Later Development

This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Saints Row: The Third.

2010#

January-April#

Early Gang Concepts#

These seem to be the earliest gang concepts and character, dated circa. 2009-2010 due to sharing a different style with later concept art.

Oiran and Morningstar

The Morningstar was originally two completely separate gangs, with the second being the Oiran. They had a hideout in a H-shaped building that was dedicated to them both on different sides. At that point of conception, the Morningstar was an all-male gang that handled the arms trafficking.

The Oiran was a scrapped fourth gang consisting of entirely female members, to contrast with the Morningstar, which consisted of all-male members. They originally handled the prostitution ring.¹and were lead by Japanese twins Natsuko and Yukako, which were nicknamed Suki and Yuki. Interestingly, Viola was referred to as Suko internally in the Homies.xbtl and spawn_info_ranks.xbtl files.

The gang was merged into the Morningstar to "streamline the story", and the leaders would be reworked into Kiki and Viola DeWynter, while also having their race changed to Caucasian avoid the stereotype of "badass Asian chicks that are subservient to an older man".

Oiran	Morningstar

The Oiran outfit concept would be revisited as the Genki Girls, which play a larger role in the Genkibowl VII DLC.

Deckers#

Very little is known about the Deckers' concept art, but they seemed to be more associated with punk styles than retrofuturism.

Matt Miller#

Matt Miller concept art dated January 7, 2010. He originally had a partner named Lyric.

Concept art of the main protagonist of Nyte Blade, dated February 25, 2010. His name was spelled as "Night Blade".

Concept art of Shaundi dated April 13, 2010, with a completely different appearance from the final.

Early Map Concepts#

What appears to be the very first map draft of Steelport, now called Edgewood at that point of development and it has many changes compared to the final.

The missions seem to be mostly finalized at that point of development, due to most of them matching up with the final.

• msn04 took place in the Saints HQ, which was likely Party Time in the final, as the fifth mission.
• msn05 took place in the "Running Man" building, which would be Professor Genki's SERC in the final.

The earliest map on the left lists businesses not found in the final game;

• Ship It!, Semi Broken and Foreign Power do not appear in the final.
• Branded does not appear in the final.
• Strangely, Impressions isn't listed in the concept, signifying it may have been planned later before getting scrapped.

To do: The second image has minor differences compared to the first.

A slightly later version of the map appears in a Pause Menu HUD mockup.

A few changes were made;

• The Deckers Gang Symbol had the Brotherhood logo, obviously as a placeholder.
• The map originally measured coordinates of the player.
• The stats on the map were different.

Some parts of the map appear different compared to the previous draft;

• There's now an island added to the bottom right part.
• The star-shaped island was rotated slightly.

A third version of the map, seen in another UI mockup received a bit of a drastic redesign. Note that the final logo appears.

The map, despite having the same general shape was apparently redesigned from scratch since some locations are bigger and/or smaller. The following notable changes are made though;

• An airfield at the top right, which would likely be Steelport International Airport, was added.
• There are now more seaports present on the map.
• The bottom left island was removed.
• The middle island was made larger.

Later Gang Concepts#

Now 100% Oiran-free!

Saints

	The Saints in their Johnny Gat bank heist masks.

Morningstar

At this point in development, the Morningstar were merged into one gang, now having male and female members.

Deckers

One of them appears to resemble Matt Miller's final design.

Luchadores

The Luchadores were apparently conceptualised a little later on, as there isn't equivalent art earlier in the article.

Ensemble#

A complete ensemble of the characters with almost all of their final designs, except downscaled. There are a few interesting differences;

• The STAG was present, as the tentative name "Law Enforcement", and only having one design along with Cyrus Temple.
• The top right characters are the Saints and Luchadores in their orange spacesuits, whereas in the final their suits are purple.

Story Arc Drafts#

The story was written in six different "arcs", represented as colors that likely relate to gang factions.

Text saying "OR" at the Purple Vs. Orange Arc can be seen, meaning that the alternate ending outcomes were decided at that point of development.

Below are the two that are able to be made out;

Part of the Red Arc	Orange Arc

May#

Later Map Concept#

A slightly later map of Steelport, Dated May 15, 2010.

It was taken from a slide of the GDC 2012 presentation, where the Oiran faction is now gone and is apparently the final appearance of the Saints Row 3 logo.

The map received some some more drastic changes;

• The top left part was split off into an island.
• The bottom right island had an extra seaport added at the top part.
• There are now extra seaports on the western island.
• The star-shaped island was tilted back to it's original position.

Early Radio Music#

In the same "presentation", there is an earlier radio station music list that contains songs that didn't make it to the game, from the album covers, they can be told which artist is which, but the song titles are too small to make out.

circa. August/September#

Development Images#

Three images of the game in a slightly later build was posted on Volition's official Tumblr on January 27, 2014, where they were dated "~15 months" before the game's release and described as from the fourth and fifth missions of the game.

They are all likely dated to August/September 2011.

In the first screenshot;

• There appears to be a location named "Arshole Minor", which was removed, or renamed to a different district in the final.
• Interestingly, the time of day is seen on the debug strings, implying that it was going to return, or was stuck at that time.
• The Police Notoriety is positioned at the top than the bottom, and didn't have a border surrounding it.
• The blue-and-purple placeholder graphic can be seen on the road.
• The placeholder Homie icon from Saints Row 2 appears.

In the second screenshot;

• The protagonist's default body mesh appears to be finalized. Interestingly, it shows a cat backpack which isn't present in the final.
• The center of Steelport was very unfinished, being greyboxed and all.
• Steelport originally had hills in view from the ocean, much like Stilwater had.
• The Gang Notoriety was far out of the Map radar, like the previous image.

In the third screenshot;

• The finalized protagonist default male preset is shown.

2011#

March#

Announcement#

A new Saints Row game, Saints Row The Third was announced to the public on March 3, 2011, with a release date for "Holiday 2011."²

A few days later, it was revealed that it would have the three rival gangs which are Morning Star, the Luchadores, and the Deckers, An upgradable main character, customizable vehicles and weapons, cooperative multiplayer and weapon-specific melee attacks. The setting was also confirmed as Steelport and was also said that it would be heavily choice-driven.³

Saints Row: The Third puts you on top of the world, right at the beginning of the game. You take all the power of the Third Street Saints and you take the world by storm.

— Danny Bilson - THQ Executive Vice President

References#