Saints Row Franchise Gets Hot: The Spoiler Interview

This month we had the opportunity to have a chat with Jim Boone, Senior Producer for Deep Silver Volition, about the Saints Row game franchise. With both Saints Row: Gat out of Hell and Saints Row IV: Re-Elected out now, it was time we found out what was going on with this double-release, and where Saints Row was headed next. We began by speaking with Boone about the company's reasoning behind releasing a stand-alone expansion for Saints Row IV instead of developing a whole new "full sized" game.

Below you'll see a segment from the start of this storyline. Here you, the President, are sucked into Hell. Kinzie Kensington and Johhny Gat speak near the end – they go in head first to bring their boss back soon afterward.

This game takes place immediately following the events at the end of Saints Row IV.

See our full Saints Row: Gat out of Hell Review now.SPOILER ALERT: At this point we're going to spoil some story bits for Saints Row IV – if you've not played the game, you may want to close your eyes or exit the interview entirely.

Why, we asked Boone, was the Earth destroyed in Saints Row IV? Why was something like that allowed?

Unless it mean that the game wouldn't continue for many (if any) episodes beyond Saints Row IV, of course?

"This was something fun that came out of brainstorming sessions within the team," said Boone.

"We talked a lot about what Zinyak would do in response to the Saints fighting against him, and what would constitute an appropriate response from him. Since Zinyak is a galactic overlord we thought it would make perfect sense for him to go all the way and completely destroy the Earth – this isn't a guy that would put up with much, and whatever he did would have to be a grandiose response. "

"Since Saints Row is all about big moments and over top scenarios, we felt the destruction of Earth was the perfect event to end Act 1 of the game."

Saints Row: Gat out of Hell once again takes place in an arena not unlike Steelport. In fact it's strikingly similar to the map provided in Saints Row IV AND Saints Row: The Third.

Above you'll see Saints Row IV, while below you'll see Saints Row: Gat out of Hell.

Different takes on a similar environment.

Just like Saints Row IV, Saints Row: Gat out of Hell allows – and supports wholeheartedly – mods and complete remixes of the game.

"I'm happy to say Gat out of Hell already supports mods in the same way as SRIV does," said Boone, "There are already a number of mods the community has made and we are happy with the response so far."

"We have been working with our fans to get modding functional and we are so happy it has been working well. We reached out to the modding community with early access of the game so the tools would be ready to go at launch (big shout out to our Volition Community Manager Mike Watson, along with Thomas Jepp and Rausch for all their work on this)."

You'll find the most active modding community – started by Watson – at SaintsRowMods dot com. There a large community lies, dedicated to modding the game series.

"Gat out of Hell is a bit of the familiar and a bit of the new. Fans can expect the same type of humor and over the top scenarios they have come to expect from a Saints Row game. Crazy weapons, cool superpowers, awesome upgrades – these are things Saints fans will be familiar with from previous games."

"The new things players will experience in Gat out of Hell is an all new city of Hell, a fantastic new flight mechanic, a complete focus on the open world experience and a new cast of characters (along with some familiar friends from previous Saints games)."

Above you'll see Flight. You'll also see the "Satan's Wrath" meter popping up in each gameplay video. This meter is what you'll be watching throughout the game – and it's the meter you'll want to fill up to win.

This meter is (sort of) new to the Saints Row franchise. How would it (and other new bits and pieces in Gat out of Hell) indicate what's to come in future installments of the game?

"Since we haven't made any announcements about future games from Volition, I'm afraid I can't talk about how these elements relate to our future projects," said Boone.

"Having said that, we thought we would have some fun with creating an expansion pack that was entirely focused on the open world experience. We have always been very proud of the missions we've made in our previous Saints Row games, but we also know that people have a lot of fun just playing in the open world."

"With Saints Row: Gat out of Hell, we decided that creating an expansion pack gave us the opportunity to completely focus on an open world experience, which we thought fans would enjoy."

"To help illustrate progression through the game, we used the Satan's Wrath meter to help show players when they get to key moment in the game, along with showing when you are finally at the point where you get to confront Satan himself!"

The last major trailer to be released for this game before launch had the line "the epic conclusion to the Saints Row IV story arc" attached to it.

We asked Boone if this line meant the next Saints Row game will start a new storyline or if it just meant that Saints Row IV won't have any more downloadable content in any respect.

"That's great you caught that line," said Boone.

"What we meant with this line is that we have completely wrapped up the Saints Row IV storyline at this point, and we will not be coming out with any further SRIV content."

"We have had a great time working on Saints Row IV and all of the supporting content, but now it is time for us to move on to our next project, which we can't wait to share with everyone in the future!"

Saints Row: Gat out of Hell and Saints Row IV: Re-Elected are now available for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Stick around SlashGear's Saints Row tag portal for more through the future.

And when you do decide to play, see you in Hell!