Early Development

This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Saints Row (2022).

2016#

Initial Pitch#

Concepts for a new Saints Row game date back to late 2016, where Keith Self Ballard was assigned to prepare the initial art direction to get greenlighted by Volition and Koch Media. Other developers Frank Marquart and Stephen Quirk helped with Ballard to further broaden the setting in the concept art below.

The reasoning for a Southwestern setting was because Ballard grew up in Austin, Texas and lived in Southern California, while also taking trips to Arizona and Nevada. The pitch was the hardest that the art team put together. The setting was also originally spelled as Santo Iliso.

A vast view of a southwestern setting.

2017#

Development Beginnings#

Talks of a new Saints Row game began during late development of Agents of Mayhem in Summer 2017. There was a meeting at Volition of how much the developers missed the franchise and how it was the game that evolved and influenced the company as a whole. Sometime around that point, the idea was pitched to Volition and thus pre-production began on the new game.

Though Saints Row was originally sidelined to avoid franchise fatigue, it was nigh time to bring it back, being referred to as Saints Row Cinco. Developmental details for the game were extremely scarce for the first few years of development, carrying the moniker of "Secret Project X".

Due to the failure in sales of Agents of Mayhem later in the year, Volition suffered layoffs of 30 staff members (out of 200) and overall restructuring, but development had fully began at that point. Producer Jim Boone, who left after the decline in sales returned to work on the new Saints Row game. It was also Volition's last chance to make a best-selling game and get back into the scene otherwise they'd face bankruptcy.

Tonal Balance#

The new Saints Row game was a clean slate, where there would be no aliens nor demons as enemies. The developers wanted to go back to a grounded tone where the player would build up their gang and take territories, mostly due to fan demand of wanting a Saints Row game in that fashion.

But in order to not alienate their fans that prefer Saints Row: The Third and Saints Row IV, the 80/20 rule was created (referencing a line from the First Impressions mission in Saints Row 2). 80% would represent Saints Row 2 and 20% would represent Saints Row: The Third in terms of tonal balance. A similar keyword, "2 + 3 = 5" was also shared among the developmental team.

Expanding the Engine#

Development took place on the CTG Engine, which was previously used for Agents of Mayhem, except that they had to completely rebuild it from scratch. Instead of opting for stronger engines like Unreal Engine, they decided to use their own engine which would go through numerous tech elevations during development. They were tested with newer console generations in order for it to run smoothly.

Hollywood movies like Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw served as a notable inspiration for designing the game, whilst the combat system is inspired by the John Wick movies and the driving was inspired by Baby Driver.

First Story Draft#

In the very first story draft around August 2017, the developers decided to entirely retcon Saints Row IV and to divert away from the storyline of Saints Row: The Third.

Said gangs were not yet fully settled on, but the archetypes were there.

Much of the story from that point on matches that in the final, but some changes were made.

• The opening was completely different: Taking place after they arrive in Steelport, The Boss, Pierce, Johnny Gat and Shaundi decide to leave the city for unknown reasons, to Santo Ileso where they fight against rival gangs there instead. There was no cold open, nor a Marshall training sequence at that point.
• The Saints were going to purchase a nuclear bomb off the black market so it could be stolen by the rival gangs.
• After The Great Train Robbery, there was a cut plot point where the Panteros would get back at the Idols as tension between Atticus and his brother Gideon rises. the Saints were going to form an alliance with the Idols to wipe out the Panteros after the former faction became so overpowered. This also ties into them fighting against the Panteros during The Great Train Robbery when they work with the Saints to kill Sergio.

Character Concepts#

The Nauhalli#

The first character to be created for the game was The Nuahalli, who was designed to be like "Johnny Gat 2.0.". His role plays much of the same in the final, except that he earned the trust of the Boss early on.

His appearance originally looked more sinister, with a total of five drafts designed below. He did not have a faction of his own, even around the July 2019 phase of development.

Faction Concepts#

The gang factions were conceptualized with Muscle, Wealth and Fame in mind.

