this was quite possibly the stupidest idea imaginable. The deal probably DID fall through due to games like SR2022 that were, in some cases literally, "violently left-leaning" and were wholly antithetical to the values of the Saudi regime.
So basically, Embracer didn't JUST make the ridiculously absurd blunder of banking on money from a single deal to save them from an excess of over-purchasing studios that now needed to be funded, but they decided to go with the ONE option that presented itself that had a high likelihood to be foundationally incompatible with what they wanted to do. It's be like making a deal to save your company, then announcing you're going to make a game about how much you love Atheism and how much you hate God, and then being surprised when your would-be-business partner, Vatican City, suddenly gets back to you and says "Yeah I don't think we're interested anymore."
ESG?
Saints row wasn’t left leaning it was just stupid & out of touch , what are you talking about
@@Reynsoon ideology based investment check blackrock and larrry fink in particular talking about how he's dumped billions into "changing how people think" (spoiler this was a stupid plan and he's gained nothing from it)
@mrcontrarian1416 then why do all the characters in game talk about how bad capitalism is and they need their liberal arts degree debt paid off
@@mrcontrarian1416Sants Row 22 is supper left leaning my god one of the main characters is a vegan trying to create a post capitalist classless society what did you need the final boss to be sentient capitalism for you to know notice
It fells like attacking your own fanbase and calling them haters isn't a very cash money thing to do.
Eliminating cancer is the obvious choice simply because it's way way easier. After all, we know what causes world hunger. There's a lot of random cancer types that we can't do much of anything about.
But panda burgers.
how to end world hunger is really easy
ua-cam.com/video/P0q4o58pKwA/v-deo.html
There are more obese people than starving people in the world today.
BUT you can also choose to help under-developed countries; "Feeding the Hungry" is intended as making them self-sustainable, also solving problems like political instability and massive migrations. We can choose to ignore first-world problems for once.
Not to mention, we would free the funds we use to subsidize aids to those countries and reroute them to cancer research!
😁😁
Now, what about the choices of punching a d*** head or punch a d*** in the head?
The cast of main characters looks like Starbucks employees
Some guys from Volition did a guest lecture in one of my classes in college. They showed some footage from the punisher game that got them an original A-rating for the game the first era submission.
All they needed to do was do a full remake of saints row 2.
The story of Volition is a sad one for sure but I think people blame the publisher a bit too much at times. Deep Silver is certainly responsible for most of the troubles on this production but Volition already was having issues even trying to get concepts out the door.
It was very clear that much of their creative staff that helped SR2 happen had left and with GTA5 kind of stealing their thunder, they were shackled to a franchise that was loosing steam and with Agents Of Mayhem being a halfhearted attempt to branch out, the writing was on the wall long before THQ’s collapse.
If the bugs were the only problem with Saint's Row. The game was just unlikeable all around. And the marketing was directly attacking people instead of trying to sell the product. They made themselves unlikeable to the public in every corner they could.
It's very unfortunate that marketing branches are often largely divorced from the people making the product and often resented by those people. I used to work in product development and the thing we resented about the marketing teams were that if the product was a big success they'd get the vast majority of praise and if it didn't? Clearly that's the development teams fault.
I feel bad for any product screwed over by shitty marketing, because the people making it rarely have any control over how the product is sold to people.
I had to pause when he quoted that some people liked the characters amd others didn't. While the statement is going to be technically true about anything, these characters struggle to have even 1 dimension, self-aggrandising hypocrites written as underdogs but not capable of failure, vehicles for humour too safe to land.
Trailer reaction too. When I saw it live, I had no idea it was Saints Row until the title came up at the end. The designs are simply incorrect for the world. I was praying that somehow we'd be playing what turned out to be (the) Los Panteros.
That ending with Embracer Group is the part that's particularly defeating.
Imagine "Gangsters" complaining about paying Studet loans....
It's like a bad version of the movie killing them softly
They tried appealing to the 1% instead of listening to their fans and it’s failed epically, no sympathy from such a stupid developer decision.
The absolute PR disaster that was sr's social media certainly didn't do the game any good. Regardless of what happened with Embracer group, Volition only have themselves to blame for the game's failure
They insulted the fans for having concerns of the game, changed all the brands that made the humor great in the first games, Epic exclusive as well. Not saying it could have been saved if it was on Steam day one. but I would have supported it! now they want to bring it to steam a year later and still charge full price while it was free on PS+. It sure didn't end well for them.
The Volition closure was completely set in stone long before the Steam release.
@@mokinokaro yeah, it was just a chain of a lot of things. Sure, the steam issues probably had minimal effect. But the issue still stands on how they didn't care about the fans at all
R.I.P. Professor Genki, you were the best there ever was.
Plus, everyone forgot the ending of 4 and Gat, where the world did a reset and all went back like everything never happened.
would have been a perfect time to remaster 1 and 2.
