Original Saints Row Director Wants to Resurrect The Series

Stockman hopes to reunite the original team and fund the project independently.

Fans back the idea as former Volition devs move on to new projects like Clockwork Revolution.

Another Reboot

The Saints Row series died an ignoble death with the 2022 reboot, which received overall negative reviews and was soon followed by the dissolution of developers Volition. Now, the Design Director of the original Saints Row from 2006, Chris Stockman, has voiced his desire to properly reboot the series by taking it back to what worked.

Stockman left Volition in 2007 and worked at various other game companies, including Zynga, before founding Bit Planet in 2014 in Austin, Texas. Although Bit Planet focuses on developing virtual reality games, Stockman has made it clear his idea for a new Saints Row wouldn’t use VR. He spoke to Esports Insider about his ideas but is also currently being vocal on Reddit.

“Yes, I’m trying to resurrect the franchise by doing a prequel,” he said on Reddit on Nov. 1. “I do want to take the series back to its core roots but also blend in some of the stuff that people loved about SR2.”

“Keep in mind during SR1’s development we were making a game with all new engine technology (V’s proprietary engine), on a brand new platform (360) with a brand new team, in a brand new genre no one had ever worked on before,” he added. “Needless to say the deck was stacked against us in so many ways. But the game turned out great and, shit, multiplayer is still played to this very day.”

The Original GTA Beater

Grand Theft Auto III came out in 2001 and set the template for open world games set in urban environments. Saints Row was one of the first true contenders for the GTA throne, and it set itself apart by working in a more explicit sense of humor that eventually became the series’ trademark.

Stockman voiced his admiration for his former competitors when asked by Esports Insider about the upcoming GTA VI and Rockstar, calling them a one-of-a-kind company that manages to always capture lightning in a bottle.

“If you just look back into the history of Rockstar products, they’ve never missed. I have a hard time believing they’ll miss this time. They’ve spent forever and so much money,” he said. “They’re a one-release-every-five-years type of company. That’s crazy. But they seem to have the magic.”

In terms of what he would have done if he’d been involved in the previous Saints Row reboot, and whether he would position it again as a GTA competitor, Stockman said, “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.”

Back to the Seventies

Stockman used the interview to offer an opportunity for Embracer, the current owners of the Saints Row IP, to get in touch. He promised he could pull together a lot of the original team and even get outside funding if the publishing company were seriously interested in hearing his pitch.

That’s now happening, and while Stockman can’t share the full details of what he’s pitching, he has clarified that it won’t be a VR game, and that it would be a prequel set in the 1970s.

“The core idea of Saints Row ’77 is to go back to the roots of what made SR 1 entertaining in the first place. It was somewhat grounded in reality but also a bit zany too. It had a lot more satirical elements vs. the later entries. I aim to bring the series back to that feeling.”

Don’t expect to see this in the reboot. At least, until modders get involved.

Gamers have been quick to respond on Reddit to his ideas and Stockman has been open to suggestions, as he believes involving the community is one way to help the reboot succeed. Although he has shot down any requests related to bringing back things seen in later entries: “Sorry, no giant dildos as weapons.”

The Fate of Saints Row

Saints Row saw four original games released between 2006 and 2013, with multiple spin-offs including the maligned Agents of Mayhem in 2017. This is an open world game that puts players in control of cartoony super agents, similar to Crackdown, but built on the overly quirky humor the Saints Row series descended into.

Volition set to right the ship by rebooting Saints Row a few years later but this was also met with terrible critic and player reviews for, effectively, missing the mark and not feeling like Saints Row at all. Volition was then shut down in August 2023 by Embracer, who restructured multiple companies under its umbrella after a $2 billion investment deal fell through – the potential investors were Savvy Group, who recently revealed plans to acquire EA.

Volition staff set up a new studio, Shapeshifter Games, which, as of January 2024, was working on the forthcoming Clockwork Revolution with inXile Entertainment; the above trailer was revealed as part of the Xbox Games Showcase in August this year. And as for what else remained of Volition, former staff donated a ton of game content, including design documents and prototypes, to the Strong Museum in New York, which visitors can see for themselves.

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