Volition talks Saints Row: The Third
Following the launch of Saints Row: The Third, developer Volition has reflected on the third installment for the franchise.
Speaking to VG247, developer Volition’s lead designer Scott Phillips spoke on what it feels like to launch the game, initial reaction from consumers, review scores and more:
It’s great. It’s been over three years for me, so I’m really glad to finally be seeing people play it and hearing user and reviewer reviews and seeing what everybody thinks of the game. It’s great to finally have it in people’s hands. I’ve been really happy. It’s been really nice to see comments about how there’s a lot of outrageous moments and the design of the game feels cohesive because that was sort of one of our big goals with the game, and so it was really nice to sort of see that come through and see people recognise that.
If I was going to review the game, I think I’d give it a nine. I think it’s got issues, but I think in the overal scheme of things, I think what we delivered is an awesome package. Everybody has their own opinion, I think certain people focussed on certain things more than I or other reviewers would have. But I think in general, the review scores I’ve seen, I’ve been really happy with. I think even the scores that are lower, the sevens and the eights, they have their point of view and I think they might focus on certain things too much. They’re certainly welcome to their point of view.
I think in a serious game, people might get tired of things being too serious. So I think that could ring true for certain people about Saints Row. But all in all, we’ve been completely clear and honest about what the game is, and the game we’re trying to deliver and what we want people to experience. So I don’t think anyone would be surprised with what we’ve delivered. I think it’s certainly a game that if you just want to have fun, have a blast and do some crazy stuff, Saints Row is absolutely that game. Open world as a genre, freedom and doing what you want to do is key to that genre, and I think we’ve taken that to heart and tried to let the player do whatever they want to do. So a lot of it is you play how you want to play, and if you’re going to do these crazy things, that’s great. You really get into the game.
On how much freedom THQ instilled for the developer:
After the initial setting, the direction, getting the story going, I think THQ really left us to our own skills and devices on the gameplay side. We’ve made, before Saints Row 3, three open world games, so I think they recognised that we had a pretty good base in building open world gameplay. So once we had that direction, they would check in.
They have processes where they’d see the game every couple of months, or every year, we’d give them a big presentation of, ‘here are the big features we’ve put in, here’s where the art stands, here’s the direction we’re going,’ so they could check in and see what we’re doing.
But yeah, by and large, THQ’s been fantastic about working with us working on this project and really letting us build the game that we wanted to make, which has been fantastic.
Saints Row: The Third is now available worldwide.