The ending of 4 showed everything to be a movie, and I am still wondering how people just assume they have to continue from that. Just make one where Gat gets sick of the corporate Saints and starts new. That was never off the table, but Volition bungled it and now they are gone.
@@ryutenken1I agree or actually make a reboot with close ties to the first two games. The first two were a perfect balance of being serious and goofy.
Imo SR3 is the start of the franchises downfall. I still enjoyed it but I didn't like the direction they were going with it.
That lead into Agents of Mayhem.
Agents of Mayhem was the second soft reboot of the Saints Row franchise, as it slid in after the reboot end of Gat Out of Hell in the timeline, which talks about Brimstone and has Johnny Gat as a cop. Saints Row The Third was the first soft reboot.
The original idea for Saints Row (2022) was to reboot based on the time machine that was referred to at the end of Saints Row 4. Other than the end credits images gag of the characters using the time machine, they never refer to it again in Gat Out of Hell.
agreed but for some reason they made a 3 again. I do not understand how people dont see this 2022 is 3.@@ryutenken1
I'd like to see a video on A Hat In Time. It's a great example of one dedicated and talented team working hard and overcoming all sorts of problems. There were characters scrapped, endings scrapped, an entire world scrapped, a Wii U version that vaporised, a controversy about one of the voices, and yet it still released and fucking ruled.
oh yeah joj troj who's just gone full mask off
A HIT was so good that after buying the PS4 version and beating it I got the PC one as well, with it's level mods there was so much more hours of content added. And to think that a meme of the main character dancing to vibe music is what got me interested.
WAIT THERE WAS A WIIU VERSION?!
@@fruitjuice225 As far as I remember, for the longest time they were planning a Wii U version, but as development drew on, it became increasingly obvious that a Wii U version wasn't do-able. I swear they shared pictures of a janky as hell early Wii U build that makes it very clear why they pulled the plug on that.
@sleeplessindefatigable6385
Oh wow, the wiiu just can't stop getting loses huh.
One of the problems was when so many people voiced how they didn't like the direction they went with after the trailer was announced and some gameplay showed. The company just weren't listening and labelled all the people who didn't like it as 'trolls' and 'haters'
Who knew having a budget 4x that of SR3 and selling 1/3rd of the copies might end in your company being shut down.
I don't feel sorry at all for Volition's shut down. The game had no direction at first, and when they found one, not only was it universally panned, but the PR team went out of their way to insult the fans of the original and anyone complaining about this direction, and brag about those fancy E3 awards that meant nothing in the end. They did this to themselves.
I saw some of the writing of saints row, I do not believe that everyone was giving their best
That’s sort of the crappy thing about it, that really was their best. Times are changing and the developers and people in charge nowadays are not of quality.
@@alandanielsaucedo5066 The reboot is essentially the video game equivalent of the "How do you do, fellow kids?" meme.
"Haters gonna hate" and Saudi Arabia, that what happen.
It's amazing how poorly the Volition social media handlers tank any goodwill toward this remake, to go against the old fans, and potential buyers has to be one of if not *the* worst ways to go about customers
They didn't fully dig their own grave, they received the shovel from Embracer but they decided to keep digging, shout out to the writing and character team!! you guys did a horrible job
With several restarts under the development’s belt, that’s bound to happen. Duke Nukem Forever ring a bell? And it sounds like they kinda had to stick with the narrative Embracer was giving them. Not much choice if you wanna stay at your job for the meantime.
yup they set off most people alarm bells and then leaned into it instead of trying to sell people on the new stuff
*Embracer media managers. They weren't Volition employees.
It wasn't only that
The first trailer already gave major hints of "How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?" energy with those character designs.
And it all got worse over the course of the game... its seen to be this companys are hiring writters from twitter.
There's no polishment that could save a game that the entire setting seems to be made over zoomer tiktok culture.
Well, SR 2022 had something amazing about it - it united the feuding fans of SR 1-4 against it.
not really no troll, after SR4 felt like a lazy cash grab this came as a relief.
I liked how the anonymous developer blamed the publisher because "people couldn't preorder it" and not that they didn't make something people wanted to preorder.
It sounds like development was just generally hell. Adding a preorder bonus on top of that with so much crunch would make it worse.
Of course it’s the publisher’s fault. They can delay the damn thing!
Exactly. When I heard the trailer had come out, I was excited for more Saints Row. Then I watched the trailer, and decided I wasn't going to preorder it. Nothing I saw after that gave me any reason to change my mind.
Antagonizing the fanbase and making something that didn't really satisfy neither SR 1 - 2 and 3 - 4 also didn't help
I hope one day we get a What Happened? For Google Stadia
Rest in peace, Volition. You gave us one of the most hilariously awesome games of all time last decade, and for that, you have my eternal gratitude.
