For tre år siden var det endelig tid til det store comeback for Saints Row, en serie, som spillerne havde efterspurgt i årevis. Men i stedet for at fortsætte historien eller prøve noget nyt, besluttede Volition at genstarte serien - og resultatet blev et ret lunkent produkt, der delte meget lidt DNA med den Saints Row, som folk elskede.
Floppet var hurtigt en realitet, og sammen med krisen hos Embracer Group endte det med, at hele studiet blev lukket ned... og det er i dag meget usikkert, om vi nogensinde får Saints Row at se igen.
Esports Insider interviewede for nylig Chris Stockman, en mand, der om nogen kender serien. Han var nemlig medskaber af Saints Row og spildesigner på den originale udgivelse fra 2006. Han er bestemt ikke imponeret over det arbejde, der blev lagt i genstarten, og mener, at den var resultatet af en lang række dårlige beslutninger:
"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. 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."
Stockman kommer også med sit eget forslag til, hvordan Volition burde have grebet serien an. I stedet for en genstart (eller endnu en efterfølger) mener han, at de skulle have taget et stort skridt tilbage. Han forklarer:
"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 in 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."
Og vi er nok ikke de eneste, der synes, det lyder som en langt bedre idé, vel? Det virker faktisk, som om han har tænkt seriøst over det igen - for han slutter af med at opfordre Embracer Group til at kontakte ham, så han kan samle store dele af det oprindelige hold igen:
"[Embracer Group], if you're listening to this, contact me. Let's go. I can bring much of the old band back together who worked on Saints Row 1. 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."
Det virker måske tvivlsomt, om Embracer Group tør investere i Saints Row igen, men lad os krydse fingre for, at serien en dag vender tilbage fra de døde.