It's been a while since we've heard anything from the Saints Row crew, well apart from the remastered version of Saints row 3. It's been rumored that the 5th installment of the series has been in development for a couple of years now, but we've heard nothing more about it.
It sounds like Koch Media was getting ready to unveil this later this year, perhaps for the upcoming PlayStation 5 conference in just a few days? Whether or not if that is the case, it appears that a leak has just emerged that shines some more details about the upcoming game, but as always, take all leaks and rumors with a pinch of salt!
Story
- Continuation of Saints Row 3's plot. Saints Row 4 and Gat Out of Hell got retconned as a crazy in-universe TV show.
- The plot is about how the Saints become an evil corporate empire similar to Ultor. You are playing as a new protagonist with a new cast to support you as you go against the old Saints cast. Main antagonists are old Saints, but also other gangs. One of them was a motorcycle gang called the Wolf pack. There are some story related choices you can make. For example, you can ally with a gang to go against the Saints.
- All the old Saints are there except Gat who is kept dead, which is mentioned as part of the reason why the Saints became soulless corporate bullies.
- The old boss (player character from previous games) now wears a cool looking mask that makes their voice muffled and tactical body armor, so their look is open to interpretation.
- The game is set in modern Stilwater (the OG city from 1 & 2), but it's been massively expanded. It has way more countryside and new islands.
- Tone is a middle ground between 1, 2 and 3.
- There are no superpowers.
- Game has a thing going on where it feels like you're seeing the old Saints from the perspective of an average NPC. Extreme versions of their SR3 selves basically. Old Saints never cared about hurting innocent people which pays a big role in building the Saints as this evil gang.
Gameplay
- Character customization is similar to Saints Row 2
- You can wear clothing pieces in multiple ways.
- Sliders are there for each body part this time, so you can go all the way in creating weird monstrosities.
- Dick censorship is changed and this time, it's a black bar that has swinging physics (note from me: Volition actually wanted to do this with SR3 but couldn't because of coding issues and time constraints. Nice to see the real next-gen addition make its way in.)
- Weapon customization isn't linear anymore like it was in Saints Row 4. You can put on different scopes and camos and switch between ammo types.
- 4 Player co-op, with difficulty scaling to number of players.
- Multiplayer will be 32 player freeroam gang warfare with activities like Deathmatch activating dynamically in the world. So you can drive around the map and then get a pop up from the game that invites you and the rest of the players to participate in Deathmatch. If your gang wins Deathmatch, you'll gain small territory as part of a bigger region in this particular lobby. This won't be global, so each lobby will have different territories controlled by different gangs.
Graphics
- It's like Saints Row 3 Remastered, but better. Not cartoony at all. No destructable environments but physics felt a lot better. For example, ragdolls weren't floaty anymore like in Saints Row 4 and driving felt close to GTA V.
Misc
- In a playable early state, Volition have invited tons of people from the Saints Row community and some YouTube influencers to check it out who are all under NDA.
- They might show some trailers this year, but it's coming out in late 2021, or even 2022.
What do you think of the leak? Does it hold merit? I guess we'll have to wait and see if anything is announced at the PlayStation 5 event. It has been over 7 years since the release of Saints Row 4. Now with next-generation consoles looming around the corner, it's a perfect opportunity to release a brand new title.