Saint row 2 and 3 were peak gaming
@@acem9947
You can throw Red Faction Guerrilla in there too. I’m replaying it since it came out in 2009 and forgot just how much fun it is to blow everything up.
The fact this game made it past a story board shows how fuck the gaming industry is.
As a saint row fan. This felt seeing your best friend that you grew up with and loved so much turn into the worst version of themselves years later.
I know this saying is old but it really is like that.
So saddening 😢
worse version my ass
The writing was still bad, and no amount of time could've fixed it. Just overall bad decisions on the story and character side of things. Obviously the rest of the game had problems, as did the studio and bigwigs who had a stranglehold on the money, but even if the game worked perfectly and the plot was improved, it would not have saved the terrible writing and characters. NO ONE in their right mind thought this game had redeemable writing, and it wasn't because of employee turnaround or time constraints.
To be frank, even without the bugs and lack of polish the game was still cringe. I liked Saint Row 2 and Saint Row 3 for different reasons. If they could of merged the characters/environment of Saint Row 2 with some of the fun elements of Saint Row 3, I think people similar to "Bugthesda" could of forgiven them for having a buggy game. It wasn't like past Saint Row games didn't have their own issues. Issue is, we didn't get that. We got something that comes off as cringe, characters are terrible, story was meh. Even the main villain the most interesting person in the game was just terrible in the end, as his motives were stupid and made no practical sense during the final stages, final stages which should be among the best stages, now ruined by a villain with terrible motivations. Don't even get me started with the gameplay elements. The fact that Saint Row 3, 4 and SW2022 still have terrible gunplay yet some how Saint Row 2 using guns was some how more fun... still after all these years is an insult.
No one liked the characters in this game LMAO
Got this game for 5 bucks. Still feel like i got robbed
He for got to mention how they insulted the og fan base and called all fans with criticism terrorist
I kind of like the idea of a bunch of 20 to 30 something working stiffs going into a life of crime and finding themselves in over their head facing off against arrival gangs and the police. Sounds like a really compelling narrative. Too bad that's not what this game was.
Finally, the game this series was made for.
Their mistake was trying to make it a "Millennial power fantasy" and making the characters just artsy hipsters.
a damn good game
With Volition gone, my hopes of another open world Red Faction game ever happening dwindle once more.
IMO, SR3 was the “jumping the shark” moment of the entire franchise. After that it just seems that Volition became rather hesitant about going back to the more grounded style of 1 and 2.
2 was Volition’s absolute peak. They clearly wanted to compete against GTA4 and their ads showed.
I agree; SR3 was Volition's foot in the door into stuff like laser guns, super powers, alternate reality, aliens, clones, computer simulations, celebrity worship, and cringe humor.
Don't get me wrong; SR3 is hella fun, but it was here where the franchise began sliding off the rails. SR4 was absolute garbage, IMO.
@@Kwaj There are no aliens in SR3. You're thinking of SR4.
Also, SR2 already had some things that were SR3-esque. Sunshine literally uses voodoo magic on you to ragdoll your character. Ultor Exposed has you digging up corpses that were experiemented on by Ultor (pre-cursor to zombies) and Corporate Warfare is ok until the last mission where you fight ninjas and mimes. We're talking ninjas.. that teleport with smoke bombs and mimes that spawn out of a limo like it's a clown car.
Not that I disagree with you. I do think SR3 and especially 4 went way too far but it's important to remember that SR2 wasn't a super grounded realistic game.
@@theobell2002 True, but I said SR3 was the door that Volition used to get into the abject absurdity that we'd see in SR4, which was pretty much a SR3 expansion pack.
SR2 did have its quirky moments. The voodoo magic of Mr. Sunshine is fine because it seems to fit well with his character, and we only see it that one time. Other stuff like jumping from helicopters into skyscrapers and the things you mentioned are far out there but not enough to detract from the game as a whole like say... projecting your subconscious into a computer simulation to fight a giant demonic avatar with wings and a broadsword. Or getting plastic surgery to impersonate a military officer for the purpose of infiltrating an aircraft carrier. lol WTF Volition?
SR1 is the most grounded and organic game of the series, and I think it tells the best story in the best way. IMO, no other SR game comes close to the characters, dialogue, and progression that SR1 pulled off.
@@Kwaj I don't think confirming voodoo magic to be real in the Saints Row universe is fine at all. I think having a gang which believes in voodoo magic is fine but giving Sunshine actual supernatural powers is going too far. That little scene always bugs me. I wish it didn't exist.
Writing killed this game before it was even born.
"Some people liked the characters..."
...Who?
Who honestly, genuinely, without a hint of irony, or without being compensated to do so in some way, liked _ANY_ of the characters in the reboot?
Shill critics or the dumb milennia audience the game tried to appeal to. Even old fans ABHOR, and SCORN whatever-the-fuck that weren't Johnny Gat, Pierce and Shaundi.