Los Panteros#

The initial inspiration of the gang was combination of The Brotherhood from Saints Row 2 and Los Carnales from Saints Row, tying into them being raw and ruthless, and cold but precise criminal dominance respectively.

Initial Concepts

One of the very first concepts, with an early logo.

One of the very first concepts, with an early logo.	Concept depicting a Panteros beatdown.

Later concepts, showing more of the yellow in their outfits. This was from around July 2019.

The Idols#

The Idols were conceptualized as a "fraternity-turned cult".

	Concept depicting a the Idols.

Leaders

There were originally only two leaders of The Idols, compared to six in the final. Their names were Donny and Lonny, whom were reincarnations of Egyptian Pharaohs. Donnie from the early Saints Row games was going to return with a different name spelling, but it was decided to turn it into a separate character.

While art for the two leaders hadn't fully surfaced yet, mrsaintsgodzilla21 describes them as the "Calypso Twins from Borderlands 3, except that they are remade in a Sims game". In combat, they'd wear a mask of an Anubis and a Sphinx, as depicted in concept art below.

Masako Multinational#

Ultor from Saints Row 2 was going to return as a faction in the game, but at some point the developers thought that the players fighting against a gang that were dealt with previously wouldn't be as interesting.

The gang would be retooled as Masako Multinational, where they had more of a private security look compared to the Masako team in the aforementioned game. Some of the Marshall models in the final even have Masako in their filenames, suggesting it got far in development.

The logo would be changed from orange to green to fit the Muscle, Wealth and Fame archetype better.

Marshall Defence Industries#

Later on, it was decided that the Masako Multinational concept didn't work so they made a faction built off of the Ultor Masako and STAG from Saints Row: The Third with the 80/20 rule in mind, thus the Marshall Defence Industries was created along with some slight southwestern influences.

The first conceptual designs of the Marshall goons.	An early draft of the gang's art. There's an unidentifiable feminine silhouette in the distance that may be Myra Starr.

The VTOL And Specter were also confirmed as their vehicles at that point, but were reworked to be less "sci-fi" and more in line with real life tech.

Leaders

Atticus and Myra Starr were planned, but Atticus had a brother named Gideon. It is unknown if they tied in with the Masako Multinational concept.

High Level Ingredients#

Used for balancing out gang design.

Building the World#

To do: Expand on this. Also the GDC presentation.

When it came to planning out the city, they opted for a landlocked setting in terms of inverting the "island worlds" in open-world games, thus resulting a big lake in the middle.

While designing the locales, they attempted to learn from their experiences of open worlds in previous games as a whole;

• Saints Row and Saints Row 2 had plenty of unique districts in Stilwater that are simple to navigate, each with their own signs and blocks, but it's difficult to achieve that sort of variety due to higher expectations for such detail nowadays.
• Though Steelport in Saints Row: The Third had slightly more detail and larger-scaled buildings, many of the props and buildings were copied throughout the city and the locations were noticeable than in Stilwater. Contrary to what they aimed for in terms of landmarks, players used GPS more often to navigate through the city.
• In Agents of Mayhem, Seoul had a method of variety they worked well where each areas had their own unique Districts, but it was in a smaller setting with a simpler style.

In the end, they used the district variety of Seoul, the blocks of Stilwater and the building scale of Steelport, all on modern fidelity. Props and signage would need to be higher than any other open-world game Volition has developed, to present a "stylized, but believable" American city. The Image of The City, by Kevin Lynch, a book still regularly used for planning cities was used to draft the Districts and Landmarks.

Each District needed to have differences in terms of "socio economic makeup, function with the city, relationship with the controlling. faction architectural type, age, and so on. They opted for signage in terms distinguishing between various areas; hardware stores and laundries would be in regular areas while fancy restaurants and boutiques would be suitable for high-end areas.

For Landmarks, they were separated into three different categories; "Distant, District and Local".

Rules of Signage#

History Book#

In order to broaden the setting of Santo Ileso, they put together a fictitious "history book" detailing the location's history spanning 500 years into the past.

