I have spoken before about how Video games are the most profitable source of entertainment currently existing in the world today, and how that is an important anchor to be aware of when talking about these products as it allows us to understand the limitations and expectations forced upon games by the very merit of their successful industry. A lot of the time the scope of what a game can be at a fundamental level is dictated by what is 'commercially successful' or what will become 'commercially successful'; which are metrics discerned by aping those around you or taking blind stabs at the supposed trends of tomorrow. This can seem like a strange way to make anything in a industry dominated by artists who seek to make new and interesting projects, but we're not the one's handling multibillion dollar empires I suppose- our opinions don't matter.
Where I find the need to bring this up again is in relation to another topic I've mentioned recently, the death of Saints Row and Red Faction developer Volition, and supposed information that has come out regarding the state of their final, damning, game. Now the important thing to note here is that everything which is being discussed is not first hand. We've yet to have an insider weigh in on this issue (As of the writing of this blog, in the week between now and publish who knows what might change) and instead we have the testimony of a Saints community member who had worked on the Saints Row 2 community mod (pretty much the only way to play Saints Row 2's painfully broken PC port) alongside Volition contacts before their sudden dissolution.
The information has pointed the finger of blame away from the development studio for perhaps the biggest fault with Saints Row 2022- it's painfully received tone and writing which felt so fundamentally at odds with, almost in bitter hateful spite of, the original franchise and the people who liked it. Saints Row was a franchise built on Gang warfare parodying Grand Theft Auto without all the grit and pathos and seriousness which was beginning to redefine Rockstar's oldest running franchise. Saints Row was the silly younger brother- until 2022 came along with a twisted tone that wanted it's cake and to eat it at the same time- I've already gone into what was wrong with the game. But what no-one knew at the time is that such a disconnect apparently came at the behest of Deep Silver! As in- the publisher who are still in control of the IP rights even after Volition died.
Apparently, and this is where we bring it back around, the original proposition to make a sort of 'Saints Row 2.5' which brought the scope of the franchise away from space battles and back to the streets, which Volition originally pitched, was canned in favour of a softer friends-and-family focused tone. Why? Because the gangster stuff was allegedly 'not profitable.' So they went the path of 'commercial viability'. I do have to question why, though. What was it about soft family themed games which seems so enticing in 2022? Were they after some of that 'Animal Crossing' Crowd? Surely not. It seems almost unbelievable that such an asinine decision could have be chosen and enforced by the publisher themselves, but at the same time it's also so moronicly stupid, so detestably vile, that it fits right in line with what I would expect a publisher to pull. I can't explain it, I can't even ratify it, but the gut says it's true.
Because we've been here before; so very often. Where the wrong choice becomes the 'right one' to the detriment of literally everybody. Who remembers the Live Service pandemic when every single game under the sun had to suddenly cater to the whims of bi-monthly content updates and daily sign-in bonuses and minute-to-minute player metrics and all that other stuff which dissolved the art of development into a cold and corporate 'profit generator'? The reason that the new defanged face of Saints Row felt so hollow as because it was born from that swirling mass of deadly nothingness. That miasma of misery. That dump of delusion. Even in a perfect world with a perfectly designed game, there still would have been a missing hole right in the middle of this game's chest because right at it's very inception no heart went into this Frankenstein of a product.
Although, to be clear, it was not a perfectly designed game otherwise. Saints 2022 borrows Saints 4's combat which was borrowed from Saints 3- a hand-me down 3rd person shooter set-up which never quite hit that level of robustness which Grand Theft Auto V offered back in 2013. The minigames largely felt recycled from what the franchise did back in 2, only without the more involved minigames to spruce up the package. The world looked pretty but lacks in personality to match 2's Stilwater. (It's better than the city from 3 and 4 but that's no great achievement: Steelport is one of the most dull cities put to game.) And it launched with all the bugs on god's green earth. None of that was the producer's mandate, that's what the development team brought to the table.
You would expect a reboot to be a chance to start anew, but it seems everyone was at odds with what they were doing at all times in development and what resulted was something that not even the diehard Saints Row fans could defend. In fact, it was the diehards that were the most offended by what had happened to the franchise that inexplicably still loved. You could try and trace this back to the publishers as well. But at some level this whittles down to a weak leadership, a muddy vision and an absolute disconnect from the people making the larger design decisions and the audience who are very open about what it was that they wanted. Ironically, what they wanted all along was a Saints Row 2.5- which makes this even more tragic.
All and all I consider this blog a little addendum, or perhaps even a correction, upon my previous notes. Back then I made it sound like Saints Row's suffering was over alongside the departure of their developer, whilst Deep Silver have made it shockingly clear that they are happy and ready to pass it off to the next development team just as soon as they can rope a sucker in dumb enough to delve back into the cesspool. And hilariously, it seems that the people who made was worst decisions for Saints Row will still be around to make them all over again because ours is an industry where if you've made it to an executive role you can just fail upwards. Ain't that just the best- I can't imagine why the SAG strikes have targeted this industry next...
No comments:
Post a Comment