Less than three months after the restart announcement Saints Row, the manufacturers have announced that they are delaying its launch for six months. Previously due on February 25, 2022, now due on August 23. It’s the usual logical reason: the pandemic has messed with anyone trying to do anything, and they want more time to make it better. Please do!
“Our priority is to make the best Saints Row game and, if we were to release it on the original date, it wouldn’t be up to the standard we’ve set ourselves and you’ve come to expect and deserve,” he said. Creative director Jim Boone explained in delay notice. “The team just needs more time to do justice to our vision; we’re making some adjustments and there won’t be much change in the game beyond the overall quality and luster.”
He added that they “underestimated the impact of Covid on our schedule, even though everyone has adapted very quickly to the work-from-home arrangement and continues to be amazingly productive.” .”
The new Saints Row is a reboot of the story with new characters, I suppose it’s the only way to relieve stress after being the time-traveling superhero Matrixlords. It still has a lot of familiar elements, mind. While we don’t have a play yet, Alice Bee has received a bit Saints Row preview from people in Volition including your man Boone there and Jeremy Bernstein, the main story designer for the missions.
“We are absolutely going to have humor in the game,” says Bernstein. “It’s become such an important element of Saints Row that I don’t think we could make the game without a sense of humour.” There will be “farce” and “outrage”. This isn’t going to be a “grinning Saints Row”. For example, there will be a return to Insurance Fraud, to make money by running into oncoming traffic. “I don’t think we can ship a Saints Row game without Insurance Fraud,” Boone said. This time, it’s part of a crime project that you can choose to embark on, by building in certain vacant lots. Obviously there’s a lot of freedom when it comes to that – you can build a hazardous waste dump in a financial district, if you want.
The PC version will be exclusive to Epic game store (another timed scloosie, perhaps six months or a year?) when it launches on August 23, 2022. It will also be available on Xboxes and PlayStations.
Between this and Marvel superhero game by studio XCOM delayed just two months after the announcement, there are some really ambitious marketing plans in the works these days.