Development Images/Footage#

Jeff Touchstone

Early images of the town hall in Lakeshore North and South were posted on October 8, 2022 on Jeff Touchstone's Twitter account¹². Each images shows a stage of evolution in a greyboxed area.

A very primitive image of the town hall, which appears to be taken from a completely different layout of Santo Ileso.
	A much later image, showing the blocked-out area in-game, showing a statue that isn't present in the final.

A comparison of an early version of the Twisty Creamy shop with the final. This is based off a developer in-joke.

Cinematic Test#

The cinematics team were sometimes tasked with creating gameplay experiences, which led to this sequence being created. This video does also briefly show off the HUD for the first time though, in a rather primitive state.

2018#

circa. February-May#

THQ Nordic Buyout#

In February 2018, Koch Media and Deep Silver were purchised by THQ Nordic.

In May 2018, Volition developer Mike Watson was given the opportunity to make a Mission where Dex would finally be killed after the unresolved loose end in Saints Row 2: Corporate Warfare.³ It would've been a secret mission, not connected to the main storyline, in the same vein as Revelation from Saints Row 2.

But sometime from around then, THQ Nordic rejected the initial script draft and demanded a rewrite. This led to the first of many story rewrites.

circa. Summer-Fall#

Second Story Draft (Stepfather)#

A second draft of the script would be written, which totalled up to eight versions of it.

It was basically the same as the first draft, except notably, the Boss now had a mother that could be customized with a list of presets. The plot involved her trying to marry John Blande (who would be reduced to a one-time character in the final, in the mission Take Me To Church) who was a real estate agent turned-mayor, and was to be voiced by Bob Saget (before his death in January 2022). They also considered having Saget himself appear in the game as well.

Blande was described as a mix between Mayor Hughes and Dane Vogel, working with corrupt politicians that secretly had relations with the gangs in Santo Ileso. There would've been moments where the Boss interacted with John Blande, developing hatred toward one another.

The climax would've had the Saints crashing John Blande's parade held in his honor, where the boss would've found him one of the floats, but said float was actually a mechanical gorilla that served as the game's final boss fight. In another version of the story, the Boss originally killed Blande in his retirement home on his birthday.

This draft was rejected by THQ Nordic once again.

Third Draft (Reboot)#

Near the end of 2017, after the script was rejected for a second time, Jim Boone thought of an idea to bring back one of the writers who had previously written for a Saints Row game in order for THQ Nordic to approve the script.

It was at that point when longtime Saints Row writer Steve Jaros made a return.

A return so unexpected that almost nobody else knew about up until after their holiday breaks in December 2017 to January 2018. The story itself was already rewritten by Jaros himself, but as part of a contract, the staff at Volition were not allowed to critique nor speak ill the ideas he had written (sans one change explained later on). All they could do was flesh out his ideas. Jaros would go uncredited in the game's credits, though for unknown reasons.

Most importantly, the story was now a full-on reboot, with rebooted versions of the original characters.

2017-2018#

Reboot Draft#

The third version of the story was a full-on reboot.

It had a connection to Saints Row IV and Gat Out of Hell to a loose extent, but it took place in a "werid dimension/the past" with rebooted characters of Johnny Gat, Shaundi, Pierce, Aisha (who is alive, since it is another universe) and Dex to rebuild their gang empire from scratch.⁴

• The beginning of the game mirrors that of the final, with the betrayal and Boss in the first mission, except that it started out with the Boss flying into the area in a wingsuit (serving as a tutorial), and they fought against the Panteros to break up a drug deal. The Boss was also completely covered up in Marshall uniform.
• The Nauhalli was originally a Lieutenant to the Panteros in that version of the story (which would be a short-lived idea), where Sergio allowed The Nauhalli to be captured in order to escape. The Boss fighting with The Nauhalli matches that of the final.
• The Performance Bonus scene was not present, nor the Boss's venting on their drive home to their apartment.
• Johnny Gat, Aisha, Pierce and Shaundi were originally the Boss's roommates. Johnny Gat was originally affilated with the Idols while Aisha was a DJ, though it was unknown who the latter two were associated with.
• The student loans subplot wasn't present in the story, nor the Making Rent mission.
• After the Boss purchases the church, they would be instructed to do "public stunts" around the city to get the attention of others to join their gang. The Murder Circus mission was not yet present at that point.
• One mission for the boss to get the attention of others was a Mario Kart-inspired mission where they race in a Shifty vehicle for publicity and to win the deeds for Criminal Ventures. The mission would've also ended with the boss interrograting with someone in a coffin tied to a vehicle. The mission was fully complete but was cut, due to the go-kart race being too long (20 minutes) and the coffin interrogration being too dark.
• Another cut mission taking place after what would be Idol Threat in the final was a mission which involved racing in a Wingsuit held by the leaders during the event known as Idolfest. It would've been similar to the Kaiju Wingsuit challenge in the final and aesthetically (in terms of balloons) similar to Genkibowl VII in Saints Row: The Third. After the mission, the Idols lose their sponsors and it inspires the others to join the Saints.
• The Frontier played out almost exactly like the final, except there was an extensive cutscene of The Nauhalli taking out a group of Marshall members with a knife, showing how deadly he is. After the mission, he agrees to help the boss as long as he got revenge against Sergio.
• Corporate Retreat wasn't present at that point.
• There was a cut mission where The Boss would steal Marshall Specter (later known as MDI-7078) vehicles.
• The plot point of the Idols teaming up with the Saints in The Great Train Robbery was still there, but this time, it would've led an all out war between the four factions. There was also a cut scripted segment where the Boss would've flown the Specter around the train, all while following Sergio. It would've been destroyed, forcing the boss to land on the train. They would drive a vehicle and eventually a tank to get to Sergio, like in the final. Sound of Da Police by KRS-One also played during that final segment.
• One of the Idol Leaders originally killed Sergio than The Nauhalli, and the train was derailed, thus ending the alliance between the two factions as a whole. The Panteros had also disbanded then.
• After the train was derailed, Atticus uses the loss to fire his brother Gideon from the company. Atticus originally had a brother named Gideon, where he was supposed to play a role in the storyline of being kicked out of the company. He would've been a homeless person on the streets living under an overpass, where he would've offered Hobo Juice to the protagonist (as a Diversion), which would cause the Boss to wake up at a randomized location on the map.
• When Gideon was cut, Atticus took the role instead which would've been present if the Boss chose to fire him. There's even lots of unused lines in the final for that feature as well.
• The Saints originally got revenge on the Idols and killed the two leaders, though the yacht wasn't present that point. It was also when the Hummingbird Codex was stolen by the Saints among the belongings than just stolen for fun. It was when the Idols were disbanded.
• The Hummingbird Codex had a role and was originally a map to a treasure that all the factions wanted, acting as postgame content. If the player followed the clues, they would come across a large pink pyramid with Genki's head at the top in the middle of a desert. Inside the pyramid had enterable letters and numbers where if the player entered them (from select locations around the map), Cheats would be unlocked, allowing the player to use them in a scrapped New Game Plus mode.
• Myra Starr had a larger role; she originally contacted the boss to take down Atticus. The Boss would find out that Gwen (who appeared at that point now) was a LARPer so they had to blackmail her into helping the Saints. Unto the Breach was originally part of the main storyline.
  • The LARP elements originated from a cut DLC for Agents of Mayhem, where the protagonist would shoot enemies, armed with toy weapons. In this draft of the story, it lasted for a single mission.
• In another cut mission, Gwen agrees to help the Saints, where she tells them of a secret weapon depot located near the dam as seen in Idolfest. The location was reminiscent of The Pyramid from Saints Row 2, in terms of the interior design, but not quite hi-tech and leaned towards the terrorist bunker from Saints Row IV. The Boss would destroy the bunker and Marshall Industries fires Gwen. Despite that, the Boss offers Gwen to join the Saints and she accepts.
• Much of Atticus' fall is the same, but Myra Starr was originally more threatening.
• The final mission details were still being considered at that draft, but The Nauhalli would meet with the Boss in a non-disclosed location before he betrays them so he could take full control. He would knock out the boss, turning it into a fight reminiscent of the Voss dream fight from Far Cry 3.
• The Nauhalli betrayed the Boss not because he wanted friends, but to take control of the entire Saints gang.
• The Boss's dream originally had them waking up in a large river with a white door in sight than a board game, and reaching said door would lead to the final fight between The Nauhalli between life and death, where the Boss would be victorious and claim Santo Ileso as their own.

The script was eventually approved by THQ Nordic.

Unsorted#

Change of Direction#

To do: What really happened?

Deep Silver also didn't like the idea of a gang-focused game, fearing that it wouldn't sell to today's audiences.⁵ The tone was changed at that point.

Stuff were cut from the game such as Human Shields, because they thought it was "too violent".

It eventually came to conclusion that it was best to reboot the franchise with a completely new cast as their character stories were already concluded and due to fan demand of wanting to go back a more grounded game considering the previous entries. This approach allowed the developers to start anew while giving them a fresh story to tell.

The initial narrative system was completely different and "more goofier". Not much is known about it but Bob Saget (before his death in 2022) was originally going cameo as The Boss' stepfather, only to discarded when the narrative tone shifted and wasn't fit for the story.

Brian Traficante, who previously wrote for Agents of Mayhem went on to write some of the missions for Saints Row. Jeremy Bernstein, known for writing games like Dead Space 2, For Honor and The Crew 2 also joined later on to pen the story. The draft would end up going through many, many rewrites, rivalling that of Saints Row: The Third.

Pedestrian Concepts#

Reboot Character Concepts (circa. 2020)#

The developers took into consideration of what the Third Street Saints would look like in today's landscape and what made the games stand out, which ended up going through tons of iterations.

Some of the concept art can be found in the dev_launcher folder.

The Boss#

Eli#

Neenah#

Interestingly, she is depicted in a Los Panteros outfit, where that concept existed before the rebooted characters were settled on. Whether she was supposed to be a character or a generic design at that point is unknown.

Neenah was originally written as a "dumb bimbo that everyone would walk over", an idea made by Steve Jaros but the entire studio of Volition objected to it. While others could not say a word about Jaros' other ideas, this was the only one that was outright scrapped and reworked into her being an art student.

Kevin#

Earlier Story Drafts

As said above, the story of the reboot went through many changes. There were around three full rewrites of the story, each of them having four "versions", but it wasn't as complicated as Saints Row: The Third.

• Myra Starr was not originally part of the story⁶, which caused one of the cinematics to be changed.
• The infamous LARPing elements were not considered until the 16th version of the story,

3D Cutscene Drafts

There are a couple of early cutscene and story drafts posted on Keith Self-Bollard's⁷ and Christine Amitrano's⁸ ArtStation account.

Saloon Meeting

The scene where the Boss confronts The Nahualli in First F@#!ing Day was a last-minute addition, despite the saloon already being constructed for the mission. The player had to arrive through a specified door, make use of the limited space and make The Nahualli escape in the end, all while not making the sequence feel out-of-place.

Robbery

From the mission Making Rent.

Neenah Rescue

The challenge for the scene that the cutscene needed to take place in a specific location, and Neenah needed to rescue the player in a "car-stunt fashion" without damaging the car.

Convoy Hijack

The Hummingbird Codex

There is an earlier version of the Codex mission where the Collective Members show themselves in the cutscene whilst the Hummingbird Codex was shown. According to the description of the Artstation page, there were originally only two leaders of the Idols and Myra Starr wasn't present, due to the latter being a last-minute addition.

Museum Outro

As stated above, Myra Starr was originally not part of the story which caused a rewrite and a new motion-capture session for this cutscene to be made.

The Inception of the Saints

Marshall Takeover

Myra Takeover

Atticus' End

Burger Chat

This was going to be the first time the player met with The Nauhalli before the Saloon Meeting cutscene was implemented.

The Siege

References#