The designer behind the original Saints Row has ripped into the failed reboot, saying it ‘missed the mark’ in every way.
While there have been some great gaming reboots over the years, from Wolfenstein to God Of War, plenty of others have crashed and burned.
One of the most high-profile failures was 2022’s Saints Row. Developed by original creators Volition, the open-world GTA-like tried to modernise the anarchic spirit of the original Xbox 360 games, but instead came across like a dated rehash.
The game’s failure led to Volition’s closure in August 2023, and two years later, the designer behind the original Saints Row has explained where he believes it went wrong.
Chris Stockman, designer on 2006’s Saints Row, discussed the reboot at length during an interview with Esports Insider, describing it as a ‘terrible idea’.
‘When I found out that they were rebooting Saints Row, I spoke to an old friend of mine who was my old boss for Saints Row 1,’ Stockman said. ‘He was the producer, and I was learning about what they were doing, and I thought, man, this is a terrible idea.
‘What is it trying to be? You’re rebooting it, but why are you rebooting it? There’s a lot of characters in the series that people love. It wasn’t Saints Row at all. Just call it something else at that point. There’s a level of expectations for a Saints Row game, and they missed the mark on all of them.’
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Stockman even pitched what he believes a Saints Row reboot should look like, adding: ‘What I would have done was to take the franchise back to the 70s and do a period piece, a prequel of how the gangs from the first one started.
‘You’re running around with a crew of teens that ended up as the main characters for the first game. You could really go all in on the 70s theme with big Afros, bell-bottoms, and the music of that whole period.
‘I’d have taken it into a different direction so you’re not competing with the modern-day GTA games. You’re zagging when everyone else is zigging, so to speak.’
Stockman, who is currently working in the VR space at Bit Planet Games, expressed how he’s keen to reboot the series again, encouraging Embracer Group to contact him directly.
‘I can bring much of the old band back together who worked on Saints Row 1,’ he said. ‘I could turn that IP around with a decent budget. They don’t even have to fund it. I could get other outside people to fund it. I could turn the franchise around. I know I could.’
Stockman even states he’s thought about approaching ‘my pals’ and Meta to suggest a Saints Row VR title, which would be a ‘heavily stylised’ open world game, to avoid competing with GTA 6.
While there’s room for a GTA clone that is lighter in tone, the humour and vibe of Saints Row does feel like a by-product of its era. Although it’s still preferable to whatever the reboot was trying to do, especially as it also had major problems in terms of graphics and gameplay.
The original Saints Row spawned three mainline sequels: 2008’s Saints Row 2, 2011’s Saints Row The Third, and Saints Row 4 released in 2013.
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