the cutting room mirror

Saints Row (2006)

This article has a talk page!
view on tcrf.net

This page details pre-release information and/or media for Saints Row (2006).

Phases 1-3Spring 2003-Early 2004. Style, Music, Gangs, Guns, and nothin' else.

2004-2005#

Phase 4Spring-Summer 2004. Floaty psychics galore! Phase 5Summer 2004-Summer 2005. New engine, new challenges. Phase 6Summer 2005-Winter 2006. The great elevation re-evaluation.

2006#

Phase 7Early-Spring 2006. It's all playtesting and bug squashing from there. Phases 8-9Spring-Summer 2006. The finishing touches.

Differences#

Removed Songs#

Saints Row had around a dozen songs that didn't make it to the game. Most of them are gathered from Roynet.com, while others can be heard in gameplay footage.

Song

Source

Date of Source

Notes

Cam'Ron - “Get ‘Em Girls”

4

March 2005

This is the first mention of Saints Row on Roynet.com and on the internet, dating to March 2005,
two months before the game's revelation at E3 2005.
It was likely supposed to be used for the trailer, but was replaced with Eric B and Rakim's - Juice instead.

The Alchemist - Bang Out

5

June 2005

Big Noyd - Rush

6

August 2005

Heltah Skeltah & OGC - Leflaur Leflah Eshkoshka

7

August 2005

Pete Rock & CL Smooth - Straighten It Out

8

September 2005

Pete Rock & CL Smooth - Ain't No Justice

9

September 2005

Foxy Brown and Sizzla - Come Fly With Me

10

September 2005

50 Cent and M.O.P - Big Boy Game

11

September 2005

The Alchemist - Hold You Down

12

September 2005

R'Thentic - C-Rayz Waltz

13

October 2005

From the X05 event build.

Jae Millz - Who

14

December 2005

Stilwater#

Initial Draft

Artist's Rendition

Stilwater was way bigger during development.

Pre-Gamer's Day Build (Behind The Scenes)

Gamer's Day Build

Post-X05 Build

Cancelled Ports#

To do:
subpage this? Get the PS3 magazine scan and Wii images.

After the massive success of Saints Row, it was planned to be ported to other consoles. Unfortunately, the following ports got canned due to various reasons stated below, leaving the game to be shrouded as being an Xbox 360 exclusive.

Nintendo Wii#

Watch on YouTubeAfter the game was released, a port was developed for the Nintendo Wii by Mass Media, outsourced from THQ. Little was known about the port when goneisgone blog posted few images of it, until more information would not see the light of day until April 27, 2021 where a YouTuber emailed a former employee about it and was sent footage of it along with some additional information. The port in this video appears to be one of the last ones from "late 2006" and was canned around five months after development due to THQ facing internal legal trouble from Nintendo and requested development to a halt.

Leftover footage of the port showed the game to be in an incomplete state, where many of the things had not been completely ported over yet despite looking overall the same except with a few differences; there was an option to watch cutscenes on the main menu, the loading screen graphics are different from the final game AND the unused demo ones, and the waypoint navigator uses the lines from earlier builds.

In a later 2008 CVG interview with Volition about Saints Row on the Wii, they said that a game for the system would be "too controversial", where they described using the Wii Remote's ability to use melee weapons in a similar vein to takedowns and executions in Manhunt 2. They further elaborated that they are always "pushing for graphics", describing the Wii's graphical system as "playing on an older console".15 Despite that, a Saints Row game for a Nintendo system would eventually be released in 2019 as Saints Row: The Third - The Full Package.

PlayStation 3#

In February 2007, a PlayStation 3 port of Saints Row was confirmed to be in development. More information about the port was released in the March 2007 issue of PSM magazine, where it stated that it would have new multiplayer maps and clothing which were likely implemented from the Xbox 360 DLC. It would also have other quality-of-life improvements like new pedestrians and reworked online play.

At the point of the port's near completion, it was eventually cancelled at THQ's press conference in May 2007, due to the initial poor sales of the PlayStation 3, and so that Volition could fully focus on Saints Row 2.

Resources#

Concept Art

Saints Row Developer Diaries

ArtStation

Videos

Interviews

Screenshots

Press Disc Assets

References#

  1. https://web.archive.org/web/20110815200129/http://www.next-gen.biz/news/thq-saints-row-2-quotvery-differentquot-gta-iv↩︎
  2. https://web.archive.org/web/20060614094256/http://www.msxbox-world.com/xbox/features/article/173/SAINTS-ROW-QA-with-Jacques-Hennequet-of-Volition.html↩︎
  3. https://www.gameswelt.de/saints-row/news/nicht-anfang-2006-81837↩︎
  4. https://web.archive.org/web/20081012055450/http://www.roynet.com/archive_current_events/030105.cfm↩︎
  5. https://web.archive.org/web/20081012055612/http://www.roynet.com/archive_current_events/060105.cfm↩︎
  6. https://web.archive.org/web/20081012055706/http://www.roynet.com/archive_current_events/080105.cfm↩︎
  7. https://web.archive.org/web/20081012055706/http://www.roynet.com/archive_current_events/080105.cfm↩︎
  8. https://web.archive.org/web/20081012055726/http://www.roynet.com/archive_current_events/090105.cfm↩︎
  9. https://web.archive.org/web/20081012055726/http://www.roynet.com/archive_current_events/090105.cfm↩︎
  10. https://web.archive.org/web/20081012055726/http://www.roynet.com/archive_current_events/090105.cfm↩︎
  11. https://web.archive.org/web/20081012055726/http://www.roynet.com/archive_current_events/090105.cfm↩︎
  12. https://web.archive.org/web/20081012055726/http://www.roynet.com/archive_current_events/090105.cfm↩︎
  13. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scVQwH0GqWY↩︎
  14. https://web.archive.org/web/20081012055834/http://www.roynet.com/archive_current_events/120105.cfm↩︎
  15. https://web.archive.org/web/20080807090341/http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=194517↩︎