Deep Silver and Volition’s 2022 reboot of action-adventure game Saints Row was a different game at one point in development, according to a new rumor.
In his new YouTube video, creator mrsaintsgodzilla21 talked about how he can finally share details on what he witnessed at Volition 5 years ago, as his NDA has expired. When the studio released the Saints Row reboot in 2022, fans were critical of its awkward humor, flat story, and lack of identity. According to the YouTuber, however, the final game is a far cry from what Volition once planned.
Early drafts, codenamed Saints Row: Troco, kept the classic crew of Boss, Gat, Shaundi, and Pierce. The Saints would square off against rival gangs while chasing a black-market nuke and even forming temporary alliances with the Idols. One hidden mission allegedly let players finally kill Dex, one of the series’ longest-running loose ends.
Even after THQ Nordic bought Deep Silver in 2018, Volition continued writing around the old cast. At one point, the Boss had a mother, who would’ve been a customizable character with a short list of presets, and a corrupt stepfather named John Bland, voiced by Bob Saget, who would have ended the game in a bizarre battle atop a mechanical gorilla float. After eight rewrites, THQ also rejected this script. That’s when original writer Steve Jaros returned, pushing a full reboot with a new cast. His draft became the foundation of the final release, but not before pandemic delays and publisher mandates stripped away many features. Among the most prominent cuts was a massive Professor Genki pyramid where players could unlock cheats for New Game Plus, a four-faction train heist with jetpacks, and a surreal “death dream” finale where the Boss battled Nuali for control of Santo Ileso.
By launch, much of the ambition was gone. Rival gangs were flattened into caricatures, dialogue was heavily censored, and Nuali was reduced to comic relief. Even infamous moments like the “horse testicles rant” were forced in by committee before later being patched out